Song Above the Clouds (9 page)

“I can’t bear it
!”
The girl’s soft voice was hoarse and choked. “I can’t—not any more! Not any more, Lester. I’m telling you the truth.”

“Okay, okay.” He seemed to be keeping his temper in check with an effort. “Just let’s get out of here. Where’s your coat?” He put out a hand to pull the small, hysterical figure to her feet, but as he did so she pushed him away, and the next instant she had jumped up and almost literally flown at him,
first pounding on his chest with her tiny clenched fists and then actually tearing
at his startled face with her sharply pointed, silvery finger-nails.

“Why don’t you get a divorce and marry her?” Her voice, thin and piercing, rising almost to a shriek, echoed around the room. “Why don’t you? Why don’t you? Why don’t you get a divorce...
?
”

It seemed as if the awful repetition would go on for ever. Her husband had grasped her hands in self
defence, but she seemed to be going from bad to worse. And then suddenly someone stepped forward and gently grasped her shoulders. It was the Italian to whom the Contessa had been talking in the hall, and the interference of a stranger had an instantaneous effect. All the tautness went out of the Japanese girl’s body, and her hands dropped to her sides. She looked like a sleep-walker who is slowly waking up and returning to normality, and in the shocked silence that had fallen she allowed herself to be guided out of the room. Her husband ran his hands through his hair, looked at the Contessa and muttered something that sounded like a muffled apology, then followed the girl through the door and
o
ut of sight.

The silence they left behind them lasted about fifteen seconds. Then the Contessa spread her hands in a delicate gesture that would have done credit to one of her screen performances, and looked around at her remaining guests with the merest suspicion of a smile on her scarlet lips.

“Mario tells me dinner is ready. Let’s go into the
sala,
shall we?”

Dinner was immensely formal, and it went on for a very long time. Shortly after the arrival of the third course Candy’s head began to ache, and she wished more than anything that she
could have been allowed to call a taxi, slip quietly back to Signorina Marchetti’s flat and go to bed, John Ryland was seated on the Contessa’s right, and they were obviously absorbed in one another—or at least, John was absorbed, and it was quite clear that the Italian beauty was very much attracted by him. Her son, Michele, discharged the duties of a host with a well-schooled courtesy which fell a little short of concealing the profound indifference with which he seemed to regard everybody and everything, but the mother and daughter who had been placed on either side of him quite obviously found him fascinating. There was little doubt that the elder of the two entertained certain hopes where her daughter and the Conte were
concerned, and although Candy had no means of knowing
w
hat sort of basis she had for those hopes she did feel that if she had been the Italian girl she would have found Michele’s air of polite abstraction disconcerting, to say the least.

As the meal wore on, the grouse imported from Scotland gave way to a long and slightly wearisome procession of gateaux, fruits and cheeses Candy found herself wondering more and more about the Japanese girl. She supposed that most of the other people present were wondering too, and she was a little surprised that the incident had not had a more noticeable effect upon John, The girl had obviously been jealous of the attention being paid by her husband to the beautiful Anna, and everything she said and did had suggested that there was more than a passing flirtation involved. It was true that the Contessa herself had appeared to be supremely indifferent to both of them, and it was also true that the man had not really seemed to be on very close terms with his hostess. But there had certainly been something
... Didn’t John feel even a twinge of curiosity—of resentment? Candy was surprised to find that she could now take a kind of detached interest in analysing his feelings, and she looked at him. He was gazing into the beautiful dark eyes so close to his own with a smile on his face that she had never seen before, and. it occurred to her that he closely resembled the object of an experiment in hypnotism.

“You are very silent,
signorina
.”

It was the middle-aged Italian who had been so successful in sorting out the
explosive situation in the
salotto,
and she turned to smile at him. Although they
were seated side by side they hadn’t so far talked very much, for she had a strong feeling that, like herself and the Conte, he wasn’t really in the mood for conversation, but now she supposed that it was time she made an effort.

“I was thinking what a wonderful room this is.” It was partly true, for the Contessa’s marble dining-room was everything her green
salotto
led one to expect.

