A Christmas Homecoming

by Anne Perry

  Ballin handed the script back to Joshua and straightened his back. The obscene pleasure left his face.

  “There is nothing wrong with Miss Netheridge’s words,” he said quietly. “Although perhaps fewer of them are needed, if the actor portrays Renfield himself rather than Van Helsing telling us about him. Why should Van Helsing not be a man of imagination and empathy, even if it is for such a poor wretch as Renfield? That would enable the audience to see for themselves the man’s decline as Dracula’s ascendancy over him strengthens. It must be emotionally more powerful. And perhaps it also explains Van Helsing’s greater ability to understand the vampire itself: an empathetic imagination, no?” He made it half a question, but the answer was obvious.

  Joshua was smiling. He took the script back and made a brief note in the margin. “You’re quite right, Mr. Ballin,” he said graciously. “We can create a far more powerful image with imitation rather than mere description, and in doing so, cut out a page or so of words. And we can use the same device later on, to show the cause of his decline. Thank you.”

  Ballin bowed. “It is my privilege to take part in your work, even if by so small a contribution.”

  “It’s not small,” Joshua replied. “It is always difficult to reduce a cast drastically, and this helps us to conjure for the audience the characters we can’t afford to play, but also cannot cut entirely.”

  They read on through Lucy’s death scene. The man she loved was one of the many characters who had been cut out, and without him the scene lacked emotion, witnessed and felt only by Harker and Van Helsing. It appeared as if a stranger had died rather than somebody loved and cherished; there was nothing moving about it.

  “We can dim most of the stage here?” Joshua said, frowning. “Perhaps create more deliberate shadows?”

  Alice was not happy with the idea. “But at this point, it seems Lucy has gone peacefully, to escape the pain she had,” she said. “We don’t know yet what has really happened to her. Wouldn’t dimming the stage to darkness be too much of a hint at what’s to come?” Then she blushed at her boldness in challenging him.

  “For heaven’s sake,” Douglas said irritably. “Nobody’s going to be so involved that it’ll matter! It’s a story, a piece of make-believe to entertain. I’m sorry, Alice, but it just doesn’t matter.”

  She ignored him entirely, as if he had not spoken at all. But the pallor of her face and the muscles of her neck, which showed rigid above her lace collar, gave away the fact that she had heard him.

  “I don’t think we should create more shadows,” Alice said to Joshua, as if they were the only two present. “I think we should keep Mina here. After all, she is one of the strongest and most sympathetic characters, and she and Lucy were friends all their lives. Mina’s grief can be ours. It wouldn’t be difficult to write her in. I can do it this evening.”

  Joshua hesitated only a moment. “Good. We don’t need much in the way of words, just the sight of her face. Give it to Mercy when you’ve finished.” He turned to Vincent, who was standing at the back of the stage looking elaborately bored.

  “Let’s run the bit where Lucy attacks the children. That needs more work. It’s still awkward. We’ll go through the scene in the script, and also the part where the stake is put through Lucy’s body in the coffin. James, we’ll have to see most of the horror of that moment in your face.”

  They obeyed. Caroline watched and took notes until a late luncheon was served, then again all afternoon. They could not resolve all the slow patches, or the technical difficulties, but they continued into the search for Dracula after the destruction of Lucy’s vampire form in the coffin. As Joshua had suggested, they put another excellent piece of mimicry into Van Helsing’s speech recounting Renfield’s death and final release from his terrible state; even in his very last moments, as his body contorted, Renfield could not completely forget his lust for the life force in the flies and rats, so tight was the vampire’s control over him.

  They began to work on the first part of the play, where Dracula attacks Mina, establishing the bond with her that would ultimately bring about his own destruction.

  “It’s coming,” Joshua said wearily, his voice cracking a little. It was nearly six o’clock in the evening and they were all exhausted. The snow was still streaming past the windows in the darkness, glistening briefly in the reflected light before the curtains were pulled closed.

