Grace pulled to the side, turned the engine off and took a couple of deep breaths. Her hands were shaking. Ahead, she could see the men in slickers gesturing and shouting. She had probably scared them even more than herself.
She got out of her car, walking toward them. She could see that two of the moving truck’s big tires were mired in the roadside mud. Rain pelted down. It was a horrible night to be stranded.
“I’m so sorry! I nearly lost control,” she called to the nearest man, a short burly figure in olive green. “Is there anything I can do? Do you have a radio? Have you called for help?”
His face was a white wet blur as he waved her away. “Dinna fash yerself!” he said in a broad Scots accent. “We’ve got it under control.” He made another push-away motion.
The other man had returned to wedging wood beneath the truck’s tire. His back was to Grace, and he did not acknowledge her presence. The first man went to join him.
Grace hesitated, but it was not a moment for small talk, and there was apparently nothing she could do to help them. She called good night, which went unanswered, and hurried back to the warmth and safety of her car.
With a ghastly shriek of hinges—suitable to the material to be rehearsed that night—the door to the Innisdale Playhouse opened.
Unlike Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake (“Home to Cumbria’s Leading Professional Theatre Company!”) or Ulverston’s stately Coronation Hall, where the South Cumbria Music Festival was held annually, the Innisdale Playhouse was small and dilapidated. While some Lake District theaters could boast romantic histories, the Playhouse was merely old. Jazz festivals and touring ballet companies generally declined the opportunity to grace the Playhouse’s weathered boards, and so far no benevolent grand dame of the London stage had bestowed any favors upon its sparsely shingled roof.
Which, in Grace’s opinion, and despite her earlier comments to Peter, made Lord Ruthven’s interest in a local production of Polidori’s The Vampyre all the odder.
But then, Grace reflected, letting the heavy side entrance door slam shut behind her, everything about the production was odd. It wasn’t only that Ruthven had voluntarily involved himself in an amateur theater production that seemed unlikely to further his—or anyone else’s career—but Derek Derrick had signed on. Granted, Derrick was a struggling TV actor who believed working with Ruthven would be good for his career.
As for Grace, she had agreed to help out because she was a firm believer in getting involved. If she was going to live for any length of time in Innisdale (assuming there was any point in staying beyond the run of her sabbatical), she would have to cultivate more friends, discover independent interests, make her own way. And, well, she had thought the play sounded like fun. That had been back in the good old days when she was still under the impression that Byron had written The Vampyre.
The stage was lit, and the cast and crew of The Vampyre assembled in front of a painted backdrop of Transylvanian-looking landscape complete with cliffs, bats and gloomy castle.
Tall and strikingly beautiful, Catriona Ruthven sat on a packing crate with her legs boyishly crossed, managing to make jeans and a leather jacket look like haute couture. As Grace made her way through the aisle between velvet-covered tip-up chairs, she heard the other woman drawl, “The time for discussion is past.”
A rhythmic thudding followed Catriona’s words. Grace was familiar with the sound of Lady Venetia Brougham’s ebony walking stick hitting the stage boards. From a distance, the local Byronic scholar looked like a child; the synthetic gloss of her black bob and the bright blue of her silk dress disguised the fact that she was about eighty years old. The pounding was followed by her imperious, “If I am to finance this spectacle, I believe I should have a say!”
“You had a say. And then some.” Catriona met the reptilian glint of Lady Vee’s gaze and raised one supercilious eyebrow. It was a very irritating expression, as Grace well knew, because Peter had the same trick.
“Ladies, please.” Lord Ruthven looked up from his clipboard. He sounded wearier than ever—and no wonder, thought Grace. She was feeling the lack of sleep herself. “We have covered this ground.” The play’s producer and director wore black jeans and a black turtleneck; he generally wore black, reflected Grace. He also wore eyeliner. Perhaps he was a fan of Goth. That might explain his appalling taste in dramatic material.
“Not to my satisfaction!” snapped Lady Vee. Then her tone changed. “Ah, my deah!” she purred, greeting Grace like an old friend, as Grace joined the enclave on stage. “I know you will see my point.”
