The Sea Shell Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

the person sighting the first shoal, so get yerself up to the point straight away, our Merry.’
    ‘But I’m in the middle of my breakfast, Grozen,’ she protested.
    The woman fixed her with a gimlet stare and Merry knew there was little point in arguing. Grabbing her shawl and hitching her work to her belt, she hurried outside. The cliff path was already lined with excited women and the mood was merrier than it had been for many months. Taking up her position she stabbed her ball of wool on a spike of the railings and called a cheerful greeting. Although it was returned, nobody lifted their gaze from the foam-topped waves, for each woman was desperate to be the one to sight the first shoal and collect the reward.
    ‘Keep your peepers peeled for that slick of oil, our Merry.’ She jumped as her grandmother’s strident tones carried up the hill, sending seagulls squawking from the rooftops. Trust Grozen to be watching from their cottage window.
    Adjusting the wooden fish supporting the weight of her work, she automatically began knitting as she scoured the waters for any sign of disturbance that would signal the return of the pilchards. While her fingers wound the worsted wool around her pins, her thoughts raced around her head. Of course, she hoped this day would bring the bounty from the sea the village relied on. Yet if it did, she
would have to spend the evening packing and salting the fish. The extra money would be welcome but the attention from Nicco wouldn’t.
    Her mother might think Nicco a good man but Merry knew he had an eye for the girls and she’d already borne witness to his overbearing manner. She could understand her mother wanting her to make a good marriage so that Merry wouldn’t have to suffer the privations she and Grozen had. Whilst it might be her dearest wish to see Merry settled down with umpteen offspring tumbling around her feet, it wasn’t hers. Unlike her friends, who were happy to marry and bear children, Merry wanted more out of life.
    ‘Just think, if the pilchards are in, you’ll be seeing the handsome Nicco tonight,’ Jenna called from higher up the path. Merry turned and smiled, wishing not for the first time that her friend wouldn’t pick up on her thoughts.
    ‘If I weren’t married to my Stanley, I’d be giving you a run for your money, my girl,’ Kelys cackled. There was a burst of raucous laughter, for the woman was well into her forties with hair as steel as her knitting pins.
    Nicco, Nicco, Nicco
, the gulls seemed to mock as they circled overhead. Merry sighed. She knew the others found her reluctance to encourage him strange. They thought him handsome but his penetrating stares and smarmy smiles made her feel uncomfortable, and that was without his declaration on the way to Plymouth.
    ‘Knit two, purl six, and twist the wool,’ she muttered, reaching the yoke and beginning her shell pattern. Truth to tell she hadn’t done much knitting on the journeys to and from Plymouth and she needed to make up for it now.
    Fingers flying and pins clacking, she stared over the water, past Peak Rock to the imposing granite house on the cliff top beyond. How lovely it would be to live in a grand place like that instead of their tiny, cramped fisherman’s cottage where you could hear every sound your neighbours made.
    A movement caught her eye and she watched as the woman she knew to be Lady Sutherland emerged through the carved wooden door and climbed into a waiting carriage. Wearing a fitted coat over her full-skirted dress, and sporting a hat with three plumes, she cut an elegant figure. Merry grimaced at her own old blouse with its fraying collar and the serviceable apron covering her patched skirt. One day she too would dress and travel like a lady, she vowed. Remembering the finery she’d seen on the stalls in Plymouth, a thrill ran through her.
    ‘Hevva! Hevva!’
    She jumped as the excited shout from higher up the hill broke into her thoughts. Knitting forgotten, the