  He repeated the same belief again to Caroline when they were at last alone in their bedroom. The fire burned hot in the hearth, the guard set in front of it so no coals could fall out and set light to the carpet. It was warm, silent but for the rushing of the wind outside, and filled with a rare kind of comfort, as if they were uniquely safe.

  “Is it truly?” she asked him. She sat on the bed brushing her hair, finding the rhythm of the movement soothing.

  He smiled. “Yes. Alice is really quite good, you know. She’s perceptive and she learns quickly.”

  “Mr. Ballin was brilliant.” She watched his face to read whether he minded or not. She saw only admiration.

  “It makes me wonder if he is an actor himself,” he agreed. “Or even a playwright. I didn’t think of having Van Helsing virtually play Renfield, but as soon as he showed us, it seemed so obvious.”

  “Will Vincent do it?” she asked with sudden anxiety. “What if his vanity prevents him from taking the advice?”

  Joshua smiled widely, almost a grin. “You don’t understand him yet, do you? He’ll do it, believe me, and take credit for the idea. It’s far too clever, too good a showcase for his talents for him to turn it aside. I won’t have to persuade him, which is what you are afraid of.”

  “Am I so easy to read?” she demanded, putting the brush down on the bed and letting her hair fall loose around her.

  He looked at it with obvious pleasure. “Yes, a lot of the time,” he answered. “But only because I care enough to watch you.”

  She smiled back at him, feeling more than the warmth of the room inside her, a safety deeper than the stone walls of this huge house on its hilltop defying the storm.

  n the morning the wind had subsided but the snow was conspicuously deeper. Although the sky was clear overhead, there were dark clouds shadowing the land to the north and far out over the sea. No one bothered to say that there was worse to come: It was obvious to anyone who looked.

  “We’ll spend today running it through from beginning to end,” Joshua announced after breakfast.

  “The whole play is only an hour long!” Vincent said, already short-tempered. “For God’s sake, why would the run-through take all day?”

  “It will with your additions,” James snapped. “There won’t be a fly left in Whitby by the time you get around to Renfield’s death.”

  “There aren’t any actual flies, you fool!” Vincent shot back at him. “It’s imagination. That’s what acting is about.”

  “Then we’ll all try to imagine that you’re making a good job of it,” James said. He was not going to be beaten easily. “At least until Mr. Ballin comes back again and shows you how to do it better.”

  “A pity he hasn’t shown you yet!” Vincent retorted.

  “No doubt he will,” Joshua cut in. “But until he does, let’s see what we can do on our own. We’ll start with thunder and lightning effects …”

  Vincent stared around the room and then toward the windows. “Probably unnecessary,” he observed.

  “So was that remark,” Joshua said tartly. “The coffin will be on the stage and dimly lit, and I will climb out of it. Then the lights will go out, and come on again to be moonlight. Caroline, can you manage that?”

  “Yes,” she said immediately. She had practiced with the limelight contraption and she felt more confident, though not quite as confident as she sounded. She too could act!

  Joshua smiled. “Good. Lucy will be sitting on the seat or by the shore. I will attack her—”

  “Are we going to go through that?” Lydia asked. “Please? We hav
en’t done it yet.”

  “Yes, I suppose we’d better,” Joshua agreed. “Then we see Lucy at home with Mina and Harker. She is ill. Harker sees the bite marks on her neck. She gets worse and Mina cares for her. Dim lights to see Dracula at the window. He comes in and bites her again. In the morning she is far worse.”

  “I thought Harker was supposed to be in Budapest?” James interrupted.

  “In the book he is,” Joshua answered. “But since we have written Arthur and Dr. Seward out of the play, we have to have him here. We’ve altered the storyline appropriately.”

  James shrugged.

  “Van Helsing arrives and tells Harker about Renfield,” Joshua went on.

  “When do Mina and Harker get married?” James interrupted again. “It’s supposed to happen in Budapest.”

  Joshua glanced at Alice.

  “They’ll have to be married before we begin,” she answered. “I didn’t think of that, but I can’t see that it matters.”

