Song Above the Clouds (2 page)

“
John
!”
She made no attempt to keep the naive delight out of her voice—she couldn’t have managed it, anyway. “I didn’t know you’d got here yet!”

“Hello,
Candy
! Didn’t you?”

He stood in the doorway, smiling at her rather absently. Over six feet tall, and as ruggedly handsome as a film star, John Ryland had always had an overwhelming effect on women, and in Candy’s opinion at least, there was no other man in the length and breadth of the earth who could possibly bear comparison with him. This fact showed quite clearly in her face as she stood looking at him, waiting for him to come over and ask her what she had been doing with herself in the past few weeks, and to Sue, and possibly also to the other man present, the transparent eagerness in her eyes was almost painfully revealing.

But John didn’t go over to her. Instead, he hurried
forward with outstretched hand to greet the man still standing beside the piano.

“Well, well, so you made it. I hope you had a decent drive down. The roads round here probably gave you a spot of trouble—they can seem a bit like a maze, sometimes.”

The stranger inclined
his head in a gesture that could, have been thought faintly condescending. “Thank you, I had a very good journey.”

“Oh, well, that’s fine.” John sounded relieved. He hesitated, glancing at Candy and Sue. “Has everybody met the Conte di Lucca? Or is it up to me to make the introductions?”

Candy said nothing, but Sue, viewing the attractive foreigner whom she had so far ignored with sudden keen interest, shook her neat dark head emphatically. “I haven’t met anybody—I’ve been tied to the telephone ever since I got here.” She held her hand out to the Conte, and he bowed over it, while John completed the introduction and then glanced at Candy. With a clumsy attempt at teasing, he said
:

“We mustn’t forget Sue’s little sister.”

Candy flushed, feeling oddly hurt and embarrassed
.
But the Conte di Lucca turned and smiled at her.

“The Signorina and I have not yet been introduced,” he said
. “
But I would not say that we haven’t met. We share a love of Chopin.”

“Oh, you’ve been talking music, have you?” John looked mildly surprised, but he couldn’t by any stretch of the imagination have been said to look resentful. He introduced them formally, and then he added: “The
Conte comes from Italy, Candy. Perhaps he’ll give you some advice about your singing.”

“Singing?” The Conte raised his narrow dark eyebrows.

“Yes.” John glanced at his watch with the same sickening air of abstraction. “Candy’s quite keen on singing.” Something came back to him, and he went on: “Sue tells me she’s just had a bit of a disappointment in that direction
... missed an audition or something, so she needs cheering up. I’m sorry about that, Candy, it was hard luck.”

She said nothing, and he ran his hands through his thick dark hair, and looked at his watch a second time. “Well, I think I’ll go and tidy up before dinner. I’ll see you later, Conte—remind me to ask you about that great-uncle of yours and his archaeological interests. He should make good material.”

The Italian inclined his head very slightly. John left the room, and Candy stood quite still, looking rather like a crestfallen child. The bewilderment in her face was the bewilderment of a small girl who has suddenly made the discovery that grown-ups can be quite incomprehensible at times. But the hurt just beginning to dawn in her eyes had nothing at all to do with childishness, and her sister, whose eyebrows had ascended a trifle, didn’t fail to notice the fact
.

“John must be absolutely flattened out after that drive down from London.” Her voice, a little too bright and rallying, broke sharply into the silence that had fallen, and Candy jumped as if she had been awakened from a trance.

“Yes,” she said. “He must be.”

She heard Sue ask the Conte di Lucca if he were not tired, too, after his journey, but she didn’t hear his answer. John—her John—had gone away from her, and this man who had come back from Rome in his place was somebody utterly different. Sue, and the Italian, and everything else around her seemed a long way away. Nothing was quite real. She felt incapable of movement, and for several minutes she remained motionless, hearing nothing and saying nothing, until at last Sue took her in hand, and bustled her off to change for dinner. The only thing she noticed, as she walked towards the door, was the look in the eyes of the Conte di Lucca as he watched her go. He had curiously expressive eyes, and at this moment they were alight with a kind of detached sympathy. She had the feeling, suddenly, that he read not only her mind but her soul, and that the pity he felt for her was the pity he might have felt for a child crying over a lost Teddy Bear. He understood her unhappiness, but for him it was very trivial.

