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As the crowd began to disband, Elizabeth looked for Mr. Elliot, wondering whether he would simply depart along with everybody else. Apparently, he had. She did, however, sight Lieutenant St. Clair, whom she had not previously seen at the launch. He was speaking to Captain Tourner, who was shaking his head.
She stepped closer to Darcy. “I wish we could hear that conversation. It does not appear to be going well.”
Tourner shook his head again and started to walk away. St. Clair said something that caused him to turn around. He shrugged, said something back, and walked off. St. Clair did not follow.
Meanwhile, Georgiana and Sir Laurence apparently at last had become aware that there were other people around them, for Miss Ashford was now participating in their conversation.
“Never?” Miss Ashford looked at Georgiana with an incredulous expression.
“Never.”
“Well, we must correct that posthaste,” Sir Laurence declared. “Mr. Darcy, your sister is telling us that she has never in her life been in a boat of any kind. I at first thought she was jesting. Are you similarly deprived?”
“I have crossed the Cha
“Very good. And you, Mrs. Darcy?”
“The closest I have ever come to being upon the water are the bathing machines here in Lyme.”
“Oh, dear. Then you must allow me to engage a boat to take us all out on a pleasure excursion—not far, just enough for you to see the coast of Lyme Bay from the water. What do you say?”
Elizabeth hesitated. She had never felt a particularly intense longing to experience sailing. But since meeting the Harvilles and the Wentworths and others whose lives revolved around the sea, since reading Gerard’s descriptions of shipboard life in the early parts of his journal, she had developed a curiosity about how it feels to leave the land.
Darcy looked at Elizabeth. “Would you like to go?”
Georgiana positively radiated her desire to accept the invitation. Elizabeth could not deny her.
“Thank you, Sir Laurence,” Elizabeth replied. “We happily accept.”
“Splendid. I shall make all the arrangements. Business takes me out of Lyme for a few days, but we shall go as soon as I return.”
The beach from which the ship had been launched lay adjacent to Cobb Hamlet, into which the Darcys and Ashfords walked together, then parted company. Sir Laurence’s house, high on the cliff, was more directly reached by a road that led north from the hamlet, while the Darcys headed east toward the familiar Walk that would lead to Broad Street.
The hamlet, however, was flooded by a sea of dispersing spectators, many of them stopping in the middle of roads to greet neighbors and exclaim over what an exciting event they had all just witnessed. Lily-A
Lily-A
Before either Elizabeth or Darcy could react, a passer-by scooped her up. “I think not, young lady.” It was Lieutenant St. Clair.
He delivered Lily-A
“Were I small enough to dodge through everybody’s legs and escape this crowd sooner, I would be tempted, too,” St. Clair replied.
Given all the conjecture they had engaged in regarding St. Clair, Elizabeth and Darcy were not as easy in their ma
Apparently, her daughter was a flirt after all. And a fickle one at that.
Darcy’s obvious displeasure at Lily-A
“Did you enjoy the launch?” Lieutenant St. Clair asked Georgiana and Elizabeth.
“Very much,” Georgiana replied.
“Had I seen you there, I would have joined you to explain what was happening.”
“That is most thoughtful of you,” Georgiana said, “but Sir Laurence and his sister were with us, and he told us all about the Black Cormorant as she was launched. Sir Laurence knows a great deal about ships.”
“Does he?” St. Clair’s expression was equally curious and bemused.
“Well, not as much as you do, of course. But enough to narrate today’s event and describe different parts of the vessel.”
“So you now know a jib from a topsail?” he asked sportively. “A yardarm from a boom?”
St. Clair had such a disarming ma
“He did not go into that much detail,” Georgiana said. “Though what I did learn about ships made me want to know more. If you are going to tutor me, however, I hope we will start with something simpler than jibs and booms.”
“We can start with whatever you wish. Though jibs and booms are not themselves difficult to comprehend—it is how to use them effectively that requires training and experience.”
As the coaches and curricle still had pedestrian traffic halted, their party would not be advancing homeward anytime soon. Georgiana said, “All right, then. What is a jib?”
“A triangular sail at the front of the ship.”
“And a boom?”
“A long pole run out to extend the foot of a sail.” He smiled. “Were we on a ship, I would point them out to you, of course. But see? This is not so hard. What next?”
She glanced beyond his head, at the sign hanging above the tavern door. “What is a sheet anchor?”
His expression became more serious. “A sheet anchor is the largest and heaviest of a ship’s anchors—the one every sailor hopes will never be used.”
At his sober reply, her ma
“Because it is the one whose strength is relied upon in the most dire crisis,” he said. “The last hope when all else has failed.”
To Georgiana’s disappointment, Sir Laurence’s business took him away from Lyme for a full se’