  “Good.” Joshua looked at his notes again. “Lucy is attacked again and gets worse. We don’t need to see the attack—”

  “Yes, we do.” Lydia was the one to interrupt this time. “Otherwise it doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, we don’t,” Joshua told her. “If we show Dracula attacking too often it loses impact. The audience can deduce what has happened. One really dramatic and powerful scene is better than two weaker ones.”

  “They aren’t that powerful,” Vincent pointed out. “You need to be far more sinister. At the moment you look like a lover coming up the garden ladder to elope. Or a burglar caught in the act!”

  Alice was frowning. “There is something else important that we missed—”

  “You missed,” Lydia corrected her.

  “I missed.” Alice accepted the rebuke.

  “What?” Joshua was puzzled.

  “Mr. Ballin said that the vampire cannot come in unless he is invited. Someone has to invite him, and the audience needs to see that.”

  “Mr. Ballin says?” Vincent allowed his contempt to darken his voice. “Since when has he been in charge?”

  Alice blinked, but she did not retreat. “The suggestion is a good one, Mr. Singer, and that is all that matters. It is an important point that evil cannot come in unless we invite it. It is our choice.”

  “But none of the characters had the faintest idea what he is, or that he’s evil,” Vincent argued. “Or did you miss that point?”

  “Perhaps they should have known,” she countered. “It is naïve to imagine anyone is so good that they are immune to evil. Or perhaps it isn’t a lack of goodness, but a total lack of humility that makes one vulnerable?”

  “Vincent wouldn’t know anything about that,” Mercy remarked. “Humility, I mean. He probably has no idea what you are talking about.”

  “Neither have you, my dear,” Vincent said to Alice. “This is supposed to be drama, not a schoolgirl philosophy.”

  Joshua drew in his breath. Caroline knew it was to defend Alice, but she spoke for herself before he could say anything.

  “I did not invent vampire lore, Mr. Singer. I am simply quoting what Bram Stoker wrote. Since it is his book, and it greatly adds to the power of the drama, I wish to keep it in.” She looked for a moment at Joshua, to make sure he approved, then turned back to face Vincent.

  Joshua was amused. He tried, and failed, to hide it.

  “Then we will add it, even if it requires another scene,” he agreed. “You are quite right. It makes moral sense, and it will be good for the audience to see it. Then we will do Lucy’s death scene, as witnessed by Mina. We will dress her in white and keep the light on her to suggest that Lucy is still innocent in appearance and still beautiful.”

  Lydia smiled.

  “Then we will move to the scene of Lucy attacking the children,” Joshua continued. “We haven’t got any real children so we’ll have to have Alice create children’s voices for us offstage—high-pitched and terrified.” He looked at Alice. “You’ll have to practice that. Then Lucy appears with blood on her mouth and face, and walks through the gravestones to return to her coffin.”

  “How are we going to get gravestones on the stage?” James asked.

  Joshua looked at Caroline.

  “Eliza and I have found some very good old cabin trunks,” she replied. “They are solid and about the right size, stood up on end. We can easily cover them in paper and paint on them appropriately. We can get some stones and a little bit of earth from the kitchen staff.”

  “Very good,” Joshua said with satisfaction.

  “We may have to condense this next scene a bit for the sake of time; instead of finding the coffin empty multiple times, we’ll just have her in it, serene and lovely. Then empty, to get the point across.”

  “It will be stronger if it is shorter,” Alice agreed. “But we should see her smile a terrible smile.”

  “We will.” Joshua did not even think to argue. “We’ll see Lucy as a vampire quite clearly, and the struggle that Harker, Van Helsing, and Mina have to kill her. Then, with lights, we can make her seem to return to herself and finally be at peace in death. That is really the end of the middle act.”

  “Bravo,” Vincent said sarcastically.

  Joshua ignored him. “Then we move into the beginning of the climax, the search for Dracula. We start to see that Renfield’s behavior reflects Dracula’s being nearby.” He looked at Vincent now. “Van Helsing will recount that, with the mimicry,” he instructed. “Including Renfield’s death, with appropriate sadness from Mina and Harker. We’ll include his reference to rats and flies. I know that’s a repeat of his previous references, but this time his manner will be different, and it should be a nice counterpoint.”

