Page 147 of A Winter By the Sea
Mr. Gwilt came in with a tea tray for the guests. “Good afternoon, Miss Emily. Mr. Thomson.”
“Mr. Gwilt, have you seen Sarah?”
“Aye, though some time ago. Asked if I’d seen Mr. During. When I said I had not, she said she would keep looking. It seems he is wanted at Woolbrook.”
“Did she say where she planned to go?”
“Not to me, but Bibi was here finishing her work. Miss Sarah asked if her father was out fishing or at home. Bibi didn’t know but reckoned at least one of her brothers would be there, tending nets.”
Emily nodded her understanding. Perhaps Sarah was still talking with the Cordeys and would return any moment. Where else would she be?
The chef came in, adding a platter of small iced cakes to the tea table.
Mr. Thomson asked him, “You don’t know where Selwyn is, or what he might have got up to, do you, Antoine?”
Mr. Bernardi looked up and held the other man’s gaze. “With that one, who can tell?”
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Having armed myself with a knife, I declared that I would kill the first man who came near me, and that I would not be taken from the spot alive.
—John Rattenbury,Memoirs of a Smuggler
Warm hooded mantle wrapped around her, Sarah walked east along the esplanade for a time but saw no sign of Mr. During. Then she made her way down to the beach. With the sun shining and little wind, the day was far milder than they’d experienced in weeks.
Nearing the Cordeys’ small cottage, she saw Punch Cordey leaning against the door, chatting and flirting with a pretty young woman she didn’t know.
“Excuse me, Punch,” Sarah began with a wave of her hand. “I am looking for one of our guests. A Mr. During. Did you see a man pass this way?”
“Incomer?”
“Yes.”
He screwed up his face. “Skinny scarecrow-lookin’ fellow with straw fer hair?”
“Well ... yes.” Sarah would not have described him that way, although she supposed it was rather accurate.
Punch nodded. “He went by, a-carryin’ somethin’. Asked fer directions.”
“Directions to where?”
“Said he were lookin’ fer the cave near Lade Foot. I told him to follow the beach.” Punch pointed to the west, where the beach disappeared around a jutting headland.
Sarah’s last hope for some other explanation was rapidly dwindling. She asked, “How will I recognize the place?”
“There’s a rock offshore looks like a boot. Can’t miss it.”
“Is there a path the whole way, even at the base of the cliffs?”
“Aye, when the tide is out. We go by boat to fish Lade Foot Cove, but if ’ee go now, you can make it on foot.”
“Thank you.”
He looked at her, a slight frown on his face. “Miss ...” He seemed about to say more until the pretty girl nudged his arm and whispered something in his ear. Punch smiled down at her, Sarah clearly forgotten.
She started walking west along the pebbled shore, glad for her sturdy half boots.
She followed the beach as it shrank to a narrow strip of damp sand, exposed now that the tide was out, but likely to be submerged at high tide. She rounded the headland, walking in the shadow of the lime kiln on the cliff above.
