Page 44 of A Snowfall of Silver

Kit nods. “She would,” he says. Then he pushes through the doors to the next room. “Look at this!” I hear him call and I follow the sound of his voice. Stacked neatly on their sides, against the end of the room, are dozens of pieces of scenery, hand-painted and beautiful. There are intricate woodland scenes, fairy groves, deliciously detailed drawing rooms, even desert sands shimmering under an achingly hot sun.

“I think a lot of these are quite old.” Kit’s voice is low, reverent. He handles the fragile painted flats carefully. “Some of them may even be from when the theatre opened.”

“This whole place is magic, isn’t it?” I say.

“Absolutely magic,” he agrees.

We leave and climb up dozens of narrow steps until we’re high above the stage. When he reaches the top Kit turns and holds out his hand, his fingers wrapping around mine as he pulls me up to join him. We sit up there, where the ropes for the rigging live, our legs dangling over the side. I produce a slightly squashed piece of cake that I had taken from Mr Pennington’s hamper and wrapped in paper, and we share it between us.

“One day they’ll put your plays on here,” I say.

He laughs. “You’ve never even read my play. It might be terrible.”

“It won’t be,” I say, and I’m sure of it. Then, after a pause, and because I’ve been dying to ask: “Could I read your play?”

“If you like.” Kit seems totally unruffled.

“You don’t mind?” I ask, feeling a little put out by his relaxed attitude. “I thought writers were meant to be all tortured about this sort of thing. I’ve been wanting to read it for weeks. I thought you might ask me to.”

He grins. “I suppose someone has to read it some time. I’d like it if it was you.” Then he looks at me, his eyes dancing. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you earlier, I had no idea you wanted to.”

“Yes, you did!”

“No, I didn’t, honestly. I’ve been hoping you’d ask.”

We sit in companionable silence for a while until somewhere in the distance a clock strikes five. When we return to the dressing room we find only Nora, sprawled across her bed, a magazine in her hands and a half-eaten bar of chocolate at her side. Her feet are bare and I notice her toenails are painted a dark, vampy red.

“My sister Lou writes for that magazine,” I say. “She writes the Lady Amelia story.”

“Your sister writes Lady Amelia?” Nora says, laying down her magazine. “But Lady Amelia is too thrilling! Wait, don’t tell me you’re Lou’s sister?”

I nod. “Yes, I am. I’ve mentioned her to you before.”

“Oh, but I didn’t put the pieces together at all!” Nora exclaims. “I’ve only met her once or twice at parties. She’s wonderful. And what a talent.”

“I suppose,” I say grudgingly, as only a little sister can. Nora is mine and I don’t like the idea of Lou knowing her first one bit. I know I’m being childish, but this is the first time in my life I’ve carved out something away from home and my family, and even though I love them, I want this to be just for me.

“She’s a great writer,” Kit says admiringly. “To keep a serialization like that going at the pace she does is quite something. I heard she was turning it into a novel.”

“Maybe,” I say doubtfully. My sister, the novelist. It makes her sound awfully grand.

“Where have the others gone?” Kit asks then. I think he is changing the subject on my behalf.

“They’re on a mission to find a hot meal,” Nora says. “If they manage to find one, they’re going to send someone back for us.”

“I hope they do,” I say fervently. “I’m famished.”

“You shock me,” Nora replies. She pushes the chocolate bar over to us. “Have some chocolate.”

We break up the chocolate and sit, sharing it and chatting contentedly for a while, before there is a thumping on the door, and Dan appears, muffled up to his eyes in an enormous blue scarf, and looking like some sort of Arctic explorer.

“They’ve taken pity on us at the pub,” he says. “The landlady says she can rustle us up some beans on toast. Wrap up – it’s a blizzard out there!”

The four of us battle our way out and along the street to the pub where the others are waiting. We’re the only guests.

The pub is warm, and the landlady, Sophie, is extremely welcoming. Sophie is small and round with luxuriant gold hair and green eyes that tilt up a little at the corners like a cat. Nora has been staring at her ever since she arrived, uncharacteristically tongue-tied.

We sit at a long table in front of a merrily crackling fire, and Sophie places steaming plates in front of us, thick toasted brown bread spread with butter and topped with baked beans from a tin. It is, honestly, one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten.