A Christmas Homecoming Read online

  At that moment, Alice appeared. The conversation instantly became polite and trivial.

  alf an hour later they were assembled in the theater with copies of the script, ready to begin. Joshua was on the stage both to direct and to play the part of Dracula.

  Caroline watched as they began a trifle awkwardly. In the original story, there had been several more characters. Principal among them were Doctor seward, the father of Mina, the female lead, who was played by Mercy; and Renfield, the unfortunate man who became the creature of Dracula, obsessed with eating flies and small rodents in the belief that their life force was necessary to his own survival. Alice had adapted the story so that Seward could be cut entirely and Renfield only referred to in passing.

  Joshua understood and approved the reduction in the number of characters. They only had so many cast members, and an unfamiliar audience would find too many people confusing to identify and remember. They were left with only Van Helsing, the hero; Jonathan Harker, who was in love with Mina and yet helpless to save her; Mina; Lucy, who was Mina’s friend and Dracula’s first victim; and of course Dracula himself. Alice had kept Whitby as the setting, for the most obvious of reasons.

  But even Caroline, who now knew the story better than she had any real wish to, found the reading difficult to follow.

  For the first reading there was no movement, although they were all reasonably familiar with their lines. As it had been adapted, Harker was telling Mina, his fiancée, about Renfield’s travels to Transylvania, and how they had subsequently resulted in his present tragic condition and his confinement to the insane asylum. She was listening, appalled and sympathetic.

  Caroline had not watched many rehearsals before. Were they always so wooden? James was reading Harker as if he were half-asleep. Was he saving his emotion for later, when there were actions to go with the words?

  She turned to Alice sitting beside her and saw the tension in her face, the tightness where she was biting her lip. Did the words sound stilted to her also? Was she embarrassed by her adaptation now?

  On the stage, Mercy responded. Her voice rose and fell with emotion that sounded totally artificial, ridiculous when coupled with the banal words she was saying.

  Caroline began to feel more and more uncomfortable. She found herself fidgeting in her seat, unable to relax. She knew Joshua well enough to see his frustration in the way he moved and hear it in his voice when he told James to read his lines again.

  At that, Mercy came to her husband’s defense instantly.

  “There’s no point yet,” she said sharply. “We’ll only change it. We’ll have to. Nobody speaks like this.”

  A flicker of anger crossed Joshua’s face. Caroline could see the difficulty with which he controlled his tongue.

  “Most dialogue sounds inappropriate if you read it like a railway timetable,” he replied. “You’re describing how a normal, decent man has changed into an insane, disgusting creature. We are supposed to be giving the audience a taste of the horror to come.”

  “All so we can be appalled when you appear,” Vincent said drily. “Rather an old trick, don’t you think?”

  “Well there’s not much point in Van Helsing’s battle against Dracula if Dracula isn’t appalling, is there?” Joshua shot back. “I won’t ask you if you want to direct, because I know perfectly well that you do. But right now it’s my responsibility, so concentrate on your own job.”

  Vincent shrugged elaborately and sighed.

  “Move on to the next scene,” Joshua instructed, his voice strained.

  It was no better than the first. It was the initial appearance of Dracula, washing ashore in a violent storm that had wrecked his ship and sent his coffin to the shore. There was no possible way of showing all this on the stage, however, so it had to be recounted by one of the actors. Thus it had been built into Lydia’s part as Lucy Westenra. But when she spoke the lines, she too sounded as if she barely believed what she was saying, though there was no sharp disdain in her voice as there had been in Mercy’s.

  “For heaven’s sake, Lydia, act it!” Mercy said furiously. “How do we know if it works or not if you don’t try?”

  Lydia read it again, with more emotion, and even Caroline had to admit it sounded better. She glanced at Alice Netheridge and saw some of the embarrassment slip away from her expression.

  The addition of Dracula’s presence improved the drama considerably. The next couple of scenes were quite good. Until Van Helsing made his appearance.

