Page 13 of A Snowfall of Silver

Again, Miss Meriden gives me a slightly searching look. “Liked you, did he?”

“I’m not sure, actually,” I admit. “He said I was bizarre.”

“He must have liked you,” she says, “if he sent you to me. Now, have a seat.” She gestures to the chair in front of her desk. “And, Kit, I’m sure you have better things to be doing with your time. You may leave Miss Trevelyan safely with me.”

“I’ll drop your coat at the front desk with your parcel,” Kit says, then he gives my arm a reassuring squeeze and leaves, while Miss Meriden takes a seat behind the desk and I drop into the chair across from her.

“So, Freya… You don’t object to my calling you Freya?”

“Yes, I mean, no.” I take a second to control myself. “I don’t object – Freya is fine. I’m sorry, I’m just a bit overwhelmed. I can’t really believe… I mean, I’ve been a fan of Mr Cantwell’s for a long time.”

“I hope you told him so.” Miss Meriden sits back in her seat. “He may be an old curmudgeon but he’s absolutely not immune to flattery. Of course, he doesn’t get as much as he used to these days.”

“I did think, when Kit mentioned him, that I hadn’t read about him for a while,” I say. “But the magazines I get back home in Penlyn are always at least two weeks out of date, and have to go through our neighbour Mrs Bastion first, because she’s absolutely mad for all the Hollywood gossip.”

“Hmmm.” Miss Meriden makes a noise in the back of her throat. “Best not to mention Hollywood around Mr Cantwell.”

I wonder briefly why, but Miss Meriden continues. “He has been off the radar for a while; this touring production is a little below his touch.” She sniffs here, as though it’s a little below hers as well. “But needs must, I suppose. And he managed to get Eileen to come on board, which makes it quite a different matter.”

“Eileen?” I ask.

“Eileen Turner. She’s playing Lady Bracknell.”

My mouth drops open of its own accord. “Eileen Turner.” The words come out in a croak. “But she’s retired!”

“Not for Mr Cantwell, she’s not.” The pride in Miss Meriden’s face is unmistakable. And rightly so. Rhys Cantwell may be a big name in directing, but Eileen Turner is a grand dame of the theatre, a true, bona fide star. Even in Penlyn her name is golden.

“I can’t believe it.” I grip the sides of my chair. “Is she here, in the theatre? Now?” I feel dizzy.

Miss Meriden shakes her head. “No, but she will be coming in later for another wardrobe fitting.”

“Eileen Turner,” I say again, “will be here in this theatre, where I am sitting. It’s madness. How can I ever leave a place where things like this happen?”

“Do I take it you are not planning on staying in London?” Miss Meriden asks.

“I’m not sure.”

It all comes out then. Growing up in Cornwall with a dream that felt so right and yet so different to everything I knew. How I ran away and came to London. How I can’t explain to my family that it is vital I stay.

“When my sister Lou came to London it was different,” I say. “She took charge of it all – got herself a job in an office so that she could write in her spare time. Everyone just accepted it and then she started writing stories too, and now she works at the magazine, writing for them and doing editorial work. But I didn’t come to London with a sensible job waiting for me. Perhaps that was a mistake, but I’m here and I feel like now I need to at least try. What if I go home and then I don’t ever make it back again?”

“So why not do what your sister did in the next two weeks?” Miss Meriden asks. “Why not get a job and take some acting classes alongside?”

“I don’t have an awful lot of accomplishments that may be helpful in acquiring a job,” I admit, making a clean breast of it. “I’m absolutely hopeless at typing which might throw a spanner in the works – Lou can type about a thousand words a minute. I don’t know shorthand. I’m useless at anything involving numbers. I could learn, I suppose, over time … but I don’t want to waste my life learning things I don’t care a bit about. And I want to move to London now.”

“Do you have any other skills?” Miss Meriden says.

I shake my head. “I help out on the farm. I read, and I make costumes. That’s it.”

“Costumes?” Miss Meriden tilts her head like a sparrow.

“I love sewing,” I say. “And I’m handy with a needle, which is lucky because no one else in the family is, except Pa. Anyway I’ve always made the costumes for myself and any kind of amateur production I’ve been able to be part of, and I love it. I can imagine what the character will wear and how I’ll feel when I’m wearing it, how it will look onstage, against the scenery.”

Miss Meriden places her elbows on the desk in front of her and steeples her fingers, regarding me with a steady, searching sort of gaze that makes me want to wriggle in my seat. “Perhaps there is something I can do to help. Our wardrobe mistress Nora Felton needs an assistant – someone to help with the costumes, but also to act as a dresser, for the quick changes and so on during the performance. Is that something that might interest you?”

I press my hand to my chest. “A job – here?”

“Well, not here,” Miss Meriden says. “On the tour. It’s six weeks, almost right up until Christmas, and it starts next week. I know it’s not acting work, but if Mr Cantwell has seen something in you that he likes, he may be able to offer you some advice, a little polish. I couldn’t make any promises, mind.”