Song Above the Clouds (10 page)

And then he was gone, and she hurried upstairs in the lift to join Caterina Marchetti.

CHAPTER SEVEN

IN the morning Michele telephoned as he had promised, and as it happened Lorenzo Galleo telephoned too. Between them they worked out a programme for Candy that looked like leaving her with very little time for anything but music in the weeks immediately ahead, and she was grateful to them both. She was very grateful, too, to Miss Marchetti, who entered into the spirit of the thing with warm enthusiasm, and placed her own drawing-room with its beautiful Bechstein piano at Candy’s disposal almost whenever she wanted it. Candy realized, of course, that the Italian woman was probably glad of the opportunity to see such a lot of Michele, and she supposed too that Michele was equally happy about this aspect of the situation, although she was quite prepared to believe he felt a genuine wish to help her, Candy. There was, she decided, something very attractive about the Conte’s personality. She hoped he and Caterina would make up their minds about one another soon.

November passed, and the first two weeks of December, and all at once Christmas was almost upon them, and Candy realized that for the first time in her life she would be spending the festive season outside England. She was half prepared for a sharp bout of homesickness, but as the days went by everyone around her seemed to conspire
to see to it that she hardly had time for lingering thoughts of snow and holly and mince pies. With Caterina she went Christmas shopping in the smart shops of
modern
Rome, buying presents for Sue and her brother-in-law and the children, and—because they were so beautiful and she couldn’t resist them—far more Christmas cards than she could possibly find a use for.

Caterina seemed to buy mountains of expensive gifts, from enormous bottles of perfume to an enchanting velvet-covered teddy bear intended for a very small cousin, and Christmas was obviously a time of the year that delighted her. Her pleasure in every sort of preparation was almost childlike, and Candy, who had grown genuinely fond of her in the course of the last few weeks, felt glad that they would be spending most of the holiday together. Caterina was not going away— her parents were dead and her only brother was in America—and when Candy had at one time tried to insist upon removing herself from the Italian woman’s flat for the second half of December she had been genuinely horrified. She had, of course, been invited to an enormous number of parties, and to Candy’s amazement she, too, had been anything but overlooked. Lorenzo Galleo and his wife had urged her if she had nothing else to do to spend at least part of Christmas Day with them at their flat near the Via Veneto, and numerous Italian women whom she had met over the past few weeks had sent her invitations to social gatherings, while for Christmas Eve itself there was rather a special invitation. Both she and Caterina had been asked to have dinner on that evening at the Casa Lucca,
Michele’s reputedly splendid Renaissance
palazzo
in the heart of the old city.

Just under a week before Christmas, Caterina unexpectedly asked her English guest if she would like to go with her to the Convent of the Holy Angels. “Today,” she explained, “the Sisters have a party for all the poor children of their district. Every year I go—just to help a little, and to watch.” Her dark eyes smiled. “With so many children there is a lot to