  “I don’t think that’s strong enough,” Vincent commented. “He sounds as if he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  “He doesn’t, yet,” Joshua argued.

  “Yes, he does,” Vincent answered immediately. “He’s a genius and he’s made a life study of vampires. He has to be powerful. After all, he destroys Dracula, the greatest vampire of all.” He sat back a little in his chair, smiling.

  “That’s at the end,” Joshua said with markedly less patience. “If we know all that about him at the beginning, then there is no story.”

  “Everybody knows the end anyway,” Vincent argued. “Most people have either read the damn book or they’ve heard people talking about it.”

  Lydia rolled her eyes. “Vincent, you’re an actor. Pretend you don’t know, for heaven’s sake, or we’ll be here all day and go nowhere.”

  Vincent turned to her. “And where exactly is it that you think we are going, my dear?” he asked sarcastically.

  “I have no idea,” Lydia replied. “Any more than you have.”

  “I know I’m going quietly mad!” Mercy put in very distinctly.

  “That won’t be a very long journey,” Caroline muttered. She was embarrassed when she realized Alice had heard her, until she saw the sudden smile on Alice’s face.

  “You said ‘quietly,’ ” Joshua said, looking at Mercy. “Make that a promise, will you!”

  She glared at him.

  “Page thirty-nine, from the top,” Joshua resumed. “Van Helsing to Harker.”

  “We really need another character here,” Vincent pointed out. “It doesn’t make sense like this. Harker’s an idiot, completely ineffectual. Van Helsing would neither turn to him nor try to use him.”

  “He’ll use what he has,” Joshua snapped. “And at the moment he has no one else. Just read it; we’ll make what amendments we need to later.”

  With elaborate patience Vincent did as he was told. It sounded ridiculous, just as he had intended it to.

  hey stopped at lunchtime, after having read through the entire hour-long script twice. The meal was awkward, everyone concentrating on their food, which again was plentiful and excellent. They spoke of trivial things: places they had traveled to at one time or another; books they had read; even the weather—although that last subject became less trivial as the wind increased and the snow that had been falling intermittently became heavier. It was clear from the almost horizontal angle at which it was streaming past the windows, and the thrashing of the trees beyond, that the storm was increasing in violence.

  “It makes me think of those at sea,” Eliza said unhappily, staring at the snow-coated glass. “I feel almost guilty to be so safe.”

  “I can’t imagine why anyone wants to go to sea, especially in the winter,” James observed.

  “They probably don’t.” Vincent looked at him witheringly. “Poor devils have little choice. We can’t all be actors.”

  “Indeed we can’t,” Joshua retorted. “Not even all those of us who try.”

  Lydia laughed, then winced as apparently someone kicked her under the table.

  Douglas Paterson looked at her with quick appreciation, then straightened his face again and pretended he was not amused.

  After the meal Joshua asked if he and Caroline might speak with Netheridge. He showed them into his study, a large, extremely comfortable room with leather-covered armchairs and a fire burning briskly in the hearth. A huge oak desk was littered with the implements of writing: pens, papers, t
wo inkwells, a sand tray, sticks of sealing wax in various shades of red, matches and tapers, and several penknives and paper knives. The walls were lined with books, set by subject rather than size, as if they were there for use.

  Caroline wondered why Joshua had asked her to accompany him.

  “I can’t help,” she had said, meaning it as an apology, not an excuse.

  “Yes, you can,” he had told her with a tiny, twisted smile. “If you are there at least he will hesitate to lose his temper. So will I.”

  Unfortunately Douglas Paterson had also decided to join them. Since he was Alice’s fiancé it was difficult to protest his presence.

  Netheridge stood in front of the fire. Joshua accepted the invitation to be seated, even though it placed him at something of a disadvantage. Caroline sat opposite him, already feeling defensive, in spite of the agreeable smiles on everyone’s faces. Douglas Paterson stood by the window, his back to the ever-increasing storm.

  “Well, Mr. Fielding, how is it going?” Netheridge asked. “Do you have everything you require? Is there anything else we can provide for you?”

