In the little back bedroom where the bridal party gathered, I knelt at Regina Petrie’s feet and made sure the hem of her beautiful wedding gown—which I’d created my own personal self—didn’t dip in the wrong places. “There,” I said with what I believe to be not undeserved pride, “you’re beautiful, Regina.”
“Yes, you are,” said Mrs. Petrie, Regina’s mother, whose Christian name was Susan.
When I got to my feet, rather spryly since I’d been taking an exercise class at my church for several weeks, I smiled at Susan Petrie. She gazed at her daughter, hands clasped to her bosom, and sighed deeply. I’d made her mother-of-the-bride’s dress, too, by golly.
The fifteenth day of July, 1925, had arrived in spite of itself, and Regina Petrie, my favorite librarian, would in a few minutes be married to a nice fellow named Mr. Robert Browning (not the poet). There had been many days—even weeks—during 1925 when I hadn’t believed this day would come. Well…I didn’t mean that precisely. I knew the day would arrive; I just didn’t think I’d live to see it. It had been a rough year, and it was only a little more than half over.
“I’ll never be able to thank you enough, Daisy,” said Regina in her soft, sweet voice. “Not only did you introduce Robert and me, but you made gowns for my entire wedding party.”
“Happy to help,” I told her. It was but the truth. I loved to sew, and I thought Regina and Robert made a terrific couple.
She’d asked me to be her matron of honor, so I’d made myself a dress for the occasion, too. The only jarring aspect of Regina’s wedding ensemble—I was probably the only one who didn’t adore the trend—was the beaded hat covering her pretty light brown hair from which a short veil depended. When I married my Sam, I aimed to wear a bandeau. The new fashion for wedding hats left me cold.
A tap came at the door, and we all turned to see who had tapped.
“May I come in?”
“Is that you, Dwight?”
“Yes. Are you ready? Pastor Calvin asked me to ask you. Everybody’s here, he thinks.”
Regina looked at her bridesmaids and me. “Ready, everyone?”
We all nodded our assent.
Susan Petrie said, “We’re ready, Dwight.”
“Good. You come out first, Susan, and I’ll take you to your seat.”
For the record, Dwight Fitzgerald was Susan Petrie’s brother. Because Regina’s father had passed away a few years before July 25, 1925, Mr. Fitzgerald had been asked to give the bride away, and he’d agreed. Most of Regina’s family had come from Tulsa, Oklahoma, but Mr. Fitzgerald and his family lived in Oxnard, California. I considered this a good thing, since most members of the Oklahoma side of Regina’s family tree were rotten limbs. Because they embarrassed her, Regina pretended they weren’t related to her. That’s only a tiny reason she’d be glad to become Mrs. Browning this day. The other big reason, of course, was that she and Robert adored each other.
Anyhow, the door to Robert’s parents’ back bedroom opened, Mr. Fitzgerald gently took Mrs. Petrie’s arm, led her across the hall, down the stairs and out of the house to her seat. The wedding was being held in the Brownings’ beautiful garden in back of their lovely home in Pasadena, where most of the rest of us lived, too.
The wedding breakfast had been quite good, considering it hadn’t been prepared by my aunt, Viola Gumm, who was acknowledged to be the very best cook in all of California, if not the entire United States. Vi would prepare my own wedding breakfast when Sam and I tied the knot. That’s providing we both lived to see the day. Our venue had yet to be decided because every single one of my clients wanted us to have the ceremony at his or her home.
Elopement was sounding better and better to me, although I wanted my father to give me away to Sam. Not that it matters, but the custom of “giving away” a daughter (or a niece) to another man also irks me. Not quite as much as wedding hats, but almost. I figured I was the only one who should decide with whom I’d spend the rest of my life. Sometimes I feel out of place in the world.
But all that is neither here nor there. The music began downstairs, played on the big grand piano in the back parlor by the organist of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church. This was the cue for the rest of us who comprised the wedding party to walk downstairs and stand in a line.
When Mrs. Calvin, the minister’s wife, gave a nod, Robert’s giggly adolescent cousins, Madge and Dottie, made their way one at a time to where the Reverend Mr. Calvin, Robert Browning and his best man stood. The men had to squint in the sunlight, but they both smiled, too, so their squints didn’t detract from the glory of the scene. The Brownings had bought—or maybe rented—a pretty gazebo for the occasion. Then came me. My family attended the First Methodist-Episcopal Church, but nobody minded the mingling of the churches. Heck, my fiancé, Sam Rotondo, was an Italian and a former Roman Catholic.
Mrs. Calvin nodded at me and, with a glance back at Regina and her uncle, I started on my own way to the gazebo. Robert made quite a handsome groom, for a chemist. That’s not to say chemists on the whole are ugly or anything. In truth, he was the only chemist I knew.
