Verse of the Vampyre (9 page)

To say that rehearsals were progressing would be an exaggeration, but they did continue—thus giving new meaning to “horror genre.” Grace wasn’t sure why her presence was still required, but when she suggested to Lord Ruthven that her role was complete, he seemed so distressed, she continued to attend.

Grace didn’t mind the opportunity to observe Catriona. She still hoped to find some clue as to what was between the woman and Peter. Evening after evening she sat watching the Innisdale Players run through their lines, trying to decipher the riddle that was Catriona.

Rehearsal recommenced, with Blade as Aubrey reassuring Ianthe that he would return from vampire hunting before nightfall. Grace’s mind wandered while Ruthven blocked out the next scene with his cast.

There were a number of set changes once the play’s action moved to Greece, and Grace had to admit that Allegra, who was in charge of art direction (which meant she designed and painted most of the backdrops herself), had done a super job. The painted wasteland could have been Byron’s own Turkish cemetery. Perhaps her great-aunt had influenced Allegra’s artistic vision.

Speaking of Lady Vee—Grace half turned in her seat. The old Gorgon still had not put in an appearance.

Grace came back to awareness of her surroundings for Blade’s big scene when “the airy form of his fair conductress was brought in as a corpse.”

Here there was a bit of comedic relief while Allegra and one of the stagehands tried to figure out a graceful way to lug Catriona across the stage. Derrick guffawed and offered several facetious suggestions. At last, the journey from stage left to right was accomplished.

“A vampyre, a vampyre,” Allegra intoned in her role of superstitious peasant.

“Do try to get more inflection in that, my dear,” Lord Ruthven muttered, making another note on his ever-present clipboard. A scowl marked Allegra’s patrician features.

“Ianthe,” Blade whispered brokenly, kneeling beside Catriona. Leave it to Catriona to look poised even as a corpse.

Grace had to admit Roy Blade was much better in the leading role of the tragic Aubrey than she had expected. True, he didn’t fit her mental picture of Aubrey—at least not before Aubrey went stark raving mad. She pictured Aubrey as slim and slight and fair—more like Derek Derrick. But Derrick, as the only professional actor, had been given his pick of roles and had oddly enough chosen the much smaller (though title) role of the vampyre. Which confirmed Grace’s belief that Derrick wasn’t overly weighed down in the smarts department.

“We must flee, my lord,” Allegra said stoically, reading from her script. “We must leave this place of doom.”

“That’s the second peasant’s line,” Lord Ruthven pointed out.

“We don’t
have
a second peasant,” Allegra said testily. “The second peasant quit after the first peasant quit, citing ‘queer ’appenings,’ if I remember correctly. I’m reading them
both
.”

Arm comfortably propped behind her head, Catriona (wearing a T-shirt that read
I AM THE BAD THING THAT HAPPENS TO GOOD PEOPLE
) drawled, “And very nicely too, but try to get some Gallic fervor into it, old girl.” She waved one graceful arm. “We musta leave dis place of doom, ma lord!”

Everyone laughed. Even Lord Ruthven had to purse his lips to keep from smiling.

As she watched Catriona, Grace’s laugh died, and her heart seemed to turn to stone. She recognized with an illogical but utter conviction that Catriona and Peter were indeed lovers.

The next moment Catriona scrambled to her feet and pointed at the maze of catwalks above them.

“There’s someone up there!”

R
oy Blade broke off his lines and craned his neck ceilingward. “Where?” Proof of how on edge everyone had grown over the passing weeks was the speed with which the cast and crew dispersed into confused alarm. People called out, staring toward the scaffolding.

“I don’t see it! Where is he? What is it?” chorused voices.

“Up there!” Catriona pointed into a shadowy recess far above.

Lord Ruthven clapped his hands, trying to regain control. “People! People!”

“I don’t see anyone,” Derek said.

“There!” Catriona’s outstretched arm seemed to track an unseen figure’s journey. “He’s wearing a cape!”

“A cape?”

Theresa gasped and clutched at Derek, who freed himself impatiently, walking beneath the catwalk.

“Hello, you up there!” he yelled.

There was no response.

“I’ll go up and check,” one of the stagehands said.

“Wait! The catwalk isn’t safe,” Ruthven warned him.

Roy Blade said, “I don’t see a damned thing.” He added, “I don’t hear anything either.”

“Possibly if everyone would shut up!” Catriona snapped. Her face was set. Was she really scared? That seemed out of character to Grace.

The silence that followed Catriona’s words was deafening.

“You’re just nervy, Catriona,” Ruthven said, when several moments had passed.

