A Christmas Homecoming Read Online Free PDF Page B

understand,” Joshua replied. “We will have to work very hard. I will need the time with no interruption, other than for meals. Possibly I might request to eat in the theater room, if the cook would be kind enough to make something simple that can be served there. And perhaps Mrs. Netheridge would help my wife to find a few articles we might borrow as props to dress the stage?”
    “Done,” Netheridge said. “She’ll be delighted. What else?”
    “A good supply of paper and ink, more than I thought to bring with me. But most of all I would appreciate your assistance and even support in explaining to Miss Netheridge that all this is necessary if we are to make the play a success—”
    “A success?” Paterson interrupted. “We’re doing this as a Christmas gift for Alice, not to see it performed on the London stage. How on earth can you judge what is a success? If it pleases her that’s all that matters. If it isn’t going to work, then perhaps the most honest thingwould be to tell her so now, to save her from being humiliated in front of her friends, and her family’s friends, the people she will mix with long after you all have gone back to London, or wherever it is you come from.” There were two spots of pink in his cheeks, and he had moved a step closer to them.
    “I judge a success as something that entertains and enthralls an audience, Mr. Paterson,” Joshua replied, his voice gathering emotion. “Something that suspends their disbelief for an hour, makes them laugh or cry, think more deeply about their lives or create new dreams in their minds. And a failure is something that bores them, has no integrity within itself, and does not for a moment take them somewhere they have never been before. If we are to capture and hold their imagination, then we must iron out the inconsistencies and improve on the strengths.”
    “Then why are you here instead of in the theater doing that?” Paterson asked, but his tone had lost its belligerence. He looked puzzled and anxious.
    Caroline realized how far out of his depth he was. He did not know Alice as well as he had imagined he did, and realizing this frightened him.
    “Because Alice needs your support,” she answered for Joshua. “When you have created something as she has, there is so much of yourself in it that it becomes very hard to accept criticism. We all need praise, even when we are being shown how our work could be better. Why, everyone needs their loved ones to believe in them, to believe that they can succeed.”
    Douglas chewed his lip, glanced at Netheridge, then back not at Caroline but at Joshua. “If you change it into your work, what will be left of it that is hers?” There was uncertainty in his eyes, and still a degree of challenge.
    Netheridge nodded. “Yes, Mr. Fielding. Douglas is right. If you change it as much as you say, whatever our friends think, she’ll know it isn’t hers. And she’s honest, Alice is. She won’t take the credit for your work.”
    Caroline looked at him still standing in front of the fire: a self-made man who owned more than all his ancestors put together, a father who loved his only child but did not believe in her talent. And perhaps he was right not to. Joshua had said the play, as it stood, was unperformable. What answer could Joshua give that would be even remotely honest?
    “I’m not going to rewrite it for her,” Joshua said softly. “I’m going to help her rewrite it herself. It will still be hers, but with a lot more knowledge of what stagecraft can do.”
    “Ah.” Netheridge looked pleased. “Good,” he said firmly. He turned to look at Paterson. “Told you, Douglas, got a good man here. Right you are, Mr. Fielding. You’ll get everything you need from me. Thank you for your honesty.”
    Joshua rose to his feet and straightened his shoulders. Perhaps only Caroline, who knew him so well, could see the overwhelming relief in him.
    When they were outside the door and it was closed again