The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose Read online

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  The Darling Dahlias Club Roster, April 1931

  ONE: The Dahlias Get Down and Dirty

  TWO: Verna

  THREE: Bessie and Miss Rogers

  FOUR: Lizzy

  FIVE: Myra May

  SIX: Bessie

  SEVEN: Lizzy, Verna, and Myra May

  EIGHT: Ophelia

  NINE: Beulah

  TEN: Lizzy

  ELEVEN: Charlie Dickens

  TWELVE: Lizzy and Coretta Cole

  THIRTEEN: Charlie

  FOURTEEN: Lizzy, Verna, and Coretta

  FIFTEEN: Charlie and the Dahlias

  SIXTEEN: The Confederate Rose: “A Dangerous Character”

  SEVENTEEN: Charlie

  EIGHTEEN: Lizzy, Verna, and Myra May

  NINETEEN: Charlie, Lizzy, and Verna

  TWENTY: Lizzy, Verna, and Charlie

  TWENTY-ONE: Monday, April 27, 1931

  Historical Note

  Recipes

  Resources

  China Bayles Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THYME OF DEATH

  WITCHES’ BANE

  HANGMAN’S ROOT

  ROSEMARY REMEMBERED

  RUEFUL DEATH

  LOVE LIES BLEEDING

  CHILE DEATH

  LAVENDER LIES

  MISTLETOE MAN

  BLOODROOT

  INDIGO DYING

  A DILLY OF A DEATH

  DEAD MAN’S BONES

  BLEEDING HEARTS

  SPANISH DAGGER

  NIGHTSHADE

  WORMWOOD

  HOLLY BLUES

  MOURNING GLORIA

  CAT’S CLAW

  AN UNTHYMELY DEATH

  CHINA BAYLES’ BOOK OF DAYS

  Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM

  THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW

  THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD

  THE TALE OF HAWTHORN HOUSE

  THE TALE OF BRIAR BANK

  THE TALE OF APPLEBECK ORCHARD

  THE TALE OF OAT CAKE CRAG

  THE TALE OF CASTLE COTTAGE

  Darling Dahlias Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE CUCUMBER TREE

  THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE NAKED LADIES

  THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE CONFEDERATE ROSE

  With her husband, Bill Albert, writing as Robin Paige

  DEATH AT BISHOP’S KEEP

  DEATH AT GALLOWS GREEN

  DEATH AT DAISY’S FOLLY

  DEATH AT DEVIL’S BRIDGE

  DEATH AT ROTTINGDEAN

  DEATH AT WHITECHAPEL

  DEATH AT EPSOM DOWNS

  DEATH AT DARTMOOR

  DEATH AT GLAMIS CASTLE

  DEATH IN HYDE PARK

  DEATH AT BLENHEIM PALACE

  DEATH ON THE LIZARD

  Nonfiction books by Susan Wittig Albert

  WRITING FROM LIFE

  WORK OF HER OWN

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Copyright © 2012 by Susan Wittig Albert.

  Cover illustration and logo © Brandon Dorman. Cover design by Judith Lagerman.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are registered trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  FIRST EDITION: September 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Albert, Susan Wittig.

  The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate rose / Susan Wittig Albert.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-101-58151-3

  1. Women gardeners—Fiction. 2. Gardening—Societies, etc.—Fiction. 3. Nineteen thirties—Fiction. 4. Alabama—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3551.L2637D36 2012 2012016156

  813'.54—dc23

  For gardeners everywhere, who tend their plants with courage, determination, and faith in a green and abundant future.

  The Darling Dahlias and I are growing with you.

  Author’s Note

  I am a fan of historical novels. I very much enjoyed working with my husband Bill on the Robin Paige Victorian series, researching the way people lived in England at the turn of the twentieth century. I also enjoyed writing the eight books in the Cottage Tales series, about the life and times of author-illustrator Beatrix Potter. The books were set in 1905–1913, in the English Lake District.

  And now, with the Darling Dahlias, I have an opportunity to visit the American South in the 1930s. I’m fascinated by the period, and by a town that’s small enough to walk wherever you want to go; where the local grocery and the Saturday farmers’ market offer fresh vegetables, meat, milk, eggs, and honey produced by local growers; and where neighbors gossip over the back fence and listen in on the party line. Movies have just learned to talk, and barnstorming pilots are an amazing family entertainment. Kids spend Saturday mornings hoeing the garden and Saturday afternoons at the swimming hole or dangling a fishing hook in the river. This is a very different world from the one you and I live in, and I love being able to explore its nooks and crannies.