Never mind again.
I smiled broadly, considering the weather, which was pretty warm. Sometimes the weather during June and July could be a little overcast and chilly in the beautiful city of Pasadena, California, but not that day. While Regina had chosen a hat covering her whole head, her bridesmaids and I wore straw hats, which were probably cooler than her head covering. Because our gowns were blue—Regina’s was white—blue flowers adorned the brims of our hats. Regina’s bouquet contained pretty blue hyacinths, hydrangeas and baby’s breath.
I’d recently learned hydrangeas were toxic if eaten. I’d told Sam that and he’d said, “I doubt anybody will eat her bouquet.” I’d laughed.
Silly me.
The ceremony didn’t take long, and everyone seemed happy when the couple cut their cake and mingled with the guests for fifteen minutes or so. Then Regina tossed her bouquet—straight to me, bless her—and then she and I took a trip upstairs so I could help her change into her traveling clothes. Her beautiful wedding gown had a lot of hooks and snaps for us to deal with. Not to mention the many beads I’d sewn in a gorgeous pattern on the front and hem of the gown. I’m sure no one wanted any of them to snag on anything. At least I didn’t. It had taken me hours to decorate that wedding dress and its accompanying hat. Even though I didn’t care for the hat, I’d beaded it to perfection, by golly.
I put the bouquet I’d just caught next to my handbag on a dressing table and said, “I’ll stand on the bed, and you hold up your arms so I can lift the gown over your head without wrinkling it.”
“Sounds good to me.”
So, after removing my shoes, I climbed onto the bed, and Regina dutifully backed up to me. I unhooked and unsnapped like a mistress of the art, which I pretty much was. “How does it feel to be Mrs. Robert Browning?” I asked as I lifted.
“I’m not sure. It hasn’t sunk in yet.”
We both giggled.
“Mother is going to save this beautiful dress, Daisy.” Regina held her arms straight up in the air, and I carefully lifted the gown. “She hopes Robert and I will have a little girl who can wear it at her wedding.” I’d made the dress out of a silk-satin fabric that wrinkled easily, so I laid it flat on the bed.
After I’d made sure all was well with the gown, I said, “That’s so sweet.” I meant my words as regarded the sentiment behind Regina’s mother’s hopes. I doubted any young woman in twenty or so years would want to wear this gown again, unless she had it altered a good deal first. Fashion trends change. I didn’t tell Regina my thoughts on the matter.
She and Robert were going to take a steamer to Hawaii and honeymoon there, which sounded exotic to me. Sam and I aimed to go to New York City via train and then travel on to Auburn, Massachusetts. That’s because we had relations in the two cities. The only problem I envisioned when we honeymooned involved Sam’s family. They didn’t approve of me because I am neither Italian nor Roman Catholic. Nertz.
Anyway, after Regina changed clothes, she and I went downstairs again and mingled with the guests for another half-hour or so before we all headed out to the front yard. From there, Regina and Robert drove off in Robert’s nice new Lincoln Model L sedan. Dottie and Madge followed the couple in Dottie’s Model-T. They did this because the newly married couple aimed to catch the train at the Santa Fe Station in downtown Pasadena. By train, they’d travel to Los Angeles, stay overnight in a hotel, and then board the ship to Hawaii. Either Dottie or Madge would drive Robert’s Lincoln from the train station back to Pasadena to await the happy couple’s return.
I’d traveled by ship once. Never been so sick in my life, although I think my illness had more to do with my own emotional circumstances than actual seasickness.
Standing next to Sam, who had an arm around me, although he couldn’t get too close because of my hat brim, I sighed deeply. “What a lovely wedding.”
“Yeah. It was nice,” Sam agreed. “Ours will be better.”
“I hope so, although I’m afraid I’m going to offend a whole host of clients by not having the wedding at one of their houses.”
“You can only use one venue,” Sam said reasonably. “If we get married at your parents’ home, nobody can complain without stretching the point past breaking it.”
“You’re probably right.”
“You know I am.” Sam had a lovely, deep voice when he wasn’t hollering at crooks or me for one reason or another. Since he was a detective for the Pasadena Police Department, and because I—through no fault of my own—seemed to stumble over corpses quite often, I didn’t hear his lovely deep voice as often as I’d like.
After heaving another deep sigh as the two automobiles turned a corner and left our sight, I said, “Guess I’d better go back in and get my things.” The idea of taking Regina’s wedding bouquet home made me happy, although I wasn’t sure what I’d do with it once I got it there. Can one press an entire wedding bouquet between the pages of a book? Guess I’d find out. “I suppose you have to work this afternoon, right?”
