Anne Perry - A Christmas Homecoming

Lydia looked at Alice, then at Douglas, and her face registered a gamut of emotions. Caroline thought she saw in it more compassion than anything else. Was it for Douglas, or for Alice? Or had she misread it altogether? Perhaps it was only fear, and a degree of embarrassment?

“If I may be of assistance, without intruding, then I would be honored,” Ballin replied, first to Alice, then to Joshua.

Caroline watched Joshua, uncertain of what she read in his eyes. Was it amusement, desperation, or awareness of his own inadequacy to mend a situation that had run away from him like a bolting horse?

“Have you any experience in stagecraft, Mr. Ballin?” he asked.

Ballin hesitated, for the first time Caroline had seen since he had stepped through the front door out of the storm and into the light and the warmth.

“I think I should leave that to you, Mr. Fielding.” He bowed his black head very slightly. “I can speak only of the legend of the vampire, and what it says of mankind.”

“Legend is just what it is,” Netheridge agreed. “Like all that Greek nonsense about gods and goddesses always squabbling with each other, and changing shape into animals, and whatever.”

“Ah,” Ballin sighed. “Metamorphosis. What a wonderful idea: to change completely, at will, into something else. Such an easy dream to understand.”

“Not if it’s wolves and bats.” Lydia shuddered. “Why would anyone want to turn into such a thing?”

“To escape, of course,” Ballin told her. “It is always to escape. Bats can fly, can steer themselves without sight, moving through the darkness at will.”

Mercy gave a cry, almost a strangled scream.

“Stop playing to the gallery,” Lydia muttered. She said it under her breath, but Caroline heard her quite clearly. She wondered who else had. James looked pale. Joshua was exasperated.

The evening was clearly going to be a very long one.

t did not end as Caroline expected, although looking back on it, perhaps she should have. She was standing at the top of the stairs speaking to Eliza about further pieces for the stage that they might use when a nerve-jangling scream ripped through the silence, instantly followed by another, and then silence.

A door flew open along the landing and James burst out, his hair wild, his shirt half-undone. He stared at Caroline and Eliza, then swiveled around to face the opposite direction.

Vincent opened one of the other doors and put his head out. “What the devil’s going on?” he demanded.

“Mercy!” James all but choked.

For a cold instant Caroline thought he had been attacked, then she realized it was not a plea, but his wife’s name.

Joshua was coming up the stairs from the hall. He turned on the step and started down again, increasing his pace to a run as he reached the bottom.

Eliza was ashen. “What is it? What’s happened?”

Vincent came out onto the landing and closed his bedroom door.

James rushed past Eliza and Caroline and ran down the stairs, all but falling in his haste to take them two at a time, grasping on to the rail close to the bottom to steady himself. He followed Joshua into the passage that led to the stage.

Caroline started after them, Eliza behind her.

There were no more screams, only a thick silence, almost smothering the sound of their footsteps. Caroline could feel her heart beating and she knew she was clumsy, afraid of slipping on the stairs, afraid of being too slow, too late for whatever terrible thing had happened. What were they going to find? Blood? Someone dead? Of course not. That was ridiculous. A maid had tripped and fallen, at the worst. Perhaps a broken ankle.

She was hampered by her skirts. Joshua was well ahead of her. She could hear James still shouting for Mercy.

She bumped into a large Chinese vase filled with ornamental bamboo and set it rocking. She stopped to replace it upright, and Eliza caught up with her.

“Never mind that!” she said breathlessly. “I always hated it anyway. Come on!” She shoved the whole thing out of her way and it crashed to the floor.

Caroline hesitated, then went after her.

They swung around the last corner before the theater to find Joshua and James facing Mercy. She was leaning against the wall, gasping for breath, her face flushed scarlet.

Mr. Ballin was standing some seven or eight feet away from her, perfectly composed, his hands at his sides.

“You have a superb theater, Mrs. Netheridge,” Ballin said frankly.

They all looked toward Eliza, who flushed at the attention.

“Even the sound is flawless. It was designed by someone with the most excellent taste and technical knowledge. I came to look at it, and I regret that Mrs. Hobbs did not expect to find anyone else here. Quite understandably, I startled her. I am so sorry.”

Joshua swore under his breath with a couple of words Caroline had not heard him use before. She would not have heard them at all had she not been standing close enough to almost touch him.

He steadied himself quickly. “You have no need to apologize, Mr. Ballin. I am sure you intended no harm. Mrs. Hobbs’s imagination seems to have gotten the better of her.” He looked at Mercy without trying to conceal his impatience. “For goodness sake, Mercy, go to bed and get some sleep. We all need it.”

“Are you sure you are quite all right, Mrs. Hobbs?” Eliza asked anxiously.

James moved closer to Mercy, then glared at Ballin. “Of course she isn’t all right! He comes creeping around here, uninvited, and frightens her half to death. How could she possibly be all right?”

Vincent spread his arms wide. “Perfect,” he said sarcastically. “The black-cloaked stranger comes out of the storm, no doubt washed ashore in his coffin, and then stalks young women in the vast heart of this elaborate house with its stained-glass windows and private theater. I couldn’t have designed it better myself. For God’s sake, stop being such a damned actress, Mercy. Be a human being for half an hour.”

Lydia, who was standing next to Caroline, started to laugh, and choked it off only with difficulty.

Alice appeared, breathless. “Is anyone hurt?” she asked anxiously.

“No, of course not,” Vincent snapped. “Mercy met Mr. Ballin around a corner and imagined she met a vampire so she screamed like a banshee, in order that no one in the entire house, and probably half of Whitby, would miss her moment of high drama. Go to bed and don’t worry about it. It’s a rehearsal.” He stalked away from the group and disappeared around the corner back to the main hallway.

Mercy started to tremble.

Eliza went to her. “Please let us take you back to the withdrawing room. Perhaps a hot cocoa would warm you. You have had a terrible shock.”

“So must poor Mr. Ballin,” Caroline said. “If he was walking along the corridor quietly and someone came out of the shadows screaming at him at the top of her lungs, it’s lucky he didn’t have an apoplexy. Mr. Ballin, I’m extremely sorry we are all behaving like mad people. We have been rehearsing a play of considerable horror, and we are all worried that we will not be able to do the subject justice. We are tired and rather highly strung. I hope you will be quite all right. Perhaps you should have a hot cocoa as well. It will settle your nerves after what must have been a terrible shock for you.”

“If you wander uninvited around other people’s houses at night, you must expect to cause terror and distress,” James said angrily.

Joshua clenched his teeth. “He is not uninvited, James. He offered to help us improve the script and we accepted …”