Page 42 of A Snowfall of Silver

This is met with a chorus of agreement.

“I am not getting back in a car with that madman behind the wheel,” Viola insists.

“We can leave the cars here and walk,” I suggest. “It’s just around the corner. I saw it on the map.”

We make a funny kind of procession, slipping and sliding along the road, forging our way through the very air around us which has turned white and freezing. My eyes are watering, and my cheeks sting. I barely take in the outside of the theatre once we reach it, I am so relieved simply to be there. When Kit pushes at the door and it swings open underneath his hand I am not the only one to let out a weak cheer.

We tumble into the welcoming warmth of the building like a litter of overeager puppies. Even Mr Cantwell and Eileen seem to have lost their usual dignified air, bedraggled as the rest of us, with pink noses and windswept hair.

“Mr Cantwell!” a voice exclaims in tones of deepest horror. “What on earth are you doing here?”

The voice belongs to a small, anxious-looking man with a bald head, round gold spectacles, and a nervous habit of twisting his hands. “I’m Hubert Pennington, the theatre manager.” His eyes lock on to Eileen and widen comically. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he says, almost to himself. “I thought for certain that you would have turned back in this weather.”

“We missed the worst of it,” says Mr Cantwell.

“But – but we can’t hold a performance here tonight!” Mr Pennington exclaims, and I realize he looks exactly how I imagine Mole in The Wind in the Willows.

“Don’t worry about that,” says Mr Cantwell wearily. “Most of the cast are trapped in York anyway. We just need a place to stay – the boarding house has no room for us.”

I had not thought it possible for the man before me to look more anxious, but at this he turns positively grey. He shakes his head. “There isn’t anywhere else,” he says sadly. “Nowhere with any room, and of course because of the snow no one is leaving and…”

“We’ll have to go somewhere else,” Mr Cantwell says.

“I don’t see how,” Kit points out. “It’s going to be hell trying to get out of here in this weather.”

The theatre manager nods eagerly. “The main road always gets blocked off just up the hill when it snows like this,” he says. “I’m surprised you managed to make it through. I really didn’t expect…”

“He’s quite right,” Dan says. “We shouldn’t have come through ourselves, only Russ drives like an absolute demon. I thought we were going to be swallowed up in some sort of avalanche.”

“But if we can’t stay, and we can’t go, what are we supposed to do?” I ask.

There’s a silence then.

“We could stay here,” Kit says finally. “If that was all right with you, Mr Pennington?”

“Here?” Mr Cantwell, the theatre manager and Viola all exclaim in equal tones of horror.

“It couldn’t really be worse than most of the places we’ve been staying,” Kit says. “It’s warm and dry, at least. There’s a bathroom…” He turns to the manager. “Do you have any camp beds we could set up in the dressing rooms?”

Mr Pennington nods. “I’m sure we could cobble something together,” he says uncertainly.

“No worse than where we’ve been staying,” Nora says, “but those two are used to finer things.” She nods at Mr Cantwell and Eileen, who are looking rather apprehensive at the talk of camp beds.

“Oh!” the little manager squeaks. “But it would be my pleasure, indeed, my honour, to host you both at my home.” He looks as though he’s about to fall and genuflect at Eileen’s feet.

“It would be most kind of you,” Eileen says in her beautiful, stately voice. She inclines her head by the merest fraction of an inch. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate it.” Mr Pennington turns bright pink.

“I only wish I had room for all of you,” he adds weakly.

“Oh, the rest of us will be all right,” Nora says briskly, though Viola’s pursed lips tell a different story.

“Right,” the manager says, relief writ large across his face. “That’s a plan, then. I’ll have one of the lads dig out some camp beds and see about some other home comforts for you.”

“Come on, Russ, let’s get the bags,” says Kit.

“If we must,” says Russ, tugging up his scarf. I catch his eye and he smiles. “You know I live to serve you, darling.”

“Do stop fawning over Freya for a minute and see sense,” Viola says, at her most icy. “This is a ridiculous idea. Sleeping in a rundown old theatre.”