Sam heaved a sigh of his own. “Yes. Afraid so.”
“Do you want to stop and get a sandwich at home first?” The home to which I referred was the attractive little bungalow owned by my parents, Joe and Peggy Gumm. Well…the truth is, I’d paid for the house because I made more money than anyone else in my family, but I figured it belonged to all of us.
Sam and I had another, slightly larger, bungalow across the street from my parents’ house. As for Sam’s house, he’d bought it—paying in cash—at the first of the year. Bless his heart, he didn’t have to survive on the salary he earned as a police detective. That’s because his family had owned jewelry stores in New York City since the mid-1800s, and he had some pretty big bucks. I’d been knocked all of a heap when I’d learned about his mazuma—not literally, but almost, because of the circumstances abiding at the time—but I didn’t mind. And no, I’m not being sarcastic. Not very anyway. I’d loved Sam even before I knew he had money, and his having money hadn’t made a difference.
Oh, very well. It was nice to know we had a cushion upon which to fall back if everything else in our lives suddenly slid askew.
Never mind.
Sam chuckled. “After that huge breakfast and that chunk of cake, I think I’ll be full until dinnertime.”
“Yeah. Me, too. I’ll just trot upstairs, grab my handbag and bouquet, and you can drive me home.
“Good idea.”
So Sam and I went back into the house with the other guests who’d gone outside to see Robert and Regina off on their path to wedded bliss. Susan Petrie stood at the foot of the staircase chatting with her brother, Dwight Fitzgerald, and they both appeared satisfied and happy. Mrs. Petrie had lived with Regina since her husband’s death, but I hadn’t asked Regina if she aimed to bring her mother into her marriage to Robert.
Mrs. Petrie and Mr. Fitzgerald turned and smiled at Sam’s and my approach to the staircase. “Oh, Daisy, wasn’t Regina a beautiful bride?” cooed Mrs. Petrie.
“She was, indeed,” I agreed.
“It was so kind of you to sew up all the gowns for the wedding party. I love mine!” She looked down upon her dress, which was quite a marvel if I do say so myself. Made of a cream-colored silk-taffeta fabric with a pale blue lace overdress, it was, quite frankly, superb.
“Regina knows how much I love to sew, so it was no bother. Anyway, I still owe her for years and years of keeping my family supplied with wonderful books to read.”
“I still think you were terribly kind to make everyone’s dresses.”
I smiled at Mrs. Petrie, repeated, “I love to sew,” and trotted up the stairs. When I reached the little back bedroom where the bridal party had gathered before the nuptials, I opened the door, took a step inside and stopped.
A man lay on the floor. Since Prohibition had become the law of the land and the Brownings were law-abiding people, I knew no alcohol had been drunk at the wedding breakfast or the reception. Therefore, unless this fellow had carried a flask with him, I was pretty sure he hadn’t passed out from over-indulgence in spirituous liquors.
Then details began registering in my brain. His feet, flopping slightly outwards, were aimed at me, and his head was hidden from my view by the bed’s footboard. I hesitated for a moment, but then figured I pretty much had to get into the room if I wanted to get my handbag and bouquet—and I did. Therefore, I took in a deep breath and hoped the fellow wasn’t playing some sort of stupid joke. Or hadn’t had a fit or a seizure or anything else of the kind.
As soon as I saw the young man’s face, I realized he wasn’t joking and probably hadn’t had a fit or seizure, unless it had been brought about by ingesting poison. His face was a grayish-purple color, and his mouth overflowed with hydrangea and baby’s breath petals. Little bell-like hyacinth flowers cascaded down his chin.
“Oh, no.”
Sam. I had to get Sam. So, without touching anything—I wished I hadn’t touched the doorknob, but I hadn’t anticipated anyone actually eating Regina’s bridal bouquet—I stepped into the hallway. With my back pressed to the door, I called, “Sam!”
No answer.
My heart sped up. Oh, Lord. I needed Sam. Now.
“Sam!”
The merry chitchat I’d heard at the foot of the staircase stopped abruptly.
Into the silence, I heard Sam’s voice. “What is it?” He sounded the least little bit cranky.
“Please come here.”
“You need my help or something?”
“Yes. No. Yes. I need you. Now.” I detected the note of panic in my voice and wasn’t surprised when I heard Sam’s big feet clumping up the staircase runner.
He arrived before me a few seconds later, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s a dead man in there.” I jerked my head to indicate the room behind the door I leaned against.
“What?” He squinted at me. “Is this some sort of—”
“No!” I didn’t mean to bellow. In a calmer voice, I said, “There’s a dead man—well, a young man—in there. I’m…pretty sure he’s dead.”
“Step aside,” said Sam resignedly.
So I did.