Free Welcome to Paradise by Jill Tahourdin Page A

Mrs. September”—he referred to his coloured housekeeper, Alix supposed—“will show you to a suite.”
    “How grand that sounds, Eric.”
    He gave them his complacent smile.
    “I only hope the others won’t be put off.”
    “The others?”
    “I arranged a little party of ten—thought it would be more amusing for you than my undiluted company,” he told them, with a smug pseudo-modesty that made Alix dislike him more than ever.
    This feeling of dislike was intensified when he put his hand under her elbow, as if to help her up the stone steps leading to the portico—and as if she were decrepit enough to need help!—and murmured, in a tone at once teasing and malicious, “I hope the second fishing lesson was as successful as the first.”
    How does he know it was my second? she wondered. And why mention it, anyway?
    She managed to answer light, hiding her annoyance — after all, she was his guest.
    “Just the usual beginner’s luck,” she said, and added quickly, “What a splendid position your house has, Mr. Gore.”
    That deflected his attention from herself. For the next half hour he showed them round, drawing their attention to the pictures—many of them the eccentric modern kind that looked as if they might have been painted with a trowel, and meant nothing at all to Alix, who preferred a picture to look recognisable, at least — the exquisite furniture, the china, the collection of ancient and modern weapons in what he called the armoury.
    “My family brought a good deal of this stuff out here,” he told them; but he didn’t say from where. Ordinarily Lady Merrick wouldn’t have hesitated to ask him; but today she was too bemused, by the thought of how very agreeable it would be if Alix were to become mistress of all this, to be her brisk enquiring self.
    “Such a pity we can’t go round the farm,” Eric Gore said regretfully when the tour of the house was over. “But luckily I can show it to you in another way.”
    He showed them a brass telescope that stood on a swivel stand in a big bow window that seemed to have been specially built out to give an all-round view.
    “With this,” he explained, “I can see everything for miles around in every direction.”
    He fiddled with the instrument, looked through it, and made some adjustment for height. Then he drew up a chair and invited Alix to look for herself.
    He had trained it towards the river below. Here it made an enormous loop, on either side of which his farmlands lay. She found herself looking into a series of paddocks. Some contained Jersey calves; some were being grazed by heifers in calf; some by dairy cows. So strong was the telescope that she could see the hairs on the animals’ coats, their eyes and eyelashes. She exclaimed, “How extraordinary!” and thought how banal her comment sounded. She wasn’t usually tongue - tied—that was the effect Eric Gore seemed to have on her.
    “Let me move it a little,” he said. “There. See that large paddock a little up the hillside, with the thorn hedge round it? You can see my newly imported Jersey bull there. Did you know that though Jersey cows are as tame as pet dogs, the bulls are among the fiercest of any breed? This one’s a real problem child.”
    “You mean he’s dangerous?” asked Alix, looking at the splendid fawn and sable creature who stood so proudly alone.
    “I do indeed. Actually, nobody is allowed to go near him but my manager and myself. Not that anyone wants to.”
    “He does look a beauty.”
    “He is. But as O’Rourke—that’s my manager—says, a divil to handle.”
    When Lady Merrick had looked and admired, he said, “Now let me show you Paradise . ”
    When Alix looked again she could see the shrubs in her aunt’s garden, Colonel Braines walking his dog on the beach, people hitting balls on the golf course, Mr. Hunt baiting his hook in a small boat, three ostriches grazing on the low hill slopes ...
    “My dear Eric, it’s wonderful—a real