  But it wasn’t Eden. The Great Depression meant that breadwinners were thrown out of work and children went hungry. Banks and businesses failed, families lost homes, farmers lost
farms and livestock, and many lost hope. Widespread drought turned the Plains wheat country into a dustbowl and dried up great swathes of the South’s most productive land. Prohibition was in force until 1933, and bootlegging was the regional (if not the national) sport, with all the criminal activity it invited. Huey P. Long and Father Charles Coughlin preached a passionate populism that inspired the poor, tempted the middle class, and terrified the rich. Racism, both conscious and unconscious, open and secret, was rampant.

  My mother remembered those turbulent years as the “hard times,” and as a child, I listened open-mouthed to her stories of the challenges she faced. But she lived through those years because she believed that there could be better days ahead—as long as people worked hard, had faith, and respected and cared for one another. That’s the spirit I want to reflect in these books: the belief in the enduring values of hard work, deep faith, respect, caring, and community.

  I hope you find it as reassuring as I do.

  * * *

  A word about language. To write truthfully about the rural South in the 1930s requires the use of images and language that may be offensive to some readers—especially the terms colored, colored folk, and Negro when they refer to African Americans. Thank you for understanding that I mean no offense.

  Susan Wittig Albert

  Bertram, Texas

  May, 1931

  The Darling Dahlias Clubhouse and Gardens

  302 Camellia Street

  Darling, Alabama

  Dear Reader,

  Well. It looks like we’re going to get another book written about us!

  Which is not only a wonderful surprise, but a very good thing, in our opinion, because the story that Mrs. Albert is writing is full of some true and surprising events that many folks (especially Yankees) don’t know anything about. In fact, when she asked us what she should call her book, we suggested The Confederate Rose, because . . . well, you’ll see why as you get into the story.

  But before you begin, we should tell you that here in the South, we lay proud claim to two Confederate roses. One is the flower that we grow in our gardens, which (as Miss Rogers will be happy to tell you) is more properly called by its real name, Hibiscus mutabilis. The other is the Confederate Rose, our very own Southern spy, who helped the boys in gray defeat the boys in blue at the Battle of Bull Run in 1861.

  Now, we have to confess that some of us were surprised to learn about this Confederate Rose. And all of us were even more surprised when we discovered that our dear little Darling is home to the granddaughter of the Confederate Rose, an astonishing fact that was turned up by Mr. Charles Dickens, the editor and publisher of the Darling Dispatch, when he was doing research. But now we know (and so will you, by the time you’ve finished the story), and we can lay proud claim to that, as well.

  We’re also very proud of our little garden club, the Dahlias. In case you don’t know about us, we would like to tell you that our members have worked together for many years to make Darling the prettiest town in Alabama. Our club is named for Mrs. Dahlia Blackstone, who left us her beautiful house and gardens on Camellia Street, along with a weedy vacant lot that we’re turning into a big vegetable garden, which is important in these hard times, because some people are out of work and others are out of money and—

  But we don’t like to dwell on things like that. Folks may not have much money, but Darling is still a pretty wonderful town, even though there may be one or two who (for their own personal reasons) want what belongs to other people and don’t much care how they get it. But that’s part of Mrs. Albert’s story, so that’s all we’ll say about that.

  Anyway, while there are a few dark and underhanded doings in this book, there are plenty of bright places in it, and bright places all around us, too. We Dahlias are not Pollyannas, not by a long shot. We are perfectly aware that there’s a lot of trouble in this world. But we do like the old saying that Aunt Hetty Little has embroidered into a beautiful picture for our club wall. We keep our faces to the sun so we can’t see the shadows. It’s why we manage to stay (mostly) cheerful during these depressing times. And it’s also why we plant yellow and orange sunflowers and marigolds and cosmos in among the collards and sweet potatoes and string beans and okra in our gardens.

  We hope you will, too.

  Sincerely,

  Elizabeth Lacy, President

  Ophelia Snow, Vice President & Secretary

  Verna Tidwell, Treasurer

  The Darling Dahlias Club Roster, April 1931

  OFFICERS

  Elizabeth Lacy, president. Secretary to Mr. Moseley, attorney at law, and garden columnist for the Darling Dispatch.

  Ophelia Snow, vice-president and secretary. Wife of Darling’s mayor, Jed Snow.

  Verna Tidwell, treasurer. Manager of the office of the Cypress County probate clerk and treasurer.

  Bessie Bloodworth, club historian. Owner and proprietor of Magnolia Manor, a boardinghouse for genteel ladies next door to the Dahlias’ clubhouse and gardens.

  CLUB MEMBERS

  Earlynne Biddle. Married to Henry Biddle, the manager at the Coca-Cola bottling plant. A rose fancier.

