A Christmas Homecoming Read Online Free PDF

James observed.
    “They probably don’t.” Vincent looked at him witheringly. “Poor devils have little choice. We can’t all be actors.”
    “Indeed we can’t,” Joshua retorted. “Not even all those of us who try.”
    Lydia laughed, then winced as apparently someone kicked her under the table.
    Douglas Paterson looked at her with quick appreciation, then straightened his face again and pretended he was not amused.
    After the meal Joshua asked if he and Caroline might speak with Netheridge. He showed them intohis study, a large, extremely comfortable room with leather-covered armchairs and a fire burning briskly in the hearth. A huge oak desk was littered with the implements of writing: pens, papers, two inkwells, a sand tray, sticks of sealing wax in various shades of red, matches and tapers, and several penknives and paper knives. The walls were lined with books, set by subject rather than size, as if they were there for use.
    Caroline wondered why Joshua had asked her to accompany him.
    “I can’t help,” she had said, meaning it as an apology, not an excuse.
    “Yes, you can,” he had told her with a tiny, twisted smile. “If you are there at least he will hesitate to lose his temper. So will I.”
    Unfortunately Douglas Paterson had also decided to join them. Since he was Alice’s fiancé it was difficult to protest his presence.
    Netheridge stood in front of the fire. Joshua accepted the invitation to be seated, even though it placed him at something of a disadvantage. Caroline sat opposite him, already feeling defensive, in spite of the agreeable smiles on everyone’s faces. Douglas Patersonstood by the window, his back to the ever-increasing storm.
    “Well, Mr. Fielding, how is it going?” Netheridge asked. “Do you have everything you require? Is there anything else we can provide for you?”
    Caroline felt her throat tighten.
    “We have read through the script a couple of times, to see how it works,” Joshua replied. “That is customary for a new piece. What seems powerful on the page does not always translate to natural speech.”
    Netheridge grinned but he did not interrupt.
    It was Paterson who spoke. “Is that the beginning of an excuse to say you cannot perform it?”
    Joshua swung around in his chair to face him. “No, Mr. Paterson. If that was what I had meant to say, I would’ve been plainer about it. Mr. Netheridge deserves the truth, as far as we can discern it.”
    “The truth is that Alice has some rather impractical dreams, and it would be better if you didn’t indulge her in them,” Paterson said bluntly.
    Caroline remembered Alice’s face as she sat in the audience and listened to her words read on the stage: the awe, the excitement and hope, the embarrassment.Joshua must make the play work, she decided, although she had no idea how.
    “As I see it, it is a work that needs some attention. Possibly the order of certain scenes should be changed, so that we can give it the passion and drive it requires to move it from one medium to another,” Joshua answered Paterson quietly but firmly.
    “So are you saying you can do it?” Netheridge asked directly.
    Joshua hesitated for only a second, but Netheridge saw it. His jaw hardened. “You doubt it!” he challenged him. “Be honest, man. Alice is my only child. She’s willful, a dreamer, perhaps a little naïve, but I’ll not have her made a fool of, by you or anyone else.”
    Paterson smiled, and the tightness in his shoulders eased a little. The shadow of a smile softened his face.
    Netheridge looked at Joshua. “Are you prepared to work at this thing and make it right? Give me a straight answer, man.”
    Joshua took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. The clock on the mantelpiece over the fire moved two seconds. “Yes, I am.”
    “Right! Then what is it you want from me, Mr. Fielding?The party is set for Boxing Day, December twenty-sixth. Can’t change that now,” Netheridge said with a frown.
    “I