Page 72 of A Snowfall of Silver
“Come in,” I hear her voice call and I push the door open. “Freya!” she exclaims, startled, taking in my flushed cheeks, my dishevelled, just-run-through-the-snow appearance.
“Miss Meriden, it’s so good to see you!” I say. And then, “I need to see Mr Cantwell,” I blurt out with no finesse at all. “Do you know where he is?”
She turns the gold watch at her wrist to look at its face. “We’re going to meet a producer for dinner. He’s due any minute.”
I sigh gustily with relief. “May I wait with you?” I ask. “There’s something I simply must talk to him about.”
“Of course,” she says, gesturing to the seat across from her. “Why don’t you sit? I must say, I’m glad to see you, we didn’t get a chance to talk after we got back and I wondered…”
The door swings open.
“Blast it, Meriden, it’s bloody snowing again and that ass Thurlow is going to want us to traipse halfway across town…” Rhys Cantwell notices me and stops, his bushy white brows shooting up.
“Miss Trevelyan. About time you showed your face around here.”
“S-sir?” I say, momentarily thrown.
“I understand no one’s seen hide nor hair of you since we got back to London. Shouldn’t you have turned up asking me for a job by now?”
“Well, actually, that’s why I’m here.” I twist my hands anxiously in front of me.
“Good. I understand Nora has been very pleased with your work, and I’m sure…”
“I’m not here about my old job.” I glance at Miss Meriden whose face is a smooth mask of polite interest. “I’m here about a different job.”
Mr Cantwell sighs. He looks for a moment as though he has a toothache. “If it’s acting work you want, Freya, there’s nothing right now,” he says heavily. “You do need training. I can perhaps introduce you to…”
“No, it’s not acting work I want either. But training is precisely what I’m here about,” I break in eagerly. “I realized I don’t want my old job, not as a wardrobe assistant or as an understudy.” I pause. “The job I really want … is yours!”
“Mine?” His brow crumples. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I want to direct,” I say, and I know as I say it that I do want it, more than anything in the world, and it feels real this time, not like a dream I can’t remember being without. “I’m not made to be an actress, I know that now, and I thought it was the end of everything, but then it hit me – what I loved, all along, was making something. It’s the creative vision, the idea of bringing all the pieces together into something better than the sum of its parts. Just like you said.”
“I said that, did I?” he mutters weakly, casting a hopeless glance at Miss Meriden, who is pressing her lips together as though to try and hide a smile.
“Something very like it,” I reply. “When we were in the abbey working on Kit’s play, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alive or full of joy than I did then. And as soon as I understood, I just had to come and ask you, Mr Cantwell, whether you might consider taking me on, as as an assistant.”
He frowns. “I don’t have the time to train someone.”
“I wouldn’t be a burden,” I insist. “I want to learn, and I want to learn from you. I can do this. Give me this opportunity and let me prove it to you.”
“You did say she showed excellent instincts,” Miss Meriden breaks in.
Mr Cantwell glowers.
“Oh, did you?” I ask, delighted.
“Harrumph,” says Rhys Cantwell.
“And you know you could use another pair of hands,” Miss Meriden continues ruthlessly. “I’m stretched desperately thin, and things are falling through the cracks – why, look what happened at Runleigh. I’m sure I could squeeze a little out of the budget.”
I hold my breath as Mr Cantwell glares at me. “It would be a very little out of the budget,” he says finally.
“Oh, Mr Cantwell!” I exclaim, flinging myself at him and kissing him on the cheek before whirling round to do the same to Miss Meriden. Miss Meriden laughs then, a startlingly loud and unruly arpeggio, quite at odds with the rest of her.
“You won’t regret it!” I turn back to the director. “I promise you won’t.”
“I already told you, Miss Trevelyan: don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