  Caroline felt her throat tighten.

  “We have read through the script a couple of times, to see how it works,” Joshua replied. “That is customary for a new piece. What seems powerful on the page does not always translate to natural speech.”

  Netheridge grinned but he did not interrupt.

  It was Paterson who spoke. “Is that the beginning of an excuse to say you cannot perform it?”

  Joshua swung around in his chair to face him. “No, Mr. Paterson. If that was what I had meant to say, I would’ve been plainer about it. Mr. Netheridge deserves the truth, as far as we can discern it.”

  “The truth is that Alice has some rather impractical dreams, and it would be better if you didn’t indulge her in them,” Paterson said bluntly.

  Caroline remembered Alice’s face as she sat in the audience and listened to her words read on the stage: the awe, the excitement and hope, the embarrassment. Joshua must make the play work, she decided, although she had no idea how.

  “As I see it, it is a work that needs some attention. Possibly the order of certain scenes should be changed, so that we can give it the passion and drive it requires to move it from one medium to another,” Joshua answered Paterson quietly but firmly.

  “So are you saying you can do it?” Netheridge asked directly.

  Joshua hesitated for only a second, but Netheridge saw it. His jaw hardened. “You doubt it!” he challenged him. “Be honest, man. Alice is my only child. She’s willful, a dreamer, perhaps a little naïve, but I’ll not have her made a fool of, by you or anyone else.”

  Paterson smiled, and the tightness in his shoulders eased a little. The shadow of a smile softened his face.

  Netheridge looked at Joshua. “Are you prepared to work at this thing and make it right? Give me a straight answer, man.”

  Joshua took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. The clock on the mantelpiece over the fire moved two seconds. “Yes, I am.”

  “Right! Then what is it you want from me, Mr. Fielding? The party is set for Boxing Day, December twenty-sixth. Can’t change that now,” Netheridge said with a frown.

  “I understand,” Joshua replied. “We will have to work very hard. I will need the time with no interruption, other than for meals. Possibly I might request to eat in the theater room, if the cook would be kind enough to make something simple that can be served there. And perhaps Mrs. Netheridge would help my wife to find a few articles we might borrow as props to dress the stage?”

  “Done,” Netheridge said. “She’ll be delighted. What else?”

  “A good supply of paper and ink, more than I thought to bring with me. But most of all I would appreciate your assistance and even support in explaining to Miss Netheridge that all this is necessary if we are to make the play a success—”

  “A success?” Paterson interrupted. “We’re doing this as a Christmas gift for Alice, not to see it performed on the London stage. How on earth can you judge what is a success? If it pleases her that’s all that matters. If it isn’t going to work, then perhaps the most honest thing would be to tell her so now, to save her from being humiliated in front of her friends, and her family’s friends, the people she will mix with long after you all have gone back to London, or wherever it is you come from.” There were two spots of pink in his cheeks, and he had moved a step closer to them.

  “I judge a success as something that entertains and enthralls an audience, Mr. Paterson,” Joshua replied, his voice gathering emotion. “Something that suspends their disbelief for an hour, makes them laugh or cry, think more deeply about their lives or create new dreams in their minds. And a failure is something that bores them, has no integrity within itself, and does not for a moment take them somewhere they have never been before. If we are to capture and hold their imagination, then we must iron out the inconsistencies and improve on the strengths.”

  “Then why are you here instead of in the theater doing that?” Paterson asked, but his tone had lost its belligerence. He looked puzzled and anxious.

  Caroline realized how far out of his depth he was. He did not know Alice as well as he had imagined he did, and realizing this frightened him.

  “Because Alice needs your support,” she answered for Joshua. “When you have created something as she has, there is so much of yourself in it that it becomes very hard to accept criticism. We all need praise, even when we are being shown how our work could be better. Why, everyone needs their loved ones to believe in them, to believe that they can succeed.”

