Victoria Holt: Road to Paradise Island

"What?"

He nodded. "Not yet, though. You know the love of those two was never consummated. Did you know that? Ann Alice was a simple girl. My great-grandfather was a worthy young man, idealistic at that time. He changed. I daresay Ann Alice would have changed. People do. Circumstances change them. Don't you agree?" i> "I want your man Everton to take me back immediately."

"This is my island. I have not gone to such pains to bring you here that you shall go when the whim takes you. I like that idea of going back in the past. I like to think of myself as the young map maker coming to England and falling in love with the beautiful young girl. You have to go, but before that I want a little make-believe. We will play the lovers ... We will enjoy what they had not the opportunity to ... or perhaps the courage. Conventions were very rigid in those days ... so are they now, but here on this island 1 make the laws."

"I think you are mad/' I said.

"No. quite sane. I have told you that I admired you from the moment I saw you. You walked straight into the lions den, didn't you? You are rather careless. You are just like your brother. He was very gullible. He wanted to send divers down. He wanted to go himself. I had the equipment here. I took him ... and I came back without him. He knew too much ... discovered too much ... just as I was afraid he would."

I stared at him in horror. Then I looked about me. He followed my gaze.

"Sea all round." he said. "There is no way out. If you had taken the drink you would have been pleasantly drowsy ... that was how it should have been. I should have made love to you quietly ... tenderly, just as my great-grandfather would have done with Ann Alice. But you are stubborn. You refuse to drink."

I said: "Did you try to kill me last night?"

"It is not for you to ask questions. And you may drink now. It would be better so. I want a sweet acquiescent mistress. I want her to be as Ann Alice would have been. You will fight. I can see that. Ann Alice would never have fought her lover."

I said: "You are mad."

"No, not at all. Everything I do is founded on logic. You are a danger to me as your brother was. You came to find him. Well, that is what you have done. So now you are going to join him."

"Do you imagine that you can kill me as you did my brother. He was unknown here. I am not. There are people who will want to know what has become of me."

"The big man of Cariba? That is taken care of. The boat will be found... broken. Everton will disappear and so will you. That will be indisputable evidence. Someone must have seen you leave with Everton."

"And they will know that he was taking me here."

"Why should they? No one knows of his connection with me."

"I have already told several people of that other occasion when he brought me over."

"That would not mean that he brought you here a second time."

"They will know that would be the only reason why I should go in a boat with him."

"You quibble. No one will know that you came here."

I was trapped. I thought. He means every word he says. He is cold and calculating. Why did I ever find the journal? If I had not Philip would be at home now ... and I should never have met Milton.

"Milton. Milton." I said his name over and over again to myself. Where are you now? If only I could reach you ... in thought...

I was trying to think clearly. I would not be missed for hours. Felicity and Raymond would come back and wonder where 1 was. Would they be anxious? They might think I had gone to the plantation for luncheon. Would anyone have seen me go off with John Everton. Magda had waved to me as I was about to get into the boat, but would she think of mentioning it... not until it would be too late.

It would not be until evening that they would realize that I had disappeared. If I could run down to the shore ... get into the boat... row myself back to Cariba. How could I escape him?

I thought: He is mad. He is as obsessed by the past as I was. I had felt myself caught up in it— and so had he. Ann Alice had brought her tragedy to me just as his great-grandfather had caught him into his life.

When I looked into his cold blue eyes I thought I was looking at death.

And how I longed to live! I wanted to be with Milton forever. I wanted to enjoy that life he had talked of... going home to England, having children. I had wanted that for a long time ever since in my heart I had known that I loved him—but never had that seemed clearer to me than now.

Perhaps if I called to him. I felt my whole being trying to reach him. It must find some response. He must sense that I was in danger. Milton, Milton, where are you now? He would be there on the plantation supervising the cutting of the scorched canes. Milton ... Soundlessly I called to him.

I wanted to cling to life. Every moment was important.

There was something coldly dedicated about this man. He was enjoying the scene too much to want to bring it to a speedy conclusion. There was no heat of passion in him, no over-riding sexual desire; it was to be a sort of ritual, a culmination of the story of Ann Alice and her lover.

If I could keep him talking ...

"You promised to explain," I said. "You said I deserved to know."

"Well?"

"What is the secret of the island? Why do you want no one to know that it is there under the sea?"

"I will tell you," he said. "My great-grandfather, lover of Ann Alice, came out here searching for it. He never found it; but he was caught up in the fever of the search for gold. Gold, you see. There was gold on the island ... so much gold that it was everywhere. He became obsessed by gold ... and he found it in Australia. He became moderately wealthy. He married there and had a son... my grand-

father who followed in his father's footsteps. But a gold mine is not a bottomless pit. The gold runs out. The affluence fades. My grandfather was no longer young when he went in search of the island. To find the island was an obsession in my family ... as it became with your brother and yourself."

"Yes?" I prompted. I was looking for some way of escape. Could I get out of this room? Where could I hide. I suppose in moments of acute danger one's senses become more alert. My ears were straining. Did I imagine I heard the sound of movement... something out there...

He was intent on his story. "My grandfather bought this island to be near where he believed that other island might be. He made it his object in life to find the island... and he did. He sent divers down there. It was true about the gold. It seemed... inexhaustible. For fifty years we have been bringing up that gold."

"That is why you are one of the few successful gold miners in Australia. The gold comes from the island."

He nodded.

"It doesn't belong to you."

He shrugged his shoulders. "We do not want people prying into our affairs."

"You mean someone might try to get a share of the gold? Does it belong to you? I don't believe that it does ... by law ... "

"It belongs to my family," he said firmly. "And it is going to remain in my family. That is why we cannot have clever little spies probing around."

"I am beginning to understand."

"It is very clear... and logical, you must admit."

I blinked, I saw a ship close to the island. I did not betray my exultation. He would not be able to see out of the window from where he sat. I must go on talking as though I had seen nothing. I must keep his attention focussed on me. The relief was almost unbearable. Someone was coming.

Surely some of his men had seen the ship. How many men were there on the island besides Magnus Perrensen and John Everton? The divers, I supposed; they would be necessary to bring up the gold, and the servants. There must be quite a few of them.

I said: "Suppose I offered to go away and say nothing about the island?"