A Christmas Homecoming: A Novel

he crypt scene and Lucy’s final scene, as a vampire, went quite smoothly. They moved into the last act: the hunt for Dracula. Vincent was slightly overplaying Van Helsing’s mimicry of Renfield, but he added some details that were very vivid, and truly tragic, evoking Renfield as a man once decent, now a helpless victim of the terrible vampire. Joshua told him very firmly to keep all that he had added in; if the play ran five minutes longer because of it, then so be it.

“It’s not necessary,” James protested. “We’re ten minutes over time already. We’ll lose the audience.”

“No, we won’t,” Joshua told him. “It’s a superb piece of acting.”

“We’re here to entertain, not show off,” Mercy said defensively. “Vincent’s just trying to impress Mr. Netheridge. He’s looking for another lead in the London West End.”

“On that performance, he deserves it,” Joshua said. “And it’s important to the play. He makes Renfield matter to us.”

“Renfield’s trivial, a plot device,” James said with disgust.

“He’s a plot device that works extremely well,” Joshua said gravely. “His degradation from decent man to fly- and rat-eating lunatic shows us more clearly than any words what the power of the vampire is. Through Van Helsing we watch him die, but for an instant return to the man he once was. This is the only time we get to see that, to understand how far he fell. If we’re not frightened of Dracula after that, then we are truly stupid.”

James drew in his breath to argue, then let it out again. He was actor and dreamer enough to know the truth of what Joshua said.

They followed the script through to the end. They even tried the effect of the lights to create the illusion of a snowstorm, and cut down the words used to describe the last chase of the coffin carried through the mountain pass as the lights dimmed in imitation of the sun sinking in the west. They killed Dracula in its last rays, and the unearthly scream that rang out as the light faded and the curtain came down drew a moment’s total silence, and then a roar of applause.

“It will work,” Joshua said simply. “Thank you for your ideas, Mr. Ballin. You have helped us enormously. Without you we might never have succeeded.”

Ballin bowed, smiling. “It was a great pleasure,” he said. “A very great pleasure. Miss Alice, I think you have a happy future ahead of you.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, her eyes shining.