  No one interrupted, but looking around at them, Caroline saw that he had his troupe’s complete attention. Even Douglas Paterson had nothing to say, as if at last, despite himself, he was drawn into the story.

  “Then we have the series of scenes where Dracula appears and attacks Mina. The audience knows it, but Harker and Van Helsing don’t …”

  Eliza Netheridge was sitting next to Caroline. “This is getting rather exciting, isn’t it? I begin to understand why Alice cares so much.” She looked across at Alice, who was standing at the far side of the stage, her eyes on Joshua.

  “Van Helsing realizes the awful truth of Mina’s condition when he places the holy wafer on her forehead and she screams with pain. It leaves a red scar,” Joshua went on. “They corner Dracula, but he escapes.”

  Eliza shuddered.

  “Mina tells them that at sunrise and sunset Dracula loses much of his control over her.” Joshua continued the narrative. “Van Helsing hypnotizes her and she says that when Dracula calls her—and he will—then she will have no choice but to go to him, wherever he is, and whatever it costs her.” Joshua smiled. “At that point we should have the audience on the edge of their seats. Then we have the climax.” He glanced at Caroline, then away again.

  “This will call for some clear lighting to create the illusion of movement,” he went on. “And then of a screaming wind and a snowstorm in the Carpathian Mountains. Our three remaining characters are huddling together as darkness falls, waiting for the coach that holds Dracula in his coffin, as he is returning to his native soil to regenerate his power. They have to drive a stake through his heart to destroy him forever, or else he will destroy them. We have to make certain that all the necessary information is given without slowing down the action or breaking the sense of doom and terror.”

  Vincent grinned. “Actually, it sounds quite good,” he said reluctantly. “It might even be passable, by the time Boxing Day comes. Let’s just hope there is an audience.”

  “If there isn’t, we’ll put it on for the servants,” Joshua retorted. “Now let’s get to work.”

  or a time as they worked, the challenge of creating a story in which they could all believe overtook their personal differences. There was a spark of excitement in the air.
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  Caroline leaned forward in her seat as they put more energy and movement into their positions on the stage. It was beginning to come alive. She forgot she was sitting on a chair in a stranger’s house in Whitby, working to make something good out of something poor. Bram Stoker’s characters became people; the dark shadow of the vampire reached out and chilled them all.

  Vincent was enthusiastic about Van Helsing’s new and larger role. As Joshua had predicted to Caroline, he grasped at the chance to play Renfield as well. He did not do it exactly as Ballin had, but he did it slyly, at moments pathetically. In spite of her dislike of Vincent, Caroline was forced to be both fascinated and moved by his performance. Renfield became not a device to further the plot but a real person, revolting and pitiful. Vincent Singer was Van Helsing, and Van Helsing, in his portrayal, was Renfield. The magic was complete.

  When they changed the scene, stopping for a few minutes to talk about movements, Caroline turned to Eliza sitting beside her. She saw the awe in Eliza’s face, the naked emotion.

  Aware of being looked at, Eliza colored a little and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

  “No. And please don’t be sorry. You were caught up in it. So was I. It is the greatest compliment you can pay an actor,” Caroline replied.

  Eliza looked startled. “I suppose it is. You know, for a moment I believed it as if I were there. Do you suppose there really are people like poor Renfield?”

  “I fear there are.” Caroline shivered. “But I am quite sure that there are no actual vampires.”

  “Actual?” Eliza stared at her. “But such seductive art is real, isn’t it! People who prey on one another, even who live by feeding on each other in some emotional way.”

  “I think that is the whole point,” Caroline agreed. “It would hardly frighten us if the danger were only imaginary. We jump at shadows the first time, and then we laugh at our own foolishness and feel silly, but happy that there was no substance to it. If at heart we know the evil is real, then the feeling is completely different.”