The Flower-Show Hat

  Malcolm Saville

  First published in The Guide Gift Book, 1950

  There is no town in England quite like the ancient port of Rye, which stands serenely on a pyramid of rock on the borders of Sussex and Kent, along the western edge of Romney Marsh. The sea which once washed its walls is today two miles away beyond the green, sheep-dotted levels of the Marsh.

  There is no town with quite that savour of the past and suggestion of mystery about the narrow, cobbled streets leading up to the great church crowning the summit of the hill, or the old houses leaning over narrow pavements, and the little courts and alleyways and winding stone steps. This is not surprising, for it is not so very long ago that smugglers used the inns of Rye. Many a cargo of contraband has been safely stowed away behind a hidden panel while the King's Redcoats tramped the narrow streets in fury as Rye's Free Traders laughed behind closed doors.

  As high as Rye's church runs Traders' Street. Grass grows here between the cobbles, and on each side houses built in a more gracious age jostle together like a crowd of relations at a party! Those who enter this street by car must return the same way, for it runs alongside the eastern end of the church and stops short where a mellowed wall guards a drop of more than two hundred feet of the cliff to the muddy, tidal river which sweeps round the town. From here it is possible to look across the green levels to the distant line of the sea, and on a clear day to the lighthouse on the point of Dungeness.

  The last building on the right-hand side of Traders' Street is an hotel called 'The Gay Dolphin', built on each side of an archway leading into a cobbled yard.

  The morning on which this story opens is in late July and the first day of Penelope Warrender's summer holidays. She came home from boarding school yesterday, and is standing now on the front steps of the hotel in the sunshine, talking to her old friend Fred Vasson, the porter of the Dolphin.

  Penny is red-headed and just sixteen. She is not yet really pretty, but her wide-set, grey eyes, tip-tilted freckled nose and lively, intelligent personality already make her easy to pick out in any crowd. Her parents are abroad, and her home, for the present, is at the Dolphin, which belongs to her beloved aunt, Mrs. Warrender, who was widowed in the war. Mrs. Warrender's only son Jonathan, aged seventeen, often teases his little, red-headed cousin and calls her Newpenny, but thinks a lot of her just the same. But it is as well, perhaps, that he does not realise that there is nothing which Penny would not do for him.

  "Now just pay attention to me, Fred," Penny was saying as she skipped out into the roadway. "Do stop polishing that old brass and listen, Fred. I do wish I could explain just what the first day of the holidays feels like. I wonder if it's the same on your day off? I don't s'pose so really. And tell me something else, Fred. You live here all the time, but can you smell Rye like I can now? I can smell the sea and some mud from the river, and part of the Rye smell is sheep from the Marsh, and then there's tar which the fishermen down there are using on their boats. Rye is all those smells mixed up with sunshine. Can you smell them, too, Fred? Can you?"

  Vasson paused and looked across at her. She was wearing a grey, kilted skirt, a blouse of vivid green, and scarlet sandals on her bare feet, and as she ran over to the wall and leaned against it he thought that she was growing up fast and that the old Dolphin was never the same without her.

  "Come over here, Fred," she called. "Come and talk to me for a bit. Never mind that brass! I want to know what you've been doing on your days off, Fred. This wall is wonderful to lean against. It's warm. I do wish you'd come, Fred. You must swear never to tell him, but I'm a bit bored without Jon. I wonder what time he'll arrive? Or p'raps he'll forget to come? You know how vague he is sometimes? Come and talk to me, Fred!"

  Vasson was tempted, but knew his duty. "You know perfectly well, Miss Penny, that you're not supposed to come around this side of the Dolphin, nor interfere with the likes o' me nor talk to the guests. I'm not saying I'm not pleased to see you and Mr. Jonathan back again, but I've my work to do and no time to idle about a-gossiping to you in the sunshine. Smells of Rye, indeed! Never heard such crazy talk."

  Penny laughed. "Who's this coming down Traders' Street so early in the morning, Fred? P'raps she's a customer, although she's got no luggage. She's smart, Fred, and I think she's a red-head. All right. Don't worry. I won't interfere" - and she hoisted herself up and sat on the wall.

