A Christmas Homecoming - Anne Perry [13]
“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.”
Eliza gasped, then burst into laughter, her hands flying to her mouth to quiet it.
“I’m sorry, is that not … acceptable?” Caroline felt awkward.
“No, no, it’s perfect!” Eliza shook her head, dismissing the apology. “It was my mother-in-law’s favorite. It took some five years to get it out of the withdrawing room. Charles and I still have disagreements over it.” The laughter vanished.
“Would you rather not remind him of it?” Caroline asked. “Or maybe it would hurt his feelings, do you think? I mean, if we use it to suggest … a crypt?”
“It’s perfect for a crypt,” Eliza said decisively. “It looks like grave hangings anyway. Let’s see what else we can find.”
Caroline took a deep breath and followed Eliza through the piles of furniture. She hoped she was not going to cause this warm and vulnerable woman more heartache after they were gone.
oshua spent the afternoon attempting to rewrite at least some of the major outline of the play. It was a difficult work for an amateur to adapt, particularly because, like many novels, much of the tension came from the characters’ inner thoughts, and was impossible to dramatize without creating scenes that did not exist in the original book. There were also a great many letters in it, impossible to translate into action.
Alice had done a good job of cutting the story to exclude these while still keeping the story intact, but there were many awkward transitions that needed quite a lot of work.
The weather became worse, the wind rising so that the snow drifted, piling up into banks and leaving the lee side almost bare. Trees leaned dangerously, cracking under the weight. Some lighter branches broke.
Joshua barely noticed, but Caroline, staring out of the windows at the leaden sky late in the afternoon, realized that there was a great likelihood of them being snowed in, perhaps for several days. Though they had intended to be there until well after Christmas, she still found the notion curiously imprisoning.
It was almost evening and already dark when the doorbell rang. It was so startling, considering the weather, that Caroline stopped where she was at the bottom of the stairs, watching as the footman appeared to answer it. He pulled the door wide open, peering forward a little as if he expected to see no one on the step.
He was mistaken, and Caroline heard his gasp from twenty feet away. She, too, stared at the man who stood silhouetted against the snow-whirled darkness. He was of at least average height, his hair smooth and black, and the shoulders of his cloak were covered in pale, glistening snow. The lamplight from inside made his cheeks hollow, his eyes under the dark brows so black as to seem without pupils.
“Good evening,” he said softly, but his voice carried with startling clarity, his diction perfect. “I