“You think this house is beautiful?”

“Of course—very beautiful.”

“You should see the Palazzo Lucca. It is one of the bright jewels of the Renaissance.” He glanced along the table at Michele. “Unfortunately, it belongs now to my
nephew
...
” So that was it. She had realized he was a
relative, but not that he was the Conte’s uncle. “He is young and unmarried, and has use for nothing but a corner of it, so the rest is shut up.
Tell me,
signorina
, don’t you think
my nephew should marry?”

She hesitated, for some reason finding the question faintly embarrassing. “Well, yes
... of course. But I don’t suppose it will be very long—”

“No?” he interrupted. He glanced at the girl in pale blue voile, whose slanting sloe-like eyes were fixed on Michele’s face as if her life depended on not missing a flicker of his eyelids, and automatically Candy looked in the same direction. “That one, do you think? Her father is a Milanese industrialist, with more money than even her mother can find a use for, and she has had the very best education.”

“Well....” Candy said again, and her companion laughed and tilted his wine glass to admire the glowing crimson of its contents.

“Don’t listen to me, Miss Wells. I have drunk too much this evening, and before I go home I shall drink more ... a lot more. I am—how do you say it
?
—the black sheep of the di Lucca family.”

She turned to look at him with interest. As far as she knew she had never met a ‘black sheep’ before, and she wasn’t really in a position to judge, but she wouldn’t have said, if she had been asked, that this ageing, benevolent Italian looked at all the type.

“I don’t think you’re very black,” she said, and smiled.

“Thank you, my little one.” Her hand was lying on the table, and he put his wine-glass down and patted it. “You are undoubtedly the princess in the fairy-story who turns frogs into princes
... a refreshing addition to my sister-in-law’s weary circle of friends.” He turned his head away from her, and she saw that he was gazing at John Ryland as if he felt that some other recent additions were rather less refreshing.

After dinner, back in the splendid green
salotto,
John continued to
monopolize his hostess more or less completely, and the Italian mother-and-daughter team continued to occupy the Conte. Marco di Lucca disappeared, and all at once
Candy
found herself quite alone. She walked over to one of the high windows, and cautiously parted the curtains. Outside the night was clear and starlit, with just a trace of light wind to shake the rustling palm fronds and stir the dark heads of the cypresses. It was beautiful and romantic, and it made her want to cry. Behind her in the room, she could hear John’s voice talking to the Contessa—during the whole of the evening he had scarcely addressed a word to her, Candy—and the desolation which she had thought she could put behind her by absorbing herself in her new work and ambitions came rushing over her again, swamping her with misery, flooding her entire being with an abject dejection that actually seemed to drain her strength way—to rob her of the energy she needed to cope with life. Enormous tears forced their way beneath her eyelids and cascaded silently down her cheeks, and but for the fact that her sense of utter isolation made her feel almost that she was alone in the room she would have been paralysed with horror. As it was, it simply didn’t occur to her that someone might suddenly decide to find out what she was doing with herself, and when all at once a voice just behind her spoke her name her heart jumped very nearly into her throat.

“Candida!” It was the first time Michele had made use of her Christian name, and despite the horror of the moment she rather liked the way he said it. But the next instant all she was conscious of was a bitter shame and confusion that seemed to emanate from her soul.

“I didn’t know you were
here,” she said foolishly.

“Would you like me to go away?”

“N-no. Of course not.” She hadn’t looked at him, and it occurred to her that perhaps he hadn’t noticed her damp cheeks yet—perhaps, if she were careful, he wouldn’t notice them. But the next instant this idea was shattered.

“You can’t cry here,” he said quietly. “That is”— a whimsical note entering his voice—“some people, of course, can and do, but I think you would rather be somewhere else. Come and see my mother’s music-room.”

