Welcome to Paradise by Jill Tahourdin

afraid I’m leaving in a day or two.”
    That puzzled them, she could see. Well, let it.
    “A perfectly delightful evening,” her aunt boomed in a replete voice as they drove home. “Do admit, dearest, Eric does things extraordinarily well.”
    Alix obligingly admitted it. Thank heaven, she wouldn’t be seeing him again, she thought.
    She wasn’t clairvoyant. She had no means of knowing how mistaken she was—nor of the desperate danger into which she—and Richard Herrold—were to be rim by Eric Gore.
    Now that she was leaving it, Alix realised how much she already loved Paradise. Though she had decided on her course of action and was determined to follow it, at heart she really didn’t want to go. Yet apart from Aunt Drusilla, what, really, was there to keep her here?
    She didn’t know. Once again—it seemed to be happening all the time now—Alix was at a loss to understand herself. I’m becoming what the American movies call “just a crazy, mixed-up kid,” she accused herself wryly. Time I took hold of myself.
    Lady Merrick, she knew, didn’t want her to go either. But fortunately her mind was so much occupied with the coming meeting at Northolme, which would decide the fate of Paradise, that when Tuesday—the day Alix was to leave on the bus—came along she had less emotion to spare for their parting than might otherwise have been the case.
    She contented herself with saying gruffly, “I’m going to miss you abominably, my dear. Now promise, you’ll come straight back if ... ”
    “I promise, darling,” Alix said, kissing her.
    “Don’t bother to ask. Just arrive.”
    “I will. I swear I will, Aunt Drusilla. Shall I go and get the car out?”
    “Do, dear.”
    Lady Merrick was going to drive her in the Dodge to the junction with the national road, where she would pick up the bus. Alix set off for the garage, which was round at the back of the house.
    When she came back, in the Dodge, she found another car standing in the drive. It was Eric Gore’s glittering American monster, with his driver at the wheel. As she got out of the Dodge this man came towards her, touched his cap, and proffered a square envelope.
    It was addressed to herself.
    “From Master, Miss,” the coloured driver told her. Alix opened it and found a single sheet of thick, expensive notepaper inside. She read the words on it — written in a curiously spidery, pointed writing—with mounting vexation.
    ... Please do not deprive me of the pleasure of sending you to Port Elizabeth in my car. It has to go there, in any case, to pick up some goods I ordered there. Frederick, my chauffeur, is an excellent driver. He will do whatever you ask.
    The note was signed Yours devotedly, Eric Gore.
    Speechless, Alix handed it over to her aunt, who had come outside on seeing the two cars.
    “Really ...” she began on a note of extreme exasperation.
    She saw, however, that her aunt was beaming.
    “There you are, dear, isn’t that enormously kind of Eric? You’ll be much better off than in the bus. And there’s no need to worry about that—I’ll see to cancelling for you.”
    “But I ...”
    “Come with me, Frederick, and get Miss Alix’s air - cases. They’ll go in the back seat easily. Only two ... .”
    “I have no intention ...”
    “Dear child, you surely wouldn’t hurt Eric’s feelings, after he’s been so thoughtful, by refusing such a kind offer?”
    “I don’t ...”
    “The car has a radio. Music while you ride! And look—a lunch basket for you. Really, Eric is too sweet. Think how impressed the Murrays will be when you arrive in style in this Gorgeous Beast of a car, ha! ha!”
    With a sigh Alix gave up. She kissed her aunt again, hugged Nelson, and climbed into the car. Perhaps it was true that it had been going to Port Elizabeth anyway—in which case perhaps it was rather silly of her to object to going in it. And why should Eric Gore lie?
    Unless—a sudden suspicion struck her—her aunt had told him that she