She was glad when the door had closed behind her, and she was safe, for a time, from the cool penetration of those alert brown eyes.

CHAPTER TWO

THE dining-room at the Old Rectory was panelled in white, and in daylight its long windows looked over the splendours of an eighteenth-century rose garden on to a gentle panorama of undulating pastureland, with the squat grey tower of the little village church just visible through the branches of the elm tree beyond the orchard. Candy loved the view, as she loved everything about the house, but on this October evening long curtains of aubergine velvet had already been drawn across the windows, and the candelabra that adorned the dining-table tall candles had been lit. The room looked charming, for the thick, expensive carpet that flowed into every corner matched the curtains in colour, and the polished table was ablaze with silver and bright with flowers, but at the same time on this particular evening Candy thought it all looked a little cold and formal, and despite the central heating she shivered as she put the finishing touches to the bowl of fruit she had been arranging. For the last half hour she had been in the kitchen, helping Mrs. Ryland and her faithful ‘daily’ with some of the preparations—partly because she liked to be useful, and partly because she didn’t feel very much like joining the chattering, aperitif-consuming party in the drawing-room. John was in there, she knew, discussing Rome with the Conte di Lucca, and Sue,
elegant and sparkling in clinging emerald brocade, was
in there too, but
Candy
had the peculiar feeling that there was no place for her amongst them, so instead she made her way to the kitchen, where Mrs. Wren, the ‘daily’, was basting pheasants and talking about the new Vicar, and Alison Ryland, her black velvet dinner-dress covered by an overall, was decorating an enormous gateau with cherries and whipped cream. They looked at
Candy
with absent-minded, indulgent smiles—thinking vaguely what a nice child she was—and found her little jobs to do, but neither of them paid any particular attention to her, and for that she was grateful. She polished glasses and filled pepper-pots and, finally, arranged the fruit. And then, just as she placed the last burnished orange in position, the little carriage clock on the mantelpiece chimed eight, followed almost immediately by the wheezing grandfather in the hall, and Mrs. Wren tore herself away from her pheasants and emerged from the kitchen to beat the gong for dinner.

Candy heard the drawing-room door open, and the sound of voices and laughter drawing nearer, and she stiffened a little
as she waited by the sideboard. She was tense because so much depended on what happened when John came into the room—on what he said to her, how he looked at her. It could be that she had imagined the change in him, that she was being oversensitive ... or it could simply be that his trip to Italy had exhausted him in some way, that he just wasn’t himself.

As he came into the room in the wake of the others she looked at him eagerly, and he felt her eyes upon him, and grinned. For a moment her heart lifted; she felt the beginnings of a wild surge of relief. And then she realized that
he wasn’t really seeing her—not, anyway, as she wanted him to see her. He had smiled at her automatically, but his thoughts were somewhere quite different. In Rome, perhaps.

As the thought struck her for the first time, with all its implications, she swallowed, and
Colonel Ryland, white-haired and benevolent, glanced at her sharply and told her that she looked tired. Silhouetted against the glowing aubergine of the curtains she looked very slight and fragile, an insubstantial figure in a slim dress of silver-grey shantung, and as they sat down Sue looked at her keenly too. She had been placed on the Colonel’s left, which meant that the Conte di Lucca was on her other side, and John nowhere near her—an arrangement which normally would have disappointed her a little, but which at the moment she simply found rather a relief. She wanted nothing more than to be left alone, and as John and Alison Ryland, with able assistance from Sue and the Colonel, kept the conversation running almost incessantly she leant back a little in her chair, withdrawing herself from the others. She had no appetite, but as the skilfully prepared courses came and went before her she did her best to eat, recognizing that if she did so she would at least draw less attention to herself.

