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More surprisingly, in this frigid weather, it was barefoot. A lad of Ralph’s age or perhaps a little younger. Obviously impoverished, and perhaps dumb or simple as well. She was about to give up on the encounter when the creature blinked and licked its lips and straightened op a little more—closer, in fact, to Alice’s own height than she’d have guessed—and spoke.
    ‘I’m gathering cockles. My name’s Marion Price and this is my bit of shore.’
    So it was a girl. No Mistress or Marm. No curtsey. And my bit of shore, as if she owned the place.
    ‘My name is Greatgrandmistress Alice Meynell. I’m from the big house—’
    ‘Invercombe.’
    Interrupting, even. But Alice persisted and unfolded the plate she’d torn from the book of shorelife to show the particular species of mollusc.
    ‘Well? Do you think you’ll be able to help?’
    ‘That’s a beady oyster. We generally throw them away.’
    ‘I need one like this—see. The book calls them blood pearls.’
    ‘Oh?’ The shoregirl pursed her lips. They and her cheeks were reddened from the wind and the cold, although the effect was one for which many a grandmistress would have striven. ‘You’ll be disappointed if you want to make jewels of them. They don’t last, although the children play with them happily enough.’
    As if she were not still a child herself! But, even before Alice had had a chance to assure her that the blood pearl’s very friability was the reason she wanted one, the shoregirl was hopping in a zigzag over rocks which would have shredded Alice’s own feet to bone.
    ‘You collect shells?’
    ‘Cockles. We boil them up and sell them up along the market at Luttrell for about three shilling a bucket. We keep most of the weed to make laver bread.’
    ‘You eat seaweed?’
    ‘Of course.’ Girl and woman studied each other from across the rockpool over which they were crouching, both equally amazed. ‘You’ve never tried laver bread?’
    Alice smiled and shook her head. ‘Where are you from? Is there a village nearby?’
    ‘It’s called Clyst. It’s just around that bit of headland. I live there with my mother and father. I have a brother. I have …’ The shoregirl paused. ‘One sister.’
    Amid fronds of weed and the pulsing mouths of anemones, the girl’s starfish fingers moved.
    ‘And you do this every morning? Collecting cockles?’
    ‘Not every morning. We do it whenever there’s enough light and the tide’s right.’
    What a life! Dragged in and out across this estuary like a bit of flotsam.
    ‘Now this … ’ The girl prised the shell off, lifted it dripping into the air with blued and wrinkled fingertips. Definitely Cardium glycymeris, but, split open with a quick twist of her stubby knife, there was no blood pearl inside.
    ‘Does your family have a guild?’
    ‘… Of course.’ A slight pause in the wanderings of her fingers.
    Alice understood. Here in the west, even the shoremen and coracle builders imagined themselves guildsmen. What light there was glowed up from the chilly water and across the girl’s face, which had an unrippled stillness itself as she worked, deep and intent. Alice found her strange accent, her animal quiet, pleasantly soothing. A few more beady oysters sacrificed their lives. The hiss of the tide was getting louder.
    ‘Shouldn’t we be going? Isn’t there somewhere further up the shore?’
    ‘This is the best place. We’ve a few minutes yet.’
    Another split, another fruitless mouth. Then, just as they were being surrounded by runners of tidal water, the girl extracted a bigger oyster. Quickly split, it revealed a wet ruby on its living tongue. Shoregirl and greatgrandmistress shared a glance of triumph.
    ‘Is one enough?’
    ‘It’ll have to be.’ The tide was chuckling around them. The shoregirl was already turning and picking up her sack and rake. ‘No. Wait!’
    The girl paused, and Alice considered her as she stood there barefoot in her ragged coat and the waters