The tension that gripped them all was released. Derek chuckled.

Theresa let out a bloodcurdling scream. “A bat!”

Something swooped down from the ceiling and flew straight at Grace sitting in the front row of seats.

Grace dived to the floor and heard the dull thud as the projectile hit the chair back. She sat up as the others jumped down from the stage.

Something fluttered and flopped on the floor beside her.

“A pigeon!” Allegra exclaimed. There was uneasy laughter all around.

“I know what I saw. It was not a pigeon, it was not a bat,” Catriona said flatly, still standing on the stage. “It was a man in a cape.”

“This is ridiculous!” Lord Ruthven said.

Grace wondered.

“The Lord of the Dead picked a good night for it,” Peter remarked, locking the gallery entrance. The door shuddered beneath a gust of wind.

All Hallows’ Eve was straight out of a Tom Holland novel. A spectral moon sepulchered in darkness sailed along the sky, propelled by eldritch winds. A good night for ghoulies and ghosties, as the Scots put it.

“Do you think they’ll cancel the fete?” Grace asked.

“For this little bit of weather? I shouldn’t think so. Why, were you planning to go?”

“I’d thought about it.” She had been hoping all day he might invite her, finally resigning herself to the idea of going alone or tagging along with Sally and the kids. In the old days she wouldn’t have thought twice about asking for Peter’s company.

“Candy floss and Catherine wheels? Not really your kind of thing is it?”

“Why not? It sounds like fun. Anyway, I can skip a night’s rehearsal. I’m not sure why they need me there at this point anyway.”

“Validation?”

“Ha. I’m beginning to wonder if they just want me where they can keep an eye on me.”

“ ‘They’? Feeling a little paranoid, are we?” He was smiling, but she had the feeling his mind was on something else. “And how goes the Theater of the Absurd these days?”

She buttoned her coat. “I guess we’re on schedule. Ruthven keeps saying we are. The sets are complete. Allegra is a really gifted artist. I had no idea.”

“She attended some posh art school for a few years,” Peter said. He stared out the window at the weird flickering lights in the sky.

“Is it true she and Sir Gerald used to be an item?”

“Before my time.”

“She does seem more like the perfect squire’s lady than poor Theresa.”

“It’s what she was bred for,” Peter agreed. “But Gerald had a different idea.” He looked at the clock. “I’ll pick you up at seven, shall I?”

As Grace walked across the garden on her way from the garage she couldn’t help watching the shadows for signs of Miss Coke’s presence. She wasn’t sure what those might be. Muddy footprints? Ectoplasm?

The cottage porch light shone welcome. There was a large parcel leaning against the corner of the steps. Grace checked the label warily, then, recognizing her mother’s handwriting, picked it up and carried it inside.

It took no time at all to snip the string and unwrap the layers of brown paper. A small cheery card read,
Another surprise is on its way
. Which was unexpectedly cryptic for Grace’s family.

Inside the paper was a long flat box, and inside the box was a dress. Or rather a gown. A really lovely confection of cream silk faille and bronze tulle. They didn’t make dresses like this anymore. She touched it with reverent fingers. It reminded her of the kind of thing Grace Kelly would have worn in
To Catch a Thief.

The significance of this sank in, and Grace’s eyes misted because she knew this was a special present from her parents. Her mother must have known in that way mothers have that there was something Grace was not saying during her last phone call home.

Her parents couldn’t cure the deep hurt, the unspoken hurt, but they could fix the schoolgirl-sized tragedy of nothing to wear to the big dance. Grace chuckled, wiped her eyes and hung the dress in the old-fashioned clothes cupboard.

Grace opened the door on the first knock.

“I thought you’d never get here. I have something to show you.” She drew Peter into the cottage.

“This is the kind of greeting a man appreciates,” he remarked. “And may I say your sense of timing is exquisite?”

A laugh escaped Grace although she was only momentarily distracted.

“I don’t mean
that.
”

His gaze flicked over the photos of her family and friends, the vases of cut flowers, the tapestry cushions and jewel-colored rugs that made the place her own, and settled approvingly on the black leggings and long burgundy cashmere sweater that Grace wore.

She was rooting amidst the day’s post scattered on the table. She picked up an object and tossed it to him. “This came in the mail. Not separately as a parcel, because I did get a parcel today.”

Peter caught the plant bulb one-handed.

“For the girl who has everything,” he commented.

“It’s garlic.”

Peter arched one brow. “Someone has discovered your unnatural love of pasta.”

“Garlic,” she clarified, “which is used to ward off vampires.”

“And the common cold if the medical journals are to be believed.”