And after a time she began to realize that she wasn’t the only person present who was inclined to be silent. The Conte di Lucca, she noticed, rarely spoke unless it was absolutely necessary. From time to time the others plied him with questions about Italy, and particularly about life in modern Rome, with which he seemed well acquainted, but for a good deal of the time he said nothing whatsoever, and glancing at him Candy got the impression, once or twice, that he wasn’t really conscious of his surroundings. To her his detachment was so noticeable—though she didn’t think anyone else around the dinner-table was aware of it—that despite her own dull bewilderment it caught her attention, and she found herself studying him surreptitiously. He seemed to be brooding on something, and as she watched him it struck her suddenly that when his face was in repose he looked like a man for whom life had become rather tasteless.

And then Sue said something funny, and he laughed with infectious boyish amusement, looking utterly transformed.
Candy
decided that her imagination had been running away with her, and as Mrs. Ryland led the move to the drawing-room she left the table with relief.

Outside the dining-room door Sue turned to her, looking anxious.

“Listen, Candy, are you all right? You hardly touched anything at dinner, and you look sort of—well...
”
She paused. She knew quite well what was the matter with Candy, and she felt wretched about it, but she didn’t know what to say—she didn’t even know whether it would be wise to say anything, at this point. “I know it isn’t just the audition,” she ventured, clumsily feeling her way. “It isn’t, is it?”

Candy bit her lip, fighting a childish urge to burst into tears on the spot.
“I’ll pour the coffee,” she said, and abruptly she moved away. Later on she might have to talk to Sue about it—well, she’d have to say something, at least—but she didn’t need to do it now.
Her fingers shook as she manipulated the heavy silver coffee-pot, but Sue took her cup without a word, and she knew that for the next hour or so she was safe. And then the men came in, and without looking up she poured more coffee.

And, almost before she realized it, John was standing
over her.

“Hello, Candy.” There was an uncertain smile on his lips—an odd smile.

“Hello, John.” Her voice was admirably cool and natural, and the effort behind it didn’t even show in her face. With a hand that she was fiercely willing to remain steady she held a cup out to him. “What was Rome like?”

“Rome was amazing. You’d like it.” He sipped his coffee, and glanced down at her, “You’ll go there some day. Everybody should.”

With detachment, she reflected that since dinner his attitude to her seemed to have changed slightly. It was as if he had suddenly recollected her existence, and it troubled him.

“Did you get all the material you needed?” She asked the question automatically, and was grateful for the sudden arrival on her lap of Mrs. Ryland’s Abyssinian cat. It gave her something to do with her hands, now that her coffee-pouring duties were temporarily fulfilled.

“Yes, I got pretty well everything. And if there are any gaps left di Lucca will fill them in.” He glanced at the Italian, now seated beside Sue on the other side of the room. “The programme will deal with
modern
Roman society—high society, you might say—and I shouldn’t think there’s much he doesn’t know about that particular subject. His following me over is a bit of luck, actually—I didn’t know he was here until I ran into him in London the other day.”

He had been back, then, for several days at least. That was obvious. He seemed to realize that he had betrayed the fact, and to feel vaguely uncomfortable about it, but he didn’t attempt to explain why Candy hadn’t known he was in England. He hadn’t even said, so far, that he had missed her, but now that her mind was clearing a little that didn’t surprise her—he obviously hadn’t missed her. Something had happened in Rome that had changed things completely. She was going to have to adjust to the fact, that was all. She didn’t yet know how she was going to adjust to it, but the effort had got to be made.

For something to say, she asked him whether he had met the Conte di Lucca in Rome, and for a moment she thought that he looked a little odd—that his embarrassment increased slightly.

“Yes
...
we were introduced by a—by a sort of contact of mine.” He set his coffee cup down, and stroked the cat. “Listen, Candy—” he began.

And then Sue’s voice interrupted them.

“Come over here, Candy. We’re talking about you.” John tu
rn
ed away, and she slowly stood up and moved over to stand beside her sister. As she reached them, the Italia
n
got to his feet.