Meekly, like a child, she let him usher her out of the
salotto,
and she didn’t think anyone even noticed their departure. He took her along a wide, carpeted, softly-lit corridor leading towards the back of the house, and then they turned out of the first corridor into another. Finally they arrived at a pair of double doors made of dully gleaming mahogany, and as she entered the room that lay beyond them its warm tranquillity came to meet her, actually causing her to stand still and draw a shuddering breath, as if something vital inside her were relaxing.

“Would you like me to leave you here?” The Conte’s voice had something curiously gentle about it, but it also sounded essentially matter-of-fact.

She shook her head slowly, and turned to look at him, now, without caring in the least that her cheeks were still wet and her make-up probably smudged. She even managed a slightly shaky smile. “I’m not going to cry any more. But thank you for getting me away from
... a
ll those people. This room makes me feel better. It’s got a wonderful atmosphere.” She hesitated. “But I think I’d like to go now—if you don’t mind. If you could call me a taxi—and say good-bye to—to your mother for me...
?
”

He looked into her face with a kind of dispassionate curiosity, and then he lightly touched her shoulder.

“I won’t keep you here if you would prefer to go, but I thought—perhaps you might like to stay for a while.” He paused for a moment, and when he spoke again it was almost as if he were bringing the words out with
difficulty. “Sometimes—when one is suffering—music draws out the sting ... relieves the pain.” He stopped again. “For me it is so,
and
I thought that perhaps for you to....”

She looked at him, and this time it was her turn to feel curiosity. His face, had a hollow look, and his mouth was set in lines of inexpressible bleakness. She remembered that the weary
melancholy in his eyes had been the first thing she had noticed about him, and, suddenly jolted out of herself, she found herself wondering what it was that had etched those marks in his face, and whether, whatever it was, it now lay buried in the past. Or whether, perhaps, it was still being endured.

“There’s my mother’s piano,” he was saying. “And there are hundreds of records. I’ll leave you here ... you might be able to amuse yourself.”

“No
...”
She hesitated. “Please don’t—there’s no
need for you to go.” On impulse she added, “I’d love to hear you play something.” If he had been any other man she couldn’t have said it, but with him, at this moment, she had no feeling of self
-
consciousness. Only an awareness that in this room, and in his presence, there was immeasurable peace.

For several seconds he said nothing, merely looking at her. And then, still in silence, he walked over to the beautiful, dark, gleaming grand piano at the far end of the room, and started to sift through a pile of music. Candy sank into a chair, and, relaxed, set her senses free to absorb the room’s rather sombre, old-fashioned charm.

The carpet was a dull crimson colour, and so thick that every sound was muffled in its velvety depths. The
curtains were crimson, too, and they hung in thick, heavy folds before unseen windows that she supposed were as tall as those in the
salotto.
The ceiling was very high, but efficient central heating kept the whole room warm, and there was an extraordinary cosiness about it. All the furniture was of dark mahogany, and wherever the walls were not obscured by shelf after shelf of records and sheet music they were covered in crimson brocade.

Michele had opened the piano and sat down in front of it, and slowly and gently the first notes of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata stole on to the atmosphere. The Sonata was followed by a Chopin waltz, and then
a nocturne
...
Candy sat listening with the keenest,
most acute pleasure, and not only that, but a very real feeling of being temporarily anaesthetized against every hurt that life could offer. He finished with the plaintive beauty of Brahms’ Cradle Song, and when he stopped she wanted to ask him to go on—to go on and on, and keep the soothing flow of melody running for ever.

But she didn’t, and he closed the piano and turned round. “You feel better?” He was smiling.

“Much better.” She stood up. “Thank you. And now I’ll have to go.” Her eyes, very green in the lamplight, smiled into his with sudden warmth. “You’re kind,” she said, almost without thinking
.

He shook his head slowly. “No. Not kind.”

The Conte insisted on driving her back to Miss Marchetti’s flat, and as soon as she had said good-bye to her hostess—who enveloped her in a haze of expensive French perfume as she kissed her rather theatrically on both cheeks—they walked out to his car, still waiting on the gravel sweep before the imposing front door. When he had closed the door on Candy and climbed into the driving seat he lit a cigarette, and Candy felt mildly surprised, for she had never seen him smoke before. As if he felt the surprise he glanced round at her in the faint light from the newly switched on headlamps, and she sensed something oddly rueful in his face.

“I don’t smoke often,” he said
suddenly. “But sometimes
.
.
. It is a bad habit—very bad.” He ground the cigarette out in the ash-tray in front of him, and turned the key in the ignition. The car swung almost silently back through the gates and under the old stone archway, and soon they were speeding back along the Appian Way. Michele said nothing for several minutes, and then he spoke abruptly.

“I am very sorry... about this evening!”

Under cover of the darkness Candy flushed. “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” she said awkwardly. “I—I had a wonderful evening. Your mother is—”

“My mother is a notorious man-hunter. And her latest victim is—happens to be someone who is important to you, no?”

“
Was
important to me,” Candy said quickly, feeling the colour still burning in her cheeks, the tears threatening again behind her eyelids.

“No, One day,” gently, “you will say that. But not yet.”

For some time they were both silent, and then, as they paused at a busy crossroads near the centre of Rome, he spoke again. “You saw Mrs
.
Endacombe?” he asked.

“Mrs. Endacombe?”

“She is Japanese, although married to an American diplomat. “I think,” rather drily, “you certainly saw her to-night.”

“Oh ... Yes, of course.”

“James Endacombe has been a—close friend of my mother’s. You will have guessed that.”

Embarrassed, Candy said nothing.

“Their relationship is now over. I don’t know why he takes his wife to the house. It could be that he wishes to torture her, but I think it is more a form of stupidity. They are to pretend—she is to pretend—that nothing has happened. But what I wanted to make clear is that with my mother things do end. One day your friend John Ryland will go his own way, and she will go hers.”

When they got back to the flat Caterina Marchetti was waiting for them, but although he greeted her with what looked to Candy like indulgent affection Michele firmly refused her offer of a cup of coffee, and said good-night to both of them at the ground-floor entrance to the flats. He had gone back to his car, and was just about to climb into the driving-seat when he suddenly turned and came hurrying back to speak to Candy. She was just about to enter the lift with Caterina when he caught up with them, and the Italian woman looked rather amused.

“There is something I forgot to say to Candida,” he explained
.
“It is about her work.”

“Very well.” With a surprising absence of rancour Caterina patted the English girl’s arm and stepped back into the lift. “I will go ahead,
cara,
and prepare the coffee.”

When they were alone Candy noticed that in the rather harsh light of the lobby the Conte seemed to look more drawn than ever, and with a sudden uprush of sympathy for him Candy wished she knew what it was t
h
at made him look like that. She wished she knew whether it would be possible to help him.

“I came back,” he told her, “to say something that I meant to say to you earlier.” He paused. “You were distressed to-night.”

She looked away from him, and he apologized swiftly. “Forgive me. I didn’t
wish to hurt you—to constantly remind you. It was only that I wondered if you realized—if you understood how much your music could help you.”

“Yes,” she said rather wearily. “Signor Galleo said a lot about that.”

“Did he? I think you will find it is true.”

“I expect I sha
ll
.” This time she definitely sounded tired and withdrawn.

“What I wanted to say to you is that I think you should absorb yourself in your singing as much as possible.” He hesitated. “I know something of music. In between your lessons with Galleo I could perhaps help you...”

She looked up at him quickly, and there was a glow of real gratitude in her
e
yes as she thanked him.

“Would you really? I do need someone to—to just
sort of
listen
to me
...
”
And then she broke off. “Oh,
but I couldn’t expect you to bother—”

“I suggested it,” he reminded her coolly. “So you can certainly expect me to bother. Caterina has a piano here. I will not disturb her to-night, but in the morning I will telephone her, and we will arrange everything.” He smiled at her with the sudden brilliance that she had seen in his face only once or twice before. “Does it please
you?”

“It’s
wonderful. I’m so grateful.”

For several seconds he looked into her face. “There is no need,” he said gently, “to talk of being grateful. Good-night, Candida.”