Mrs. Eames, one of those fortunate people who enjoy fuss, replied to her as she replied to Jimmy Bunce and Gladys, without a sign of irritation, though sometimes a little hurriedly.
Sir Evelyn was gloomy. It did not seem to him possible that order would ever be achieved or the rehearsal be done. He asked himself, not for the first time, whether he had not been a fool to mix himself up with any undertaking managed by a woman like Mrs. Eames. Foreseeing reproaches afterwards, he bitterly regretted having asked his friends to be patrons of the pageant. He sat on a rock with his back to the turmoil and gazed out to sea. There, a hundred yards or so from the shore, lay Bunce's laden boat. The crew sat bent over their outstretched oars, calm and indifferent to the passing of time. Now and then when the rising tide carried their boat eastward, they dipped their oars, and with quiet, effortless motion regained their position off the mouth of the cave. Sir Evelyn, smoking cigarette after cigarette, marvelled at a patience which he could not hope to imitate.
Young Bunce left Mrs. Eames for a while and fastened on Sir Evelyn. He was not an Ancient Mariner, and his eye was more fishy than glittering, but he held his auditor as firmly as Coleridge's hero held his. The tale of the lost tackle was not so long as that of the lost ship, but Sir Evelyn had to listen to it three times and always with the feeling—successfully conveyed also to Mrs. Eames—that he was to blame for the disaster. Sir Evelyn tried the plan constantly adopted by worried men. An Anglo-Saxon king gave Dane Gelt to the invaders of the land. Modern statesmen give increasing doles to the insurgent proletariat. Sir Evelyn gave young Bunce ten shillings with which to buy another tackle. Bunce accepted the money, explaining as he did so that tackles are made and not bought and that it would take at least a week to achieve a new one. But the ten shillings was not wasted. Unlike the ancient Dane Gelt and the modern dole, it achieved its object. Jimmy Bunce went away. He feared that if he stayed he might be forced to give the money back. Although tackles cannot be bought other things can, and young Bunce wanted to keep the money if he could.
"Beth," said Jimmy, "I'm almost fed up with this."
They had been watching Mrs. Eames's efforts to get her company together and to clear the stage of superfluous people. They had even tried to help her. When it became clear that they were doing more harm than good they stood on a rock above the tumult and watched again. It was after ten minutes of this second watching that Jimmy became bored.
"Let's toddle off somewhere," he said.
"Where?" said Beth. "Back to the vicarage?"
"I suppose," said Jimmy, "that there's no chance of raising a couple of cocktails anywhere?"
"There's James Hinton's pub. But——"
"No go. Hinton would manage it if he was there. Not a fellow in England is better at dry Martinis than Hinton. But he's not there. He's probably buying a dress shirt for me and a ready-made dinner jacket from his friend Linker, so we may regard the cocktails as off."