Grace nearly glanced behind, seeking the person Lady Vee addressed, but caught herself. It appeared that she and Lady Vee were enjoying one of their periodic truces.
“Sorry I’m late,” she apologized to the group, most of whom she already knew. “The road through the woods is starting to flood.” She shrugged out of her raincoat, draping it with the others over a stage prop coffin.
“You’re not the problem,” Lord Ruthven muttered, glancing at his watch again. “Derrick is the problem. Where the devil is he?”
Someone volunteered having seen Derrick at the pub, and the director’s face grew grimmer.
A rummage sale’s worth of chairs in a variety of shapes and styles was spread around the brightly lit stage. Grace pulled a peeling captain’s chair next to Roy Blade, who said out of the side of his mouth, “You haven’t missed much,” in his disconcertingly cultured voice.
With his long dark hair, eye patch and collection of ornate tattoos, Roy Blade looked like a biker, which he was. He did not look like a librarian, but he was that, too, as well as another expert on poets of the Romantic age. Given the presence of two equally opinionated scholars, Grace wondered if she hadn’t been brought in as tiebreaker.
Lady Vee, perched on a claw-footed monstrosity that looked vaguely like a throne, articulated around her foot-long ivory cigarette holder. “Grace, I have suggested to the group that Byron’s Manfred would be a more suitable project than Polidori’s The Vampyre.”
The sighs, mutters and rustlings from the rest of the group spoke volumes, though no one said anything. Roy’s big hands, the backs embellished in the black scrollwork of tattoos, kneaded his thigh muscles as though he were restraining himself from strangling somebody.
No wonder there was tension in the air, Grace thought. “Uh…” she began. Uh-oh was more like it.
“It’s too bloody late,” Catriona exclaimed, rising to her feet. With a dark look at Grace, she whirled and strode down the stage.
“Catriona!” Lord Ruthven’s tone cut across the startled silence.
What’s that look for? Grace wondered. How is this my fault? Lady Vee was a law unto herself. Grace wasn’t encouraging her.
“Well, we did vote on this,” she tried to point out reasonably.
“Thank you, Susan B. Anthony,” Catriona commented from downstage.
“What’s her problem?” Lady Ives murmured.
Wife of the local baronet and MFH, Theresa Ives was the county equivalent of the traditional CEO trophy wife: blond, blue-eyed and—years Sir Gerald’s junior—built to last. As befitted the queen of the horsey set, her laugh was high and whinnying like a pony’s.
“Vote?” Lady Vee repeated as though the word were foreign to her. “How many here are qualified to vote on this subject?”
More rumblings. Grace had a feeling the Innisdale Players were a hairsbreadth from turning into the Innisdale Lynch Mob.
The side door to the theater banged open again, and Derek Derrick struggled to shut it against the rain. A blast of storm-scented air wafted up the aisle. Grace shivered.
“Christ! It’s a hurricane out there!” Derrick made his way through the rows of chairs and vaulted onto the stage. “Were you waiting for me? You didn’t have to do that!” He offered his white and practiced grin, unfazed by Lord Ruthven’s glower.
“We’re not rehearsing,” Theresa informed him. “Lady Venetia has found another problem. This
time it’s the entire play.” Derrick dropped beside her and squeezed her shoulder sympathetically. Grace tried not to notice that familiar gesture.
“It is not as though rehearsals had really progressed,” the devil in the blue dress said defensively.
“How can they progress when you’re raising an objection every step of the way?” Catriona stalked back across the stage in their direction.
For the first time, and probably because of her chance encounter with the moving-van man, Grace noticed that Catriona’s voice had the faintest trace of a Scottish burr.
Grace replayed the voice of Peter’s mysterious caller in her head. Could it have been Catriona?
“Anyway, who’s to say Manfred is the stronger piece?” growled Roy Blade. “Within two years of its publication, The Vampyre was translated into French, German, Spanish and Swedish. Even before Polidori’s death it had been adapted for the stage.”
Everyone began to speak at once.
