“Nobody else could have saved poor James. You may think, Miss Elliot, whether he is dear to us!”
The Sheet Anchor had two doors; one fronted the street, the other, the shore. As St. Clair exited through the street door, Darcy quit the tavern harborside, intending to circle round and note the direction in which St. Clair headed to his engagement. For a man at liberty until his next ship posting, the lieutenant certainly had a full schedule.
The door deposited Darcy very near the start of the Cobb. The tide was in, raising the water in the harbor several feet higher than when it was out, and liberating the fishing boats and other vessels that spent low tide grounded in their moorings. With those craft out to sea, the result was a relatively empty harbor that granted Darcy a clear view across to the far curve of the Cobb. He could see nearly the full length of the seawall, excepting the most extreme segment. That section remained obscured by the quay warehouses, beside which two gentlemen engaged in conversation and a few workers went about their business in comparative quiet.
It was not the men, however, who caught Darcy’s notice. It was a boy, a very young boy, who toddled along the rough stones of the lower seawall by himself, too close to the harbor’s edge for any witness’s comfort. A boy who, even from this distance, Darcy recognized.
Ben Harville.
The two-year-old was about halfway along the seawall. There was no one anywhere near him, no one paying heed to that side of the Cobb, no one to act on a shouted warning. Something in the harbor caught Ben’s interest, and he moved even closer to the water.
Darcy hurried toward the child, accelerating into a run. If his sudden sprint attracted the notice of anyone near the tavern entrance, he did not know, for his vision focused on the small figure he wished would retreat from the wall’s edge. Ben, however, leaned toward the water for a better view of whatever will-o’-the-wisp distracted him.
The sound of Darcy’s footfalls striking the hard pavement did command the attention of the gentlemen near the warehouses on the quay. One of them, identifying the danger and realizing Darcy’s purpose, himself broke into a run. From opposite ends of the Cobb they neared the toddler, their swift advances at last penetrating Ben’s awareness. The sudden sight of two men descending upon him startled the child. As the gap between them closed, the boy jerked involuntarily, upsetting his equilibrium.
Ben teetered over the water at an angle impossible for the child to correct on his own. Darcy reached for him, but his grasp was two strides shy. The other gentleman, however, was just close enough to extend his arm and push the boy toward Darcy, sacrificing his own balance—and tumbling into the water himself.
The resulting splash sprayed Darcy and Ben as Darcy scooped up the child. Ben’s rescuer quickly surfaced. Though the water would have been well over Ben’s head, the gentleman could stand.
“Is the boy all right?”
“Yes,” Darcy said. “Give me a moment to set him down safely, and I will help you out of the water.”
“No need.” The gentleman retrieved his floating hat, an act that put Darcy in mind of his own hat, which had flown from his head somewhere during his sprint. He would find it later. The stranger then began sloshing toward a set of stone steps that emerged from the water to the quay, doubtless employed more commonly at low tide to load and unload boats.
The splash had drawn the attention of several dockworkers who, seeing that nobody was injured, offered a few comments Darcy could not distinguish, and a few chortles he could, before they headed back to the duty of unloading cargo from a small cutter, the only ship presently anchored in the harbor. Meanwhile, the man to whom the wet gentleman had been speaking before the accident was making his way toward Darcy with as much haste as a person with a bad leg could manage. It was Captain Harville; distance had prevented Darcy from identifying him earlier.
Darcy carried Ben round the walkway and met Captain Harville near Granny’s Teeth, at the landing of the steps to which his companion was swimming. His face bore the expression Darcy expected his own would had he just witnessed a similar incident involving Lily-Anne.
“Mr. Darcy, how can I ever express my gratitude? I had no idea—Ben must have followed me out here when I left the house with Wentworth—” The bewildered child lunged toward his father’s arms. The captain took him from Darcy. “Ben, do you not know better?” Though his words expressed admonishment, they were gently delivered. He glanced back to Darcy. “I saw you running toward him but I—damn this leg! Damn the French, I should say, and their grapeshot. Were it not for you and Wentworth—”
“Think nothing of it,” Darcy assured him.
“I cannot help but think upon it, and offer you my thanks.”
The swimmer—Wentworth, he presumed—having reached the steps, Darcy extended his hand to help him up the slippery stones. Wentworth accepted, and soon stood dripping on the quay. Rivulets of water ran into his eyes from his hair, his soaked, tight-fitting coat looked a straitjacket, and he would be very fortunate if his boots were not ruined.