“Darling,” said Sue, with a swift, faintly apologetic smile, “I’m going to ask you to do something—or rather, the Conte is.”

The Conte smiled at her too, and in a detached way she noticed that there was a good deal of charm and sweetness about the smile. “I should not ask,” he said. “You are perhaps tired.”

Her bewilderment showed in her face, and he smiled again. “It is only,” he said, “that I would so much like to hear you sing,
signorina
.”

“Oh!” she said. Her face, which had been rather white, was suddenly suffused with delicate colour. “I—I couldn’t sing
now
!”

Sue glanced up at her. “Why ever not? After all, you were to have sung to-night. There’s a piano over there, and the Conte says he’ll accompany you.”

“Oh, no!” Candy’s colour deserted her, leaving her, if anything, paler than before. “I really couldn’t—I mean,” hastily, “there’s nothing to hear.” She looked at the Conte. “You’d be very disappointed—my voice isn’t world-shattering, or anything...
”

“But it is a charming voice, your sister tells me. And you were to have sung for Signor Caspelli to-night.”

Once again Candy became conscious of something stricken in the depths of the brown eyes, and she hesitated, feeling a little ashamed of her own abruptness. “I’m a coward,” she explained simply, “I don’t expect I should have been able to sing in front of Signor Caspelli
when it came to the point.”

“I don’t think you are a coward,
signorina
.

“Go on, Candy—sing something,” There was an undercurrent of meaning in her sister’s voice; Sue undoubtedly thought she was behaving like a child.

“Sing what you would have sung for Caspelli,” urged the Conte. “I should like so much to hear you.” His gentle, courteous insistence was very difficult to resist. Candy capitulated.

“
I was to have sung
Caro Nome
,”
she told him, adding hesitantly
:
“You know...
?
”

Of course ...
Rigoletto
.”
He stood up, walking to the piano, then waited for her to join him. As she did so, his dark eyes smiled in
t
o hers in a way that gave her a strange courage. “Don’t be nervous,” he advised softly. “Remember, even if you sing badly—which I think you won’t—it is not the end of the world. There are worse things in life even than making oneself look or sound foolish. I think you know that already.”

For a moment his gaze held hers, and then he sat down, and his fingers moved over the keyboard, bringing Verdi to life. Almost without thinking, she looked around the room. Sue, of course, was watching her, Colonel and Mrs. Ryland were watching her—from a position near the fireplace, even John was casually watching her. Something seemed to tighten up inside her throat, and although she tried to sing she couldn’t. Skilfully, the Italian covered up for her, but his eyes were reproachful—even, as she had thought earlier, faintly contemptuous—and his disapproval brought her to her senses. She began to sing, her clear, soft soprano ringing through the quiet room with such melodious purity that the man at the piano looked up at her rather quickly, and even John, bending to throw the last of his cigarette into the fire, glanced round in surprise. Her voice had a very youthful quality, but it had something else as well—the power to convey tremendous depth of feeling. As she made her way through, the famous aria all the tragic pathos surrounding the ill-fated Gilda seemed to surround her, and possibly because she herself suddenly felt so lost and vulnerable she almost accidentally managed to convey the vulnerability of Verdi’s heroine so effectively that before she had finished Sue began to be aware of a prickling sensation in her throat, and even Colonel Ryland, himself no opera-lover, put his brandy aside and muttered to his wife that the girl was good.

When she had finished there was a spontaneous burst of applause, and three of the listeners urged her to sing again, but the Conte di Lucca sat quite still in front of the keyboard, and for at least thirty seconds said nothing at all. Then he stood up and bowed.

“Thank you, Miss Wells. You have a fine voice.”

She looked at him a little vaguely, and he smiled, rather as he might have smiled at a clever child, and repeated what he had said.

“You have a very good voice. Take care of it.”

“Tell her to sing something else, Conte.” Sue, bursting with gratification, was beaming across at Candy.