Anne Perry - A Christmas Homecoming

Mr. Netheridge saw her looking.

“My father had that built,” he said proudly. “Talk of the town, it was, back then. And folk take it for granted now, least from the outside they do.”

“I can’t imagine that’s true,” Caroline said truthfully. Whether you cared for it or not, the window was certainly impossible to ignore.

Netheridge was pleased. “Whole room designed around it, of course,” he went on. “My mother did it all. Had a wonderful eye, didn’t she, Eliza?”

“Wonderful,” Eliza agreed drily. Caroline caught the look of sudden loss in her face, but Mr. Netheridge was looking the other way. His gaze was wandering over the richly colored walls—too richly colored for Caroline’s taste. She found the shading oppressive, and longed for something cooler, less absorbing of the light. She wondered if Mrs. Netheridge senior had been as dominating in personality as she was in her ideas of design, and if Eliza as a new bride had felt obliged to subordinate her own tastes because of it.

Caroline looked at Eliza again and saw a momentary unhappiness in her face that was so sharp as to make Caroline feel that she had unintentionally intruded. She wanted to make amends for it immediately.

“It is quite unlike anywhere I have been before,” she said with forced cheerfulness. Perhaps she would make as good an actress as Lydia or Mercy, one day? “And it is so extraordinarily comfortable. For all its richness, it still feels like someone’s home.” That was a total lie, enough to make her teeth ache, but she saw the pride in Netheridge’s face, and the relief in Eliza’s.

“We’re glad you came,” Netheridge said with satisfaction. “It’ll give our Alice a real chance. Bit of fun for ’er, before she settles down to married life.”

Eliza said nothing.

aroline slept well, too tired to even move. Even when she heard Joshua’s voice speaking her name, and felt his hand on her shoulder, she had to battle to the surface of consciousness. She opened her eyes to sharp, white winter daylight, and it took a moment or two for her to remember where she was.

Joshua was smiling. “Sorry,” he said gently. “Have I landed you with a wretched Christmas?”

“Probably,” she replied. “But listening to Eliza Netheridge in that awful drawing room yesterday evening, I thought of my mother-in-law, and blessed your name for having rescued me from her.”

“Oh, Grandmama.” He rolled his eyes. “I was just doing my impersonation of St. George, rescuing the maiden from the dragon. Was she pretty awful, old Mrs. Netheridge? I believe she died over ten years ago.”

“She’s still around in spirit,” Caroline said, sitting up in bed and pushing her long hair out of the way. It was soft and shining, and still mostly dark brown. She rinsed it in a solution of cold tea and iron filings, but she would rather that Joshua did not know that. “She designed the décor, and it has remained untouched since then,” she went on.

“It must have been redecorated in ten years!” he protested.

“Certainly, but not changed.” She looked at him. “It’s awful, isn’t it!”

“Ghastly.” He leaned forward and kissed her softly, intimately, then stood up. “After breakfast I have to read through this play again. I don’t know what on earth I’m going to do with it to make it work. It’s bad on the page, and I’ve an awful fear it’s going to be even worse when it’s read.”

“We have a week to work on it.” She pushed the bedclothes away and swung her feet out. “Let’s at least enjoy breakfast. I shall probably eat far too much while I’m here. Judging from dinner last night, they have an excellent cook, and nothing in the kitchen is my responsibility. That in itself makes it all taste better.”

The meal lived up to her every expectation. The sideboard groaned under the weight of chafing dishes of kidneys; bacon; sausages; potatoes; and eggs boiled, scrambled, poached, and fried. There was porridge for those who wished it, and racks of toast with butter, jam, and marmalade, and pots of tea. It was only the temper of the guests that was sour.

Vincent barely spoke, but that was usual for him in the mornings. Lydia was cheerful, but for some reason, this irritated Mercy.

“I don’t know why we are bothering,” she said for the third time. “Look at the weather. Nobody’s going to be able to come for the performance, even if they wish to.” She reached for the marmalade.

“Why wouldn’t they wish to?” Lydia asked with exaggerated innocence. “ Dracula is all the rage in London. Everyone is reading it, if only to not be left out. It will be enormous fun. Don’t you want to be Mina, and fall into the arms of the vampire, become one of the ‘children of the night’?” She sipped her tea delicately.

Mercy glared at her. “All I can say is thank God you die near the beginning!”

“But then I am ‘undead’!” Lydia said with a grin. “It isn’t until much later that I can go into the audience and watch all the rest of you without having to worry about remembering any more lines.”

“That’s if we can make it workable in the first place,” James said darkly. He had taken a liberal breakfast and was still eating it: kidneys, bacon, eggs, and sausage.

“We must,” Joshua reminded them. “A good deal of our company’s survival next year depends on it. And I suggest that next time you find a line difficult or an entry or exit clumsy, you remember that, and try a bit harder to make do.”

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?