A Christmas Homecoming - Anne Perry [17]
“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?