Caught in a Cornish Scandal by Eleanor Webster (top novels of all time .txt) 📗

‘We have to stop her. I do not think she is quite sane. Jason was likely cruel to her also,’ Millie said.

Cautiously, she walked over the shale. ‘Mrs Ludlow?’ She raised her voice, but kept the tone kind. ‘Please, come in, before you catch your death.’

Mrs Ludlow stood knee-deep in the shallows, looking into the distance. Almost to Millie’s surprise, she turned, her expression startled, as though she had forgotten the presence of others.

‘It went away, Miss Lansdowne,’ she said. ‘The boat. It went away.’

‘I know, but come in now. The ocean is so cold. We do not want you to become ill.’

Mrs Ludlow smiled, as though privy to some secret knowledge. ‘I do not believe catching my death will really matter, you know. They will hang me.’

‘Please do not think that. They won’t hang you,’ Millie said. ‘We are alive and you aren’t responsible for Jason’s choices.’

‘Miss Lansdowne, Jason doesn’t choose. He careens through life like a drunken blunderer. Rather like your brother, I suppose.’

Millie stiffened at the mention of Tom. It still hurt, that mix of pain and grief and a seldom-acknowledged raw anger.

‘Come in, Mrs Ludlow, so you can get dry.’

To her surprise, the woman complied. She walked towards the shore, the water splashing with her movement. ‘I had intended to take my own life, but I find it not as easy as I had anticipated. Likely, they will resolve the issue for me.’

Millie glanced towards Sam. He had finished binding Jason and rose, the ropes held in his hands. Frances was still unmoving with her arms hugging her knees, her eyes focused on the horizon.

The older woman moved steadily, displaying little haste, as she stepped further up the shale shore. Her skirts hung about her legs, clinging in damp folds. Her hair fell on to her forehead, wet and dishevelled. She looked at Jason where he lay, unconscious, but secured with ropes.

‘Poor Jason. So inefficient. Never the brightest, you know. I told dear Jason to make you dead. But you are not dead.’ She walked up the shore towards Sam.

‘You told Jason to attack me?’ Sam said.

‘Not attack. Get rid of. A mistake, I know. I should have done it. If a job’s worth doing... But I was needed somewhere...else.’

‘Somewhere else?’ He went up to her, the ropes held limply in one hand, the rocks and shale rattling under his feet.

An expression of horror and confused disbelief suffused his face and Millie knew that it was duplicated in her own.

‘Some...where...else,’ he repeated, pacing out the words. ‘My God, it was you...on the beach. You killed those men. Not Jason.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Millie saw Frances move, uncoiling from her rock.

‘Sam, you have surprised me,’ Mrs Ludlow said, with that odd laugh. ‘It is quite refreshing as I am so seldom surprised. You were there?’

‘I was there,’ he said and Millie knew from his tone that he was remembering the drowning men and the three who had made it to shore, only to be picked off like clay pigeons, staining the tidepools red with blood.

‘I had wondered how you survived. The smugglers picked you up. What humanity. I wouldn’t have thought they’d have bothered.’ She glanced again towards Jason. ‘Silly boy, he should have killed you properly. Or kept his wife happy until we were ready.’

‘You.’ Frances had walked several feet so that she was on a line with Millie, facing her mother-in-law. Something in the way Frances said that single word made Millie shiver.

‘Of course, I blame myself as well.’ Mrs Ludlow spoke to Sam, not even glancing at Frances. ‘I underestimated you when I chose her. I did not think you’d visit. You were drinking and hardly devoted to family.’

‘You...did...this...to...me. You...chose. You plotted...’ Frances now stood only a few feet from the other woman. Every part of her body seemed tight, her intensity in sharp contrast to Mrs Ludlow’s peculiar nonchalance.

Mrs Ludlow shrugged. ‘Do not sound so surprised. Jason has very few original thoughts. Besides, as I said, Jason doesn’t choose, he careens.’

‘You are worse than him,’ Frances said.

‘I am what the world has made me.’

‘You planned this? You plotted with Jason to fake his own death?’ Sam asked.

‘But why?’ Millie whispered. ‘I understand that you wanted Jason to escape and you also wanted Noah. But why did you kill Jem and all those men?’

‘Dead men cannot talk. The Captain knew too much.’ Mrs Ludlow stopped, her eyes moving towards Millie with an expression close to animation. ‘Why, Miss Lansdowne, how vastly amusing. You were there, too. You were on that smuggling ship. Indeed, I believe you rescued dear Mr Garrett.’

She smiled, her expression beatific. ‘I find it satisfying. I prefer my original plot, of course. I always wanted a villa in Italy and money. However, it is interesting that it was you, Miss Lansdowne, who changed the narrative. Have you noticed, Miss Lansdowne, that women always play a role, but we never get to write the script?’

‘I—’ Millie paused, meeting the other woman’s gaze. Mrs Ludlow stood in her wet clothes with her hair in tangles about her face and that oddly pleasant smile. She was mad, of course.

‘I have noticed it,’ Millie said.

Standing at the water’s edge, time paused and Millie knew that these moments would be indelibly carved into her mind for ever. She would always remember every word, the dim outline of the older woman silhouetted against the moon’s shimmer, the injured man sprawled across the pebbles, the seaweed scent, the lap of waves, the cold air and the rocks hunkered at the shore.

Then, as if to compensate, time started again, moving with an excess of speed, a blur, like the countryside during a fast gallop.

The beach, deserted moments before, became a veritable thoroughfare. With a burst of cracking branches, rustling foliage and shouts, Banks, Cartwell, Sir Anthony and two other gentlemen arrived, catapulting themselves onto the beach.

Millie turned at the noise. For a moment, it felt that while her eyes were able to discern and identify