  The girl coming towards them was well dressed in a linen frock under a light coat, and as she neared them Penny watched her with more than her usual curiosity, for not only was she red-headed, but was about her own height, although she must have been at least twenty. Under certain circumstances she would have been very pretty, Penny decided dispassionately, but just now she was pale and obviously very worried. Then she noticed that the stranger was wearing on the back of her attractive head a ridiculous little hat - not the sort of hat which could ever be described as a head covering, for it was little more than a circlet of coloured flowers - which Penny coveted instantly. There was no logical reason why she should desire such a hat so passionately, and she knew in her heart of hearts that her aunt would never allow her to wear such a token of womanhood, but she wanted it! She knew instinctively that it would suit her. It would make her forget that she was a schoolgirl. She knew that with such a hat there was hardly anything which Penelope Warrender would not dare.

  As the girl stopped under the sign of the Dolphin, Penny slipped off the wall and then, with a glint in her eye, strolled over.

  "Oh, good morning," the girl was saying rather breathlessly to Vasson. "I was told about this hotel and that you might have two rooms. My - my uncle, is coming presently with the luggage, but our car broke down. Have you any accommodation?"

  Vasson stood aside. "A lovely morning, miss. Will you please inquire at the office inside?" and then, under his breath: "None of your games now, Miss Penny. You know right well you're not supposed------" And then he shrugged resignedly as Penny swept past him.

  There were no guests in the lounge while the girl signed the register and explained to Miss Simmonds in her little glass box that her luggage would be brought presently by her uncle. "But I'd like to go to my room now," she said.

  Then Penny, with one eye on the hat, stepped forward and said: "Don't worry to call Fred, Miss Simmonds. I'll show this lady her room" - and she leaned across and read the name, Susan Brown, and reached for the key of 'No.4'. The stranger turned sharply at the sound of Penny's voice and grabbed her large handbag from the ledge in front of her as if afraid that someone was going to steal it.

  Suddenly Penny was sure of two things - first, that Susan Brown was not only pretty, but was nice, and secondly that she was afraid. Susan saw a schoolgirl, obviously old for her years, with a friendly smile, and as she was not so very old herself and wanted a friend, she took off her ridiculous hat, pushed a hand through her lovely hair, smiled shakily and said: "That's nice of you. Are you staying here?"

  Penny smiled, too. "I live here. The Dolphin belongs to my aunt. If you haven't been to Rye before, p'raps you'd like me to show it to you this morning? I'm quite free."

  Just then Mrs. Warrender came into the lounge and took in the situation at a glance. "Thank you, Penelope," she said, "but you are not free this morning, and I will show this lady upstairs. Will you please wait for me in my room. Perhaps you will go round the other way?"

  The two girls smiled at each other before Penny ran out again into the sunshine, feeling so angry that she answered Vasson's understanding grin with a scowl. She knew perfectly well how much her aunt disliked her to have anything to do with her guests, but she did feel that she had just been unnecessarily snubbed. But Penny was never resentful for long and had recovered her good humour by the time she opened the door marked 'Private' under the archway and had run up the stairs to the Warrenders' flat. Her aunt's sitting-room overlooked a tiny walled garden which was now ablaze with colour, and Penny was leaning out of the window trying to pick a full-blown rose from the wall when Mrs. Warrender put her hands on her shoulders and pulled her into the room.

  "Sorry, darling," Penny said at once. "I am really, but it's a hard rule and she's a nice girl, and I was curious about her. Did you notice that she was like me, but not nearly as beautiful?"

  "I can never be cross with you for long, Penny, but you must learn to grow up. In three years' time I may be delighted for you to learn the hotel business, but I won't have you interfering downstairs now. It's not fair to the staff."

  "I've said I'm sorry, but I'm a bit bored this morning. It will be different when Jon comes."

  "Don't be so silly as to tell him that," her aunt advised. "I forgot to tell you at breakfast, Penny, but I want you to come with me this afternoon to the Flower Show at Benterdown."