  Fannie Champaign. The newest member of the club, Fannie owns Champaign’s Darling Chapeaux, on the west side of the courthouse square, where she has a flower garden. She says that her flowers are the inspiration for her hats.

  Mrs. George E. Pickett (Voleen) Johnson. Wife of the owner of the Darling Savings and Trust Bank and president of the Darling Ladies Club. Specializes in pure white flowers.

  Mildred Kilgore. A collector of camellias, Mildred is married to Roger Kilgore, the owner of Kilgore Motors. The Kilgores live near the Cypress Country Club.

  Aunt Hetty Little. Oldest member of the club, town matriarch, and lover of gladiolas.

  Myra May Mosswell. Co-owner of the Darling Diner, co-owner and operator in the Darling Telephone Exchange, and champion vegetable gardener. Lives in the flat over the diner with Violet Sims and Violet’s little girl, Cupcake.

  Lucy Murphy. Married to Ralph Murphy and lives on a small farm on Jericho Road. Lucy just planted a peach orchard to help make ends meet.

  Miss Dorothy Rogers. Darling’s librarian and a spinster. Miss Rogers knows the Latin name of every plant and insists that everybody else does, too. She lives in Magnolia Manor.

  Beulah Trivette. Artistically talented owner/operator of Beulah’s Beauty Bower. Loves cabbage roses and other big, floppy flowers.

  Alice Ann Walker. Bank cashier. Enjoys iris and daylilies because they don’t take a lot of work. Her husband Arnold is disabled but tends the family vegetable garden.

  ONE

  The Dahlias Get Down and Dirty

  Elizabeth Lacy took off her floppy green straw garden hat and fanned herself with it. The late April sky was leaden gray and the young leaves on the live oak trees hung limp and unmoving in the languid Saturday afternoon air. Lizzy hadn’t checked the thermometer beside the back door of the Darling Dahlias’ clubhouse, but she’d bet dollars to doughnuts that the temperature was nudging ninety. And judging from the weight of the air and the way her blue blouse was sticking to her shoulders, the humidity was way up there, too. She glanced nervously toward the clouds in the west, which were tinged with a darker, more ominous purple. As she watched, a flash of lightning zigzagged from the base of the cloud.

  Lizzy raised her voice to the women working in the large vegetable garden next to the clubhouse. All three of them—Ophelia Snow, Verna Tidwell, and Bessie Bloodworth—were club officers. Ophelia was the vice-president and secretary; Verna was treasurer; and Bessie was the newly elected club historian.

  “Hey, everybody. Let’s finish up as soon as we can. We don’t want to be out here in the open when that storm hits.”

  Startled, Bessie put a hand to her back and straightened up, glancing towa
rd the west. “Gracious, Liz,” she exclaimed. “That looks like a lollapalooza.” She frowned down at the row she was hoeing. “I guess these beans can wait. But we’d better plan on putting in some sort of trellis. Kentucky Wonders are like Jack’s beanstalk. They aim for the skies. If we wait much longer, we’ll have a mess of snaky green vines all over the ground.”

  “Those are the seeds your cousin sent you from Birmingham?” Lizzy asked. Good seeds weren’t always easy to buy. The best often came from friends and family.

  Bessie nodded. “She saved them from her last year’s garden. Says they’re the best green beans she’s ever grown.”

  “I’m sure we can come up with some cane poles and twine for a trellis,” Lizzy said. She glanced back at the clouds. “But let’s work on it later. I’m not worried about getting wet—we won’t melt—but I don’t like for us to be out in the garden when the lightning is flashing.” She was remembering poor Mr. Burdette, who had been struck dead by lightning when he walked out to the pasture to bring the cows home for milking one afternoon. Spring storms could be violent.

  Bessie gave the sky another apprehensive glance. “And let’s hope for no hail,” she said. “I’d sure hate to see all our little plants beaten to death.”

  “I’ve just put in two more rows of okra, Liz,” Verna called, coming along the path. She turned and pointed toward the far side of the garden, where an unpainted board fence and a row of crepe myrtles marked the edge of the clubhouse property. “And there’s room for three more rows. By the time we get done planting, there’ll be enough okra to feed everybody in Darling.”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it?” Ophelia asked. “Enough for everybody?” Ophelia had a hoe in one hand and a rake in the other, and her round, sweet face was sweat-streaked and dirty.

  “There can never be enough okra,” Bessie said emphatically.

  “I suppose,” Ophelia said. To Lizzy, she added, “The last of the English peas will need to be picked in the next few days, Liz. They’ve stopped blooming, so that will be our final picking. And there are more carrots and beets to pull.” She paused. “I hope everybody comes to help, the way they did last time. It’s a lot more fun when we have a good turnout.”