Song Above the Clouds

CHAPTER ONE

CANDY shivered, and tightened the belt of her raincoat
.
The steady drizzle that for the last half hour had been falling with relentless persistence from an uncompromisingly grey sky seemed, if anything, to be getting worse. Her hair was soaked already, for she hadn’t had the forethought to bring a headscarf with her, and she had just made the discovery that her brand new shoes could not by any stretch of the imagination be described
as water-tight. It occurre
d
to her that if either she or Sue or both of them were going to have to go in search of help it would
b
e just as well if they did so fairly quickly, for it was already well past five o’clock, and the autumn evening was beginning to close in. Before very long it would be dark. But Sue’s neat, trouser-suited form had almost disappeared beneath the bonnet of the Vauxhall, and Candy was determined not to seem impatient. Sue, she knew quite well, was already pretty badly upset.

If only they hadn’t gone out of their way in order to have tea at the Star and Crossbow they might by now have been running smoothly into the West End of London, in nice time for their rendezvous—or rather, Candy’s rendezvous—with Signor Caspelli
.
But they had gone out of their way, and as a result Sue’s car had decided to break down in what seemed to be one of the loneliest and least-used byways in the whole of Southern
England. They had been marooned there now for nearly three-quarters of an hour, and in the whole of that time the only being to go past along the road had been a wandering and lugubrious-looking Ayrshire cow. If Candy hadn’t been quite so cold and wet the whole situation would have struck her as being ridiculously funny, and even as it was she couldn’t bring herself to feel nearly as fed-up as she knew Sue must be feeling. Perhaps it was a pity about Signor Caspelli, but it couldn’t be helped. It was just one of those things.

Sue emerged from under the bonnet, and straightened herself. Her face was damp with perspiration, as well as rain, and her beautifully manicured hands were black.

“It’s no good—the wretched thing won’t go.” She pushed her hair back, streaking her forehead with grease, and looked at her watch. “I’m sorry, Candy. It’s
awful
.”

“Of course it isn’t awful.” Candy smiled at her. “Signor Caspelli can wait. He’ll probably agree to see me in the morning; he isn’t leaving for New York until tomorrow afternoon.”

“But would he give you another chance? I mean,
people hate broken appointments
—
”

“Well, if he won’t, he won’t. But anyway, Sue, it isn’t the end of the world. Really! Don’t look so shattered. Let’s set out to walk, and see if we can find a telephone or something.”

Reluctantly, Sue closed the bonnet. “All right. I think I saw a phone box about half a mile back.” She sighed. “We’d better ring Paul’s mother, and tell her we’ll be turning up four hours earlier than expected. There’s just one lucky thing about this situation, and
that’s the fact that Great Mincham can’
t
be more than five or six miles away.”

They closed and locked the Vauxhall’s doors and windows, and Sue wiped her greasy hands on an insubstantial handkerchief, then they started to walk back down the lane in the direction of the telephone box—which
C
andy devoutly hoped had not been a figment of Sue’s imagination. She also hoped that Sue’s mother-in-law would not be too upset at the prospect of having to receive her guests in time for dinner when she had been expecting to receive them in time for bed
... a point which certainly wouldn’t be likely to worry Sue herself, but did worry Candy. It really worried her quite as much as the knowledge that she, an aspiring young singer, had just missed an audition with one of the world’s leading operatic impresarios.

As she picked her way round rather a large puddle, and tried to forget about the mud already squelching between her toes, she decided that there must be something basically wrong with her. She couldn’t feel disappointed about the audition—not if she tried. In an odd sort of way, she even felt relieved. It might have been fun to be taken on by the great Caspelli, but she wouldn’t have been good enough, and the whole thing would have been sheer humiliation. She was certain of that. The girl selected by the famous Italian would be boosted internationally as an exciting new musical discovery, she would sing in Paris and Vienna, New York and Rome—and she would have to bear comparison with all the leading sopranos of the modern world. The idea that she, Candy Wells, could ever have stood a chance of becoming that girl was really, when she came
to think about it, quite ridiculous. She didn’t even know that she would have wanted to become that girl.

“I think I’m glad I missed the audition,” she told Sue suddenly. “I really would have looked an idiot competing with all those brilliant young hopefuls. After all, I’ve little or no stage experience, and since I left school I haven’t even had any proper training. I’d probably have struck Signor Caspelli as a huge joke.”

“That’s rubbish!” said Sue crisply. “You’ve got a voice like an angel. Even Paul thinks so, and he’s not exactly musical.” She managed a slight laugh. “I’ve made up my mind that you’re going to have your chance—and you will have it, even if I find it necessary to waylay this Caspelli man personally!”

Candy bent her head as the rain grew heavier, and smiled a little whimsically. “I think you’re trying to turn me into something I’m not.”

“I’m trying to turn you into what you really are.” Sue sounded a little grim. “You’ve wasted three years already, and it’s my fault. Out there in Hong Kong, with Paul, I didn’t give you a thought—not a serious thought, I mean. That’s honest, and it’s high time I was honest! You wrote and told me you’d got a job in a West End flower shop, and I just thought ‘how nice’. It’s true I imagined you would be going ahead with your singing at the same time, but I never even asked you, did I?”

Candy felt embarrassed. Her sister’s orgy of self
-
criticism had lasted almost from the moment of her arrival at Heathrow Airport three weeks before, and apparently it hadn’t exhausted itself yet.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Look, there’s the main road. I think I can see your call-box.”

“Thank goodness for that! We’ll ring the Caspelli man first, and then Paul’s mother.”

But when they got to the telephone box and pooled their resources they made the discovery that they only had enough change of the right sort for one call—and that call, naturally, had to be to Sue’s mother-in-law. Candy waited outside while her sister telephoned, for the rain was easing off a little, and it struck her that when Sue re-emerged she was looking slightly more satisfied with life.

“Alison’s handling everything,” she said. Sue’s mother
-
in-law preferred to be known by her Christian name. “She’s getting on to a garage about the car, and Paul’s father’s coming over for us. I told you it wasn’t far, didn’t I?” She hesitated, then added slowly: “We’re not the only visitors they’re expecting to-night. John’s just back from Rome. He’s coming down to Mincham for the week-end.”

If she had expected this information to have some noticeable effect on her sister, she wasn’t disappointed. Quite unmistakably, Candy’s eyes lit. “You mean
..
.
John will be there to-night
?
”

“Well, I suppose so, unless he’s like us, and has a breakdown.” She added casually: “Did you know he was back? I’m sure Paul doesn’t.”

Candy shook her head. “No, I didn’t know.” He must have been planning to surprise her; that was typical of John. Under Sue’s interested gaze she actually smiled, rather idiotically, as she thought of him. He had probably forgotten that she would be on holiday in
Lincolnshire, staying with Sue, and when he got back from Rome he would have called at the flower shop, as he always did, at closing time, only to discover that she wasn’t there. As a leading producer of television documentaries he travelled a good deal, and every time he arrived back in London the first thing he seemed to do was call at the flower shop.

They got on well together, she and John. Wonderfully well, in fact. Ever since the day, four years earlier, when Sue had married Paul Ryland she, Ca
n
dy, had somehow known that Paul’s elder brother was going to occupy a special place in her life, and from that day onwards an extraordinary bond had developed between them. It was true that there was a big gap between their ages—when they met she had been seventeen and he had been thirty-four—and she supposed it should have created some kind of barrier, But it had never seemed to worry John, and it certainly didn’t worry her. She had taken to him, on Sue’s wedding day, not only because he was tall and dark and lo
o
ked shattering in morning dress but because he was kind, and although he was best man and she was chief bridesmaid didn’t seem to feel the smallest urge to tease her. When her first glass of champagne threatened to choke her he had saved her from public humiliation by emptying it into a flower pot and surreptitiously refilling it with lemonade, and afterwards he had talked to her about music, which at that time had been the most important thing in her life. A year later her father had
die
d—her mother had
die
d when Candy was still a child—and to the astonishment of everyone but his bank manager and his solicitor Robert Wells had left nothing
whatsoever
behind him but a terrifying stack of debts. The double shock had descended on Candy with the force of a landslide, and if John hadn’t been on hand to advise her she didn’t really know what she would have done. Sue had been with her husband in Hong Kong, caught up by a multitude of fascinating new interests, and the reality of what was happening at home in England hadn’t quite seemed to get through to her. There were no other relatives to turn to
a
nd as her father’s house and possessions were sold and the world rocked around her John had been the only person she had felt able to discuss things with.

Her singing, which she loved so much, had been abandoned—John had agreed that for the time being it was unavoidable—and he had found her the flower shop job. The shop was run by a friend of his, a Mrs. Cheyney, and because it was pleasant and secure Candy had accepted the job with grateful eagerness, and had clung to it ever since. As for her relationship with
John
—
In theory it had remained nothing more than
a particularly important and long-lasting friendship, but in reality it was a very long time since Candy had been able to think of Sue’s brother-in-law as just a friend. And although he rarely said or did anything to indicate that he thought of her as anything other than a kind of younger sister she knew she was important to him. Having waited such a long time already, he was naturally not in a hurry to get married. Where she was concerned he would be cautious—as much, she suspected, for her sake as for his own. But for ages now she had been unable to imagine a future that didn’t include John. He was like a rock—the best and most dependable
thing in her life—and she was happily confident that, whatever happened, he would always be there. And perhaps one day—one day, if she were patient—she would occupy a more important place in his life. A
really
important place.

The rain had stopped, and in pale, fitful sunshine they wandered up and down, waiting for the arrival of Sue’s father-in-law. Candy looked happily abstracted, and it was obvious that all thought of the missed audition had been banished completely from her mind. Watching her, Sue wondered what there really was between her and John. Almost from the day the two of them met she had been out of the country, and she didn’t know.

“I’m going to ring Caspelli,” she said. “And if I’ve any powers of persuasion left, you’ll be getting that audition to-morrow morning.”

Ca
ndy
smiled at her. “I ought to ring
...”

“Well, you’re not going to
.
” Their hostess, having emerged for a moment or two to kiss her daughter-in
-
law and co
mm
iserate rather vaguely with Candy had disappeared again, and the two girls were alone. “For one thing,” Sue went on, “you wouldn’t even try to get another appointment. I know you! Alison did say which room you were having, but if you’d rather just wait in the drawing-room while I’m phoning
... you know where it is, don’t you?”

Candy nodded, “Yes.” And then she hesitated for a moment. “Don’t try too hard, Sue. It isn’t worth it.”

And even if it had been worth it, she thought privately, the chances of anyone’s
inducing the great Caspelli to give a second chance to an unknown girl who had
already missed one audition were so slight as to be barely worth considering. Sue
would put up a fight—that went without saying, for the whole thing had been
Sue’s idea. If she hadn’t read in the newspapers about Signor Caspelli’s search for
a brilliant new soprano voice and immediately decided that her younger sister
was
what he was looking for
Candy
would never even have thought of putting her
own voice forward. Sue would fight to the bitter end—but it wouldn’t come to
anything, and in a way that was rather a relief.
A singing career would take her out of the safe haven of Mrs. Cheyney’s flower shop and into the world, and Candy wasn’t at all sure she was ready for that. She wasn’t sure she ever would be ready for it.

As she made her way along a thickly carpeted corridor in the direction of Alison Ryland’s drawing-room she stopped in front of a little gilt-framed looking-glass and took a comb out of her handbag. The face that looked back at her was small and oval, with high cheekbones and a suggestion of porcelain delicacy about the pretty mouth and the neat, straight nose. But it was her wide, lustrous grey-green eyes and the thick brown lashes overhanging them that were Candy’s most striking feature, and to-night the eyes looked very large, and preternaturally serious. She ran the comb through her hair—fine, golden-brown hair that curled alarmingly whenever it was allowed to get wet—and as she did so her ears caught the sound of piano music.

It was coming from the drawing-room at the end of the corridor and it wasn’t, she was reasonably certain, proceeding from either a wireless set or a record player. She put the comb back in her handbag, and tried to
decide whether to go on, or retreat upstairs to her own bedroom—Alison Ryland always gave her the same room, so she knew exactly where to go. She stood hesitating for several seconds, but then she heard her sister’s voice—Sue was on the telephone, speaking to someone on Signor Caspelli’s staff—and she knew that
if
she were to retrace her steps and climb the stairs she wouldn’t be able to avoid hearing every word of Sue’s frantic efforts on her behalf. She shook her head at her own cowardice, but walked on towards the drawing-room door.

Then, with her fingers on the door-handle, she paused again, listening. The music was Schubert in one of his more melancholy moods, subdued and deceptively simple, and the unseen pianist had an extraordinarily expressive touch. Every note was alive with an arresting sadness that struck her as almost eerie and by the time she finally p
u
shed the door open she felt rather curious to know who it was who was responsible.

The drawing-room at the Old Rectory was long, and beautiful and had been furnished with flawless taste in the style of the early Regency. Its colour scheme was a delicious blend of gold and white and dusty pink, and it had always seemed to Candy to possess the ideal atmosphere—a blissful tranquillity that made the outside world seem a thousand miles away. It was usually filled with flowers, and to-night, as she stood in the doorway looking about her, she saw that every available vase held huge shaggy chrysanthemums. And then her eyes travelled to the piano, and took in the figure of the man seated before the keyboard. He was wearing a grey suit—a very well cut grey suit—and his hair was smooth
and dark brown, but that was as much as she could see, for he had his back to her, and he didn’t seem to have heard her come in. She knew he was someone she had never seen before, and all at once she felt rather shy. She wanted to stay and listen to his music, but at the same time she did not want to interrupt him, or draw attention to herself.

So she closed the door behind her as quietly as she could, and for two or three minutes stood absolutely still, while the flow of gentle sound went on and on. He changed to Brahms, and then to Schumann, and as a passionate lover of almost all forms of music Candy was entranced. She wondered whether he could be a professional pianist, and she was just trying to remember whether John had ever mentioned having a friend with serious musical aspirations when the clasp of her handbag, which hadn’t been properly fastened, came open with a snap, and the man at the piano stopped dead in the middle of a bar.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Candy said involuntarily.
“I mean ... I didn’t want to interrupt you.”

He looked round, and then stood up. He was tall and rather slightly built, and as he turned to face her she could see that he didn’t look English. He could, she decided, be French ... even, possibly, Italian. Although neither his hair nor his eyes were strikingly dark there was an intense brownness about them that was anything but Anglo-Saxon, and there was something in his face that made her think, rather absurdly, of faces she had seen engraved on old coins—not English coins. He was quite young—somewhere in his late twenties, she supposed—and yet there was a strange kind of weariness in his eyes and in the lines about his sensitive mouth that gave him almost a tragic look.

He stared at her for at least six seconds without saying a word, and then he bowed slightly.

“It’s I who should apologize. Such a beautiful piano was a great temptation, but I should not have touched it without your mother’s permission. I have not
disturbed anyone?”

For a moment Candy looked bewildered, and then she shook her head, smiling a little. “Mrs. Ryland isn’t my mother. I’m only staying here for the week-end. But I know she likes to hear
anyone play.” Hesitantly, she added: “Wouldn’t you like to go on? I—I was enjoying it.”

“Were you?” He still seemed to be studying her, but at the same time she got the weird impression that in reality he was staring right through her. “How long had you been listening?”

“Only two or three
min
utes.” Suddenly she felt uncomfortable. “If you’d rather I went away...”

She seemed to have succeeded in catching his attention. “Do you want to go away?”

“No, but
...
” This was ridiculous, and oddly embarrassing into the bargain. “If I’m disturbing you—”

“You aren’t,” he said quickly. “Please stay. And if it really gives you pleasure to hear an excellent piano being abused by a very clumsy amateur I’ll play anything you like.” He spoke with an unmistakably alien accent, but his English was extraordinarily good. “You are fond of music?”

“Yes. I’m very fond of music.”

“You play yourself, perhaps?” Candy had dropped
into a huge brocade-covered armchair, and he was once again seated at the piano.

“Only a little.”

“But you appreciate the efforts of others.” He smiled, and his face was transformed. “You like Chopin?”

“I think everybody likes Chopin.”

“Not quite everybody.” He ran his fingers lovingly over the gleaming ivory keys, and once again the room was filled with glorious sound. “But, looking at you, one can see
...
Yes, naturally y
o
u like Chopin.”

He began to play a haunting little waltz, and Candy put her head back against a pile of cushions and relaxed completely. Normally, she was apt to feel ill at ease with strangers, but somehow this foreigner,
despite his abstracted manner and his melancholy eyes, didn’t have that sort of effect
on her. He came to the end of the waltz and embarked on a familiar nocturne, and as she listened she completely forgot about Sue, and Signor Caspelli, and everything else that should have been on her mind at that moment. She was warm, and comfortable, and the piano was infinitely soothing
... Reality seemed a long way away.

Then suddenly the door to the hall was thrown wide. There was a murmur of voices, and the next moment Sue appeared on the threshold. She was talking to someone who was just behind her, but when she caught sight of Candy she came forward rather quickly, and it was easy to see that she had nothing particularly pleasant to communicate.

“I’m terribly sorry, Candy—I did try, honestly, but it wasn’t any good. Caspelli’s secretary says he’s made his choice! And anyway, the beastly man’s leaving in the morning, and won’t give any more auditions in London. I feel so
dreadful
about it, because it’s all my fault. Darling, are you awfully upset?”

“Of course I’m not,”
Candy
assured her truthfully. Sue’s entrance had startled her a bit, partly because Signor Caspelli and the vexed question of whether or not he might be prepared to receive her had temporarily gone right out of her head. She turned to introduce their fellow guest, who had stopped playing and silently risen to his feet, but then it occurred to her that she didn’t know his name, and as she hesitated she saw that somebody else had, entered the room in the wake of Sue. Her cheeks flushed with pleasure, and everything else was forgotten.