Darcy was a little embarrassed that he himself had emerged from the incident dry save for the effects of Wentworth’s splash. “If you must thank somebody,” he said to Captain Harville, “thank your friend. It is he who met with greater inconvenience.”
Wentworth laughed and pushed his hair back from his forehead. “This old sailor is quite used to getting wet, I assure you.” He now extended his hand to Darcy. “Captain Frederick Wentworth.”
Darcy would hardly describe Captain Wentworth as old. The man before him could not possess many more years than thirty, and, despite Sir Walter’s oration on the detrimental effects of life at sea, looked the model of health and vigor. Even dripping water from his coat sleeves, he bore himself with dignity Sir Walter could not touch. Darcy could easily imagine this man leading a full ship’s complement to victory.
He heartily shook the captain’s hand. “Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
“Darcy?” Captain Wentworth turned to Captain Harville. “Is this the gentleman of whom you were telling me?”
“The same.”
“Mr. Darcy, my friend Harville is not the only person here in your debt. My family is much obliged to you and Mrs. Darcy for the aid you rendered my wife’s stepmother when she fell on this very pavement. I understand that were it not for you, her child would not have survived.”
“I hope Captain Harville retained some of the credit for himself and his wife.”
“Not nearly enough, I am sure.”
They stepped back against the wall to let a cart pass. The horses plodded slowly, in no hurry to take their cargo from the cutter to the Customs House. The creatures traversed the same road so often that they probably did not at all mind when smugglers managed to bypass this required review process and spare them their labor. Darcy wondered what these barrels held. French brandy? Spanish wine?
Jamaican sugar?
“Lady Elliot was also assisted by another naval officer, Lieutenant Andrew St. Clair.” Darcy hoped Captain Wentworth would be able to tell him more about the dubious lieutenant. “Are you acquainted with him?”
“Regrettably, I am not,” Wentworth replied. “I shall have to find him out and extend my thanks to him, as well.”
Captain Harville shifted a now recovered and impatient Ben to his other arm. “We could stand here for another hour at least, discussing accidents on the Cobb and who among us deserves gratitude. We have not even touched upon last autumn’s incident—eh, Wentworth?” Harville chuckled. “But you must be uncomfortable in those wet clothes, and Mrs. Harville must be frantic, looking for Ben. Come—let us find you some dry things. I cannot send you home to Mrs. Wentworth looking like this.”
Darcy fell into step with them. The two captains bantered easily, as old friends do, but in a manner that invited Darcy’s participation rather than left him feeling an outsider. They had not gone far when Harville spied an object farther down the walk.
“Is that your hat on the pavement ahead, Mr. Darcy? There—near the gin shop.”
“The gin shop?”
“Those wooden doors. There’s an old ammunition storeroom behind them, built into the wall, from the days when there were cannon on the Cobb. It came to be known as the gin shop for the hoist they used to move the cannonballs and gunpowder.” He chuckled. “The name lasted longer than the cannons. At any rate, you had better retrieve your hat before the cart horses trample it. Those animals will not diverge from their path no matter what lies in their way. Wentworth, may we stop a moment to rest my leg? Yes, do take Ben, if you will. No, no—I do not need to sit, only lean against the wall.”
Darcy strode ahead to rescue his hat, which indeed lay about ten yards from the gin shop doors. He reached it just before the horses did, picked it up, and moved flush against the Cobb wall to get out of their way. When the cart had passed, he turned to rejoin the captains, but the sound of voices gave him pause.
“… does not want to be held in soaking-wet arms, and I cannot blame him.”
“Ben, if Captain Wentworth sets you down, you must stay at my side. Do you promise?”
The voices were clear as if the speakers stood right beside Darcy. But Captain Harville yet leaned against the stone wall, his friend and son close beside him, at least threescore feet back along the curve from where Darcy stood.
“All right, then. If you misbehave, I will not take you to the shipyard with your brothers.” Harville looked from his son back to Wentworth. “They are preparing to launch a new Indiaman any day now—a thirty-two-gun, the Black Cormorant. Have you seen her? I thought I would take the boys over there later today to have a look.…”
Darcy was astonished. Somehow, the curved wall carried Harville’s voice directly to him despite the considerable distance. He had heard of such acoustical phenomena in domed buildings such as St. Paul’s in London, but he had never personally experienced an instance of it.
He moved away from the wall gradually, determining the proximity required for the effect to work. When he lost the sound, he quickly walked back to the captains. The act of eavesdropping, however accidental, on any conversation, however innocuous, violated Darcy’s sense of propriety. Not wanting to embarrass them, he said nothing to his companions about the discovery.