  "But I'm not awfully keen on flowers, darling," Penny protested, "and I thought I'd go down and meet Jon about tea-time and------"

  "Nevertheless I want you to come. It will be good for you - and fun, too - and I'm sure your mother would approve."

  Penny clasped her hands and lowered her eyes demurely.

  "Don't tell me, dear Aunt Margaret, that this is to be part of my education? Is this Flower Show also a Social Occasion?"

  "It is, my dear. And you are coming with me and will be on your very best behaviour. We will lunch early up here and Vasson will have the car ready at two. Best frock, Penny. Nylons, too."

  "Not gloves? Not white gloves?"

  "Yes. White gloves."

  "But I can't possibly go to a 'Social Function' in the awful old frock that is my best frock that is all I've got, Aunt Margaret!" Penny protested breathlessly. "I can't appear in it. You know I've wanted a new one for months and months. Why - this awful thing I have to wear on Sundays in the summer is too young. It's ridiculous. It's a schoolgirl's frock... Honestly, dear, darling Aunt Margaret, I haven't a thing to wear to a thing like this Flower Show. If I've got to go can we just nip in to Hastings now and buy me something worthy?"

  Mrs. Warrender, although very fond of her niece, was used to her wiles, so all she did now was to rumple her red head. "It's no use, darling. I'm not going to buy you a frock today and you're coming with me this afternoon, and I know you'll look very nice and enjoy yourself... And there's something else, Penny. I don't often tell you this, but I do enjoy a special niece of your age about the place. It's nice to think you're old enough to come with me this afternoon and do us both credit... And do behave yourself now and keep out of the hotel. There was something a little odd about that girl in Number Four. I wonder if her mysterious uncle has turned up with the luggage? See you at lunch time darling."

  Penny knew there was nothing more to be said and ten minutes later was wondering why she had been bored only half an hour ago. She wandered up Traders' Street, stroked a black cat for luck, looked into the church just to see if the big pendulum was still swinging over the pews, and then began a round of social calls to say "Hullo" to old friends in the shops. She finished up amongst the fishermen and boat-builders down on the Strand by the muddy river and then climbed the long flight of Traders' Steps which led her up to 'The Gay Dolphin' again.

  Mrs. Warrender's rooms were joined to the hotel by a short corridor with a window on each side, bridging the courtyard. On the hotel side this bridge was guarded by an old oak door marked 'Private', and although Mrs. Warrender preferred Penny and Jon to use the front door under the archway, both had been known to save time by slipping into the hotel through the lounge, up the stairs and across the bridge. Penny chose the short cut now, but had no sooner reached the landing when the private door opened from the inside and the girl who had signed her name as Susan Brown came out.

  For a moment they stared at each other and before she spoke Penny noticed how pale and frightened the other was looking. Then, "Hullo," she said. "I'm sorry I was whisked off like that this morning. I could show you Rye this afternoon, but I've got to go to a Flower Show. I say, are you all right? Did you want anything? It's nothing to do with the hotel in there, you know. It leads to our private rooms."

  Miss Brown tried to smile. "Sorry! It was just a mistake" - and she brushed Penny aside and ran along the landing to her room.

  Penny was very quiet at lunch. There was undoubtedly something very mysterious about Susan Brown, and she did wish Jon was here so that they could talk her over together. The more she puzzled over it the more certain she became that the strange visitor was exceedingly frightened. It was certainly very odd to arrive without any luggage with a strange story of an invisible uncle and car breakdown. In spite of her rudeness just now, Penny still felt sorry for her, and decided to say nothing to Mrs. Warrender, who was now sitting back regarding her niece with a half-smile.

  "I hope you're not sulking about the Flower Show, darling. It's not like you to do that, but you're ominously quiet. It will be over in a few hours, I promise you. We'll come back directly after tea. You can get ready now. Will you be down in the car at two o'clock?"

  Penny ran round the table and kissed her aunt. "I'm not sulking, I promise - just my usual thoughtful self. I'll go and make myself as beautiful as I can in that childish frock."

  She did her best and then, twenty minutes later, sauntered downstairs and went on to the bridge to see whether Vasson had got out the car. Under the window overlooking the yard was an old chest which for long had been a favourite seat of hers. As soon as she opened the door Penny saw the hat she had coveted this morning glowing with colour against the dark lid. At once she was assailed by a terrible temptation. Slowly she walked towards the chest and then, very delicately, she lifted the ridiculous thing in reverent fingers and gazed at it rapturously. Then she looked down at her feet and legs - which were very nice - and at the frock, which was a little too short, and decided that this hat worn by Penelope Warrender would transform a school-girl into a particularly attractive young woman. Susan Brown had no right to have come through the private door. She was trespassing, and it would serve her right if Penny borrowed the hat for a few hours and put it back again on the chest this evening. The temptation was very strong, and almost before she knew what had happened she was back in her room and in front of the mirror. The hat was marvellous! It had, of course, been designed for a redhead, but it was going to be difficult to hide until they got to the Show, and she could hardly wear it until she separated from her aunt, but she was fairly sure that she could manage that. She ran down again, crossed the bridge, closing both doors carefully behind her, and went out into the street through the lounge. The car was in the yard, so she got in the back seat and hid the hat under an old rug.

  It was hot in the car, even with the windows down, and Penny felt a little drowsy as well as guilty. She may even have dozed for a few minutes, for when she glanced at the clock on the dashboard the time was nearly a quarter past two. Mrs. Warrender had said two o'clock and was always punctual, so something must have gone wrong or she had been detained in the hotel. As Penny was invariably the one to be late, she felt very self-righteous as she got out and strolled round to the porch.

  "Hullo, Fred," she said to the porter, "what's wrong? You're looking very glum, but don't you think I'm looking rather beautiful for once? What's happened to my aunt, Fred? She's keeping me waiting."

  "Madam," Vasson replied coldly, "is at present engaged with George Googey."

  "What a gorgeous name, Fred. Who is he?"

  "He's a police constable, Miss Penny. And what's more------" and here he thawed a little and beckoned her nearer------ "and what's more he's inquiring after that young party as signed in this morning without any luggage but isn't around now. She weren't in for lunch neither."

  "But what's she done, Fred? Why do the police want her?" - and she remembered the scared look in the girl's eyes.

  "I don't rightly know, miss, but I reckon there's something real odd about her."

  Penny thought so, too, and because she wasn't very anxious to be questioned by a policeman about someone for whom she was feeling sorry, she went back to the car and guarded the borrowed hat in solitude for another ten minutes.

  When Mrs. Warrender came out at last she, too, was looking worried - so anxious that she did not pay much attention to her niece beyond a quick glance of approval at the schoolgirl's frock.

  "Fred says a policeman came to see you about that girl, Auntie. What has she done?"

  "I don't know for certain, Penny. I'm rather worried, for I don't think we ought to have taken her in this morning. You saw her first, didn't you? Weren't you outside with Fred?"

  "Yes. I saw her coming up the street. I thought she looked nice, but worried... But what has happened? Fred says she wasn't in to lunch. Has her uncle come yet?"

  Penny could see Mrs. Warrender watching her in the driving mirror and smiled when she said: "So you know about him, too, do you? I suppose I'd better tell you the story, but you're not to talk about it, Penny. Promise?"

  "I can tell Jon, I s'pose? If I can't I don't want to know."

  "Yes. He'll have to know. Now try not to interrupt and I'll tell you."

  So while Mrs. Warrender drove out of the winding streets of Rye and into the country Penny sat on the edge of her seat and tried not to ask too many questions, and this was difficult because the story was certainly exciting.

  The police had told Mrs. Warrender that they wanted to question the strange girl and her mysterious uncle as soon as possible in connection with the robbery of a valuable picture from a country house in Surrey yesterday afternoon.

  "But they don't really think this girl, Susan, is a criminal, do they? I'm sure she isn't," Penny interrupted. "She couldn't be. She's not like that."

 

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