Page 9 of A Snowfall of Silver

I told her I could audition in a potato sack and still make it work, but in the morning reality set in and I realized they really were too shabby. I crept into her room and helped myself to her wardrobe, borrowing a pale, mint green dress, belted at the waist with a skirt that flares out when I move, cut to several inches above my ankle. The shape and the belt mean it fits reasonably well. It is perhaps a tiny bit long and a bit too tight across my chest and my hips, but I’m used to living in cast-offs. As the third daughter I’m not sure I’ve ever worn anything made to fit me properly.

I could let the dress out myself, but even I know that’s a step too far. I have technically stolen it, after all. (Though, really, it’s only borrowing, and this is what sisters are for.)

Now, standing in front of the mirror, I stroke the material. It is soft and smells faintly of Lou’s bluebell perfume. It makes me feel stylish and grown up, and I stand a little taller in it.

I’ve been making my own costumes for years now – in fact, I’m the only one of my sisters who is any good with a needle – and I know how important clothes are, how they can change the way you feel, the way you move and act. In this cool green dress I too have become cool and unruffled, a confident young woman about town. I sweep my hair up in to a smooth chignon, pinning it back neat and elegant, and apply some of the lipstick that I swiped from Lou’s dressing table. It is red as a ripe apple, the perfect finishing touch.

The girl staring back at me in the mirror glitters with a diamond-hard determination. I look so confident that I even fool myself.

I glide happily downstairs. There is a note on the table in the hallway, propped against a vase full of beautiful roses, smelling heavenly, the colour of plum jam. I recognize Lou’s untidy scrawl.

Dear Freya,

Didn’t want to wake you. Gone to work – help yourself to whatever you can scare up in the larder. The tea is in the yellow tin from home. There’s a key on the table, and a map to help you find your way about. Good luck with the audition – Robert says we will open some champagne later to toast your bright future!

Lx

P.S. I know exactly what you’re thinking, and while I do not doubt that you have already raided my wardrobe, no you CAN’T borrow my good coat.

I make my way through the house and down the stairs to the basement kitchen. It is small and the remnants of this morning’s breakfast languish by the sink on white china plates stamped with blue flowers. When I make my way back up to the sitting room it is with quite a decent picnic: brown bread and sharp cheese, an apple and a few ginger biscuits. I put a record on the record player and eat on the floor in the sitting room, lying on the rug on my stomach, careful not to crease the dress. I leaf through several magazines that Lou has left lying around. One of them is the one Lou works for, and it contains her own story about a fiery murderess called Lady Amelia, which is – though I wouldn’t want to inflate her ego too much by actually telling her so – absolutely thrilling.

I think for a moment about Lou’s life and how happy she seems. I try to ignore the familiar pang of envy, the greedy feeling that I want to take a piece of this for myself.

The house is still and quiet. I turn on to my back, staring at the ceiling and listening to the crackle of the jazz record playing. Kit must be at the theatre by now. He told me to come down in the afternoon, and it is technically after noon now.

I get to my feet, brush and straighten my skirts, and head for the mirror over the fireplace where I carefully reapply my lipstick. Leaning forward I plant my lips on my own reflection, leaving it there, like a brand on the glass: a perfect, red kiss.

Sweeping up the key and map off the hallway table, I pause only to shrug on Lou’s good coat, a rich belted brown tweed with a faux fox fur collar that tickles my neck, and a daring flash of green silk from the lining. Then I sail out of the door.

I turn out of Lou’s quiet road, towards the hum and thrum of the city. The streets are full of busy, bustling people who all seem to be in a rush to get somewhere. I like feeling like one of them. After all, I have somewhere to get to as well.

I love seeing the women in their modern, colourful clothes, hearing the roar of the traffic, staring, bewitched, into enormous shop windows full of everything from clothes to toys to suitcases to kitchenware to towering patisserie. It all feels so big, the buildings stretching up endlessly into skies the flat grey of a dreary November day. There are narrow roads, cobbled and twisting, springing off vast streets, wide enough to give a confused feeling of space coupled with the thronging and slightly claustrophobic crowds.

Not wishing to appear to be a tourist, I try to look at the map as little as possible, and as a result get lost several times on the way to the theatre. After one wrong turn I find myself outside Hatchards, its tall windows full of beautiful books, and I press my fingers briefly to the glass before stepping through the front door.

The inside is dark and cool, with crowded shelves everywhere I look. I browse, running my fingers over spines, gently leafing through pages, enjoying the feel of the paper, the quiet of the room. Then I make my way slowly up the staircase, my fingers hovering lightly over the bannister, breathing in the lovely smell that only comes from books – a smell that’s something like smoke and the way the earth smells after it rains.

I find the drama section and am thrilled to spot The Importance of Being Earnest, bound in pale green, with the title picked out in swirling gold. I practically skip downstairs to buy it, gleefully convinced that it must be a sign. The copy that I have at home is so old and well read that it is almost falling apart. It’s a story about two men – Algernon and Jack – who have both created fictional personas that they can use to avoid doing things they don’t like. Everything goes well until they fall in love, and the women they’re in love with think they’re both called Ernest – that’s when things get complicated and really, really funny. I’ve never seen it performed onstage before, and it’s another reason I’m excited to find out what’s going on in Kit’s world. Perhaps I’ll be able to sneak a peek at some of the performance if they’re rehearsing.

Thankfully, it is not a long walk from the bookshop to the theatre. The theatre itself is tucked down a rather unassuming alley, and I think I must be growing immune to all the spectacle around me because it’s only after I look at it for a moment that I realize how lovely it is.

The front is stone, painted a creamy white, complete with pillars that look vaguely classical. On the first floor, the marquee is not lit and the white sign where the name of the play currently being performed would stand is empty. The floor above has three tall Georgian-looking windows, nestled between the pillars, and several ornate stone wreaths. The top floor stretches up into a peak, giving the whole place the feeling of a modern acropolis.

I’m here, my heart sings. I’ve arrived. This is it.

I push eagerly against the gold-rimmed doors, but they’re locked. Undeterred, I walk down the side of the building and around to the back where a shabby and unassuming door stands propped open.

The stage door.

I hesitate only for a second, my heart pounding in my chest, and then, lifting my chin and taking a deep breath, I push my way through.

It’s a bit of an anticlimax to find myself standing in a dimly lit corridor with doors coming off either side. I’m not exactly sure what I had been expecting – something gilded and imposing, perhaps. Rousing orchestral music at least.

“Can I help you, miss?” a voice comes from my left. I swing around to find myself looking into a sort of booth and at a man who I guess must be at least ninety years old. He is small, and largely hidden by a desk that reaches up to his chest. His face has the look of a wizened apple that has collapsed in on itself, his eyes are like two dark currants and a wisp of white hair sits on top of a mostly bald pate. He smiles at me politely, and his smile is full of large, very white teeth, the effect of which is slightly startling.

I hesitate. “I’m looking for Kit. He told me I could call around.”

“Mr Kit, is it?” The old man’s toothy smile grows wider. “Always seems to know the prettiest girls, that one.”