Lord Peter Wimsey an unofficial attaché to the British Foreign Office. Harriet Vane contacts him about a problem she has been asked to investigate in her college at Oxford ("Gaudy Night"). At the end of their investigation, Vane finally accepts Wimsey's proposal of marriage. The couple marry on 8 October 1935, at St Cross Church, Oxford, as depicted in the opening collection of letters and diary entries in "Busman's Honeymoon". The Wimseys honeymoon at Talboys, a house in east Hertfordshire near Harriet's childhood home, which Peter has bought for her as a wedding present. There they find the body of the previous owner,
Home and Colonial Stores of three stores immortalised in a verse in John Betjeman's poem "Myfanwy": "Smooth down the Avenue glitters the bicycle,"<br> "Black-stockinged legs under navy blue serge,"<br> "Home and Colonial, Star, International",<br> "Balancing bicycle leant on the verge."<br> In Dorothy L. Sayers' novel "Busman's Honeymoon" (1935), the "Home and Colonial" network is mentioned as maintaining a branch also at the small Herefordshire village where the book's plot is set—indicating its wide reach at the time of writing. A local woman tells Lord Peter Wimsey and his servant Bunter that groceries sold at the "Home and Colonial" are "better and half a penny