  Douglas chewed his lip, glanced at Netheridge, then back not at Caroline but at Joshua. “If you change it into your work, what will be left of it that is hers?” There was uncertainty in his eyes, and still a degree of challenge.

  Netheridge nodded. “Yes, Mr. Fielding. Douglas is right. If you change it as much as you say, whatever our friends think, she’ll know it isn’t hers. And she’s honest, Alice is. She won’t take the credit for your work.”

  Caroline looked at him still standing in front of the fire: a self-made man who owned more than all his ancestors put together, a father who loved his only child but did not believe in her talent. And perhaps he was right not to. Joshua had said the play, as it stood, was unperformable. What answer could Joshua give that would be even remotely honest?

  “I’m not going to rewrite it for her,” Joshua said softly. “I’m going to help her rewrite it herself. It will still be hers, but with a lot more knowledge of what stagecraft can do.”

  “Ah.” Netheridge looked pleased. “Good,” he said firmly. He turned to look at Paterson. “Told you, Douglas, got a good man here. Right you are, Mr. Fielding. You’ll get everything you need from me. Thank you for your honesty.”

  Joshua rose to his feet and straightened his shoulders. Perhaps only Caroline, who knew him so well, could see the overwhelming relief in him.

  When they were outside the door and it was closed again behind them, he turned to her with a shaky smile.

  “Thank you,” he said in a whisper.

  She found herself suddenly absurdly emotional. Her own voice was husky when she spoke. “How are you going to do it?”

  “I have no idea,” he admitted. “But God help me, it’s probably beyond anyone else’s ability.”

  She moved a little closer to him and slipped her hand into his. She felt his fingers tighten, warm and strong against hers. She wanted to say something encouraging, full of certainty, but it would have been a lie. He would have known it, too, so she said nothing, just held on to him.

  Caroline found Eliza delighted to help.

  “I’m sure we can find all sorts of things,” she said eagerly when Caroline asked her. “Just tell me what you need.”

  Caroline had already given it much thought. It was of great importance to her that she help Joshua, because their success mattered so much to the company, but also because she had a hunger to be a real
part of the production, not merely an onlooker. Too often she had participated only in the role of Joshua’s wife, permanently on the fringes of the emotion and the companionship.

  “We need something to suggest Mina’s home,” she replied, and Eliza led the way to one of the box rooms where unused furniture was stored. “Chairs, perhaps? And a spare curtain, if you have one. It would suggest warmth, and height. I think that would be good. We can’t have anything too heavy to move.”

  “Oh, yes, I see.” Eliza opened the door to the box room and led the way in. It was piled with all kinds of discarded chairs, tables, cupboards, cushions, curtains, a couple of cabin trunks, and two or three carved boxes. There were also a lot of jardinières, lamp brackets, and some large and colorful vases that would not have fitted anywhere in the parts of the house Caroline had seen.

  Eliza saw her glance and give a tiny, rueful smile. “Choices I shouldn’t have made,” she said quietly.

  “I like them,” Caroline responded before she thought. The colors were warm and unusual.

  “So do I,” Eliza agreed, biting her lip. “But they don’t fit in with my mother-in-law’s taste.” She did not offer any further explanation, but it was unnecessary. The stamp of that dominant personality was heavy in every room Caroline had seen so far.

  “My mother-in-law’s taste would have been good for a funeral parlor,” she said sympathetically. “She made one quite naturally feel in mourning, whether they had lost anyone or not.”

  Eliza gave a little giggle, and then stifled it quickly, as if she felt she should not have been amused. She met Caroline’s eyes in a glance full of humor. “Just right for a vampire story, then, don’t you think?” she asked, then blushed.

  Caroline found herself liking this side of Eliza immensely. “Perfect. But thank goodness she’s safely in London with my younger daughter. If we could use that red vase with the flowers, it would give Mina’s house something warm and bright, and the audience would remember it and know immediately where the characters are when they see it again.” She looked around the room. “And we could use that dark curtain over there to suggest the crypt where Lucy is buried.”