Lady Vee bristled. “Any work by Byron would be a fahhhr more suitable choice than Polidori, who…”
“But there are no roles for women in it!” Theresa protested.
The idea that Lady Ives might have actually read Byron’s masterpiece momentarily dumbfounded the others.
Into the silence, Grace placated, “After all, Polidori’s work was strong enough to be mistaken originally for Byron’s own. Goethe even called it Byron’s best work.”
“It’s influenced a hell of a lot of writers,” Roy Blade declared. “Sheridan Le Fanu, Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker to name a few.” He warmed to his theme, oblivious to the signs of restlessness in his audience. “True, it may not be the seminal vampire text, that credit would go to Burger or perhaps Goethe for Die Braut von Korinth—”
“Brilliant bloke,” Derrick commented to Theresa, who put her hands to her head as though she felt a headache coming on—or wanted to cover her ears.
Lady Vee ignored all this, speaking solely to Grace. “Goethe was being ironic. Vampires!” She made a noise of disgust. “I agreed to invest in a work of cultural significance. Polidori was a sycophant. He plagiarized the idea of a vampire from Byron, who had the good sense and exquisite taste to abandon the project as unworthy.”
Roy Blade rose, towering over the elderly woman—who puffed up like an adder. “Perhaps if Byron and his snotty crowd of effetes hadn’t deliberately set out to humiliate and punish Polidori for having committed the unforgivable sin of working for a living instead of being born to aristocrats or intellectuals—”
“Work? He was a leech by profession and nature. He was hired to spy upon B. by his publisher.”
“Would that be Polidori’s publisher or Byron’s?” Derrick queried with great interest.
“I think we’re getting off the track,” Grace said.
Catriona curled her lip. “You have the gift of understatement.”
“And you have the gift of unproductive commentary.” Years of dealing with smart-ass adolescents had sharpened her tongue, but Grace regretted her hasty words when Theresa uttered a pleased, “Ooh!”
“Please continue, Grace,” Lord Ruthven said. She assumed he was not encouraging her to attack his wife, but to address Lady Vee’s issues.
“In fairness,” she went on, “while Polidori admitted he was inspired by Byron, his work was written and published before Byron ever penned his fragment.”
Roy Blade burst out, “Who knows what he might have achieved if he hadn’t been driven by Byron’s ridicule and ostracization to take his own life. He was only twenty-six. A boy! He had a brilliant mind. The youngest man ever to receive his medical degree from the University of Edinburgh. Had he found an ounce of kindness or encouragement, he might have—”
“Now, I don’t think you can blame what happened to Polidori in England on Byron,” Grace objected. “As far as I know, Byron never said anything disparaging about The Vampyre other than to make it clear it wasn’t his own.”
“You’re not helping,” Catriona informed her. “Look, we’ve had this out. As Ms. Hollister points out, we voted.” She turned to Lady Vee. “You were outvoted, if you will recall.” As she moved, she trod on the stage trapdoor.
With a cracking sound, it gave way beneath her.
3
As Catriona dropped through the black square, Theresa screamed. There were outcries of shock and horror from the others.
Catriona’s hands shot out and grabbed the edge of the stage. She hung there for a moment. Strangely, she never screamed, never made a sound. Her hands flattened out, then flexed as she tried for better purchase on the wooden floor. Her elbow worked its way over the edge, then the top of her head appeared.
It was only a matter of seconds; then the paralysis of disbelief that had held the group, shattered.
“Oh, my gosh!” cried Grace, springing forward to help. She had the notion that Roy Blade moved with her, but it was Derek Derrick beside her as her hands closed over Catriona’s wrists. Though distantly aware of people running, of footsteps pounding across the stage, of doors banging, of commotion and chaos, all her focus was on hanging on to Catriona.
Catriona’s hands felt callused and unexpectedly strong as they locked on Grace’s wrists. For a beat Grace felt her own balance go; then Derek’s hand clenched a fistful of the dangling woman’s leather collar, taking her weight.
“Catriona, my God!” Lord Ruthven helped them draw her up. His face was bloodless. “My God!”
The others circled round, babbling shock and relief.
Catriona shook her fiery hair out of her face and laughed breathlessly. “Quick reflexes, Grace. I owe you.”
“Not as quick as yours.” Anyone else would surely have crashed through to the basement.
Catriona’s eyes flicked to Derek Derrick’s. “Ta,” she said coolly.
“Close call, eh!” He looked like Grace felt: badly shaken. Staring down into the trap, he called, “All clear. We pulled her up.”
Roy Blade called back, his words muffled. A light went on from below.
He had broken records in his charge down to the basement, but he would not have been in time, Grace realized. It was a chilling thought.
“But how could it have happened?” Theresa was protesting, as the group milled, offering suggestions, comments and general opinions. A couple of men offered to put boards across the opening.
“It’s an old theater.” Lady Vee’s voice trembled.
Grace knelt, peering cautiously through the opening. “Good heavens, what a drop. It looks like it goes straight down to the basement.” She called, “Can you tell what happened?”
Roy Blade’s negative response floated up.
“They say the theater is haunted,” Theresa whispered. Derek Derrick chuckled and slipped an arm around her slim shoulders.
“Balderdash!” Lady Vee said. “Grace, I can’t imagine what you hope to accomplish in that most unflattering position.”
“Shouldn’t there be a lift or something?” When no one answered, Grace rose and dusted off her hands and knees.
If someone wanted to stage an accident, a theater was an ideal setting. Even in a new, well-maintained theater, trapdoors, pits, balconies, catwalks and stairs offered a variety of deadly possibilities for falls and electrocution. And Grace had seen plenty of TV shows where victims had been conked by falling battens or counterweights. For that matter, real-life actors and crew alike fell off stages with distressing frequency.
The Innisdale Playhouse was poorly lit, the wiring was old, and most of the stairs and scaffolds did not have rails. Why am I thinking like this? Grace wondered. Perhaps because from the moment she had walked in that night she had sensed a certain peculiar energy in the air, something she recognized from years of teaching. Mischief. That’s what it was. She had felt mischief in the room.
“It could have been an accident,” she reflected aloud.
“What do you mean!” exclaimed Lady Vee. She clutched Grace’s arm as though she needed the support. “Of course it
was an accident!” The others chimed in, staring at Grace as though she had committed some social solecism.
It was Catriona who said, after staring at Grace for a long moment, “I don’t believe in accidents.”
She sounds like Peter, Grace reflected. I don’t believe in coincidence, he had said in much the same tone of voice.
Catriona pushed through them, making her way backstage. The black curtains with their scarlet-stenciled masks of tragedy and comedy rippled in her wake. The others followed in uneasy silence.
Navigating the backstage obstacle course of props, leads and electrical cords, Catriona found a light switch and continued to the theater basement.
“For God’s sake, watch your step, everyone,” Lord Ruthven ordered, as they clattered down the stairs. “This place is a death trap. We’ll get the inspectors in tomorrow.”
In the narrow stairwell they met Roy Blade. Catriona brushed past him. Blade backed against the wall so that the others could file past. Slowly he followed them.
The basement was dank and poorly lit. It smelled of old plumbing and something acrid. An electrical short? White light streamed in from the open trapdoor about twelve feet above them. There was an old-fashioned lift, but it had been shoved to the far wall. The broken trapdoor lay on the floor.
Grace picked it up. It looked all right to her inexpert eye. No saw marks, no obvious signs of tampering. The wood showed splintering around the hinges, but that seemed in keeping with the nature of the accident.
“Drag that table over here and give me a leg up,” Catriona ordered.
Derek and Roy moved to obey. A heavy, battered table scraped its way across the cement floor and was positioned beneath the trapdoor.
Lord Ruthven took the broken trapdoor and examined it himself. “Don’t break your neck falling off that damn table,” he dictated, as Catriona joined Derek on the table. Derek cupped his hands, and nimbly she stepped up, reaching for the open trap. With one hand outstretched, she steadied herself on the frame, craning her neck to examine the latch that had given way.
Verse of the Vampyre Page 3