“I’m being serious!”

“No, you’re not.” Peter took her coat from the back of a club chair. “Nor is whoever sent this to you.”

“You don’t find this…strange?”

“At a guess, I’d say it’s meant to be funny.”

“You don’t think it’s threatening?”

“What are you being threatened with? Bad breath?” He helped her into her coat, his fingers lingering for a moment in the silk of her hair. Slipping the garlic bulb out of her hand, he tossed it on the table. At her expression, he smiled ruefully. “Grace, I wouldn’t put it past someone on the theater committee to send these out as promotion.”

“They can hardly stir themselves to put up posters and flyers. I can’t believe they’re organized enough to mass-mail garlic.”

“Right, say this was sent in earnest. It’s supposed to ward off vampires, correct? So obviously it was sent to protect you. It’s not a threat, it’s a—”

Grace put her hand up. “Fine. Don’t believe me. Just don’t humor me.”

As they slipped out into the garden, Grace wondered if Miss Coke was lurking amongst the rhododendrons.

Noting the look she threw over her shoulder, Peter asked, “Since when are you afraid of the dark?”

“Everyone’s afraid of the dark,” Grace retorted.

“Ah, you mean the great metaphysical dark.” He took her hand in his, and she treasured the warm strength of his fingers linked with hers. With Peter she was not afraid of any darkness.

It was a short walk to the fete. They could hear music and the sounds of the crowd several streets away.

The smell of damp grass and popcorn, the excited screams of children and the music of the merry-go-round greeted them as they reached the village green.

“I guess rehearsal was canceled,” Peter remarked.

Following his line of vision, Grace caught sight of Lord Ruthven. He stood in the shadows of an ancient oak. He wore his cape, and although many people wore costumes, he still received curious glances.

“That’s just asking for trouble,” Grace commented.

“Afraid he’ll incite the villagers to riot?”

“It may not be as silly as it sounds. Two cast and three crew members have quit so far. There’s a weird mood in the village these days.”

Peter grinned.

“Okay, I probably sound like an extra from
Nosferatu
.”

“The silent film?” His eyes were laughing, but he conceded, “Oh, I don’t know. Your instincts aren’t bad.”

Instinct? Grace prided herself on her analytical skills, but there wasn’t so much to analyze here. Start with a rather bad play about a vampire. Throw in a director with the same last name as the title character, a man who liked to wander around graveyards at night wearing a cape. Then what? A series of weird incidents: anonymous messages implying that a vampire walked among the village residents, free garlic, sightings of another man in a cape who might or might not be up to no good. All of which added up to what? Publicity for the show? Halloween fun? Someone’s weird sense of humor?

“There’s a rumor that the security guard who died was attacked by a vampire.”

Peter made a contemptuous sound.

“I’m serious. People are saying that there were weird marks on his neck and that his body was drained of blood.”

“Who is saying that?”

She shrugged. “It’s just a rumor.”

“It’s ridiculous.”

They watched Lord Ruthven move off through the trees. She started, “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Lord Ruthven in the day—”

But Peter interrupted, “I don’t know who that bloke is, but he’s not Lord Ruthven. Unless he’s taken Catriona’s maiden name.”

It took Grace a moment to work this out. “You think they’re not married?”

She could tell that Peter already regretted that moment of candor. He said, “I couldn’t say, but he’s not Lord Ruthven. There is no Lord Ruthven.”

So the name Ruthven was genuine? But then how could there not be a Lord Ruthven? And Catriona was not married. The good news kept coming.

“But what does that mean?” Grace persisted.

Peter studied her, his eyes colorless in the artificial lights of the fete. “It’s merely an observation. Don’t get carried away.”

Whatever,
as Grace’s former students were wont to say. But it was certainly a strange observation, and one that she planned on checking out as soon as she had the opportunity.

“What exactly would you like to do?” Peter asked. He was looking about himself with a detached curiosity. Grace wondered if this was his first fete.

The crowd was a mix of revelers and spectators. Children squealed with delight, racing from amusement to amusement. The air was alive with the smell of roasting nuts, carnival music and adult voices urging caution.

“I’m open to suggestion.”

“Then perhaps we should start with the fortune-teller.”

“Nice one. Is there a fortune-teller?”

Peter pointed out a small striped tent. A sign on an easel outside depicted a giant hand, the various lines and pressure points illustrated with numbers and signs.

Peter laughed at her enthusiastic reaction. “Are you forgetting the last time you visited a fortune-teller?”

Grace was pleased at this reminder of their shared history and forgot, for a time, that Catriona was a shapely question mark on the horizon.