"You'll come too, of course," said Beth. "If you haven't got a bathing dress you must borrow Uncle Timothy's. I've never known him bathe, but he's sure to have one somewhere."
Mrs. Eames, laden with towels, appeared and greeted Jimmy.
"This is just splendid," she said. "We'll all go and bathe together. Such a day! The first really hot day this summer. The pool at the mouth of the cave will be glorious. And then you'll come back and lunch with us. Now don't interrupt me, Beth." Beth was trying to speak. "I know there's nothing to eat, literally nothing. Two great hungry girls, Lord Colavon. You can't imagine what a lot of food they get through. But we'll send Gladys out to borrow what she can. Her aunt may have some bacon. Anyway we can get some bread and cheese. I'm sure you won't mind, Lord Colavon. Beth is trying to say that you will, but you won't."
"I wasn't trying to say any such thing," said Beth. "I was trying to say that Jimmy hasn't got a bathing dress."
"Would Timothy's fit you? He has one, I know, for I bought it for him last summer. But he's never worn it, not once. Such a pity. But you know the sort of man your poor, dear uncle is, Beth. He won't enjoy himself. So tiresome of him. I'm just as fond of him as I was the day I married him, but I do wish I could tempt him to do something really wrong. It would be so good for him. Not that bathing is wrong. It isn't. Though I sometimes think that Timothy thinks it is."
After a long search in which both girls joined, the vicar's bathing dress was found, still wrapped in the paper in which it had left Linker's shop in Morriton St. James. The towel offered by Mrs. Eames was not so new. Indeed it was far from being clean. The vicar, apparently, had not thought it wrong to use it.
"How tiresome," said Mrs. Eames, a few minutes later as they crossed the beach. "There's somebody there at the mouth of the cave. A man. I can't think what he's doing there. It doesn't matter really of course. Still, it would have been nicer if we'd had the place to ourselves."
"He looks like a policeman," said Mary.
"He can't be a policeman," said Mrs. Eames. "There aren't any in Hailey Compton. I never saw one here in my life except on the day of the pageant. There were a few then."
"It is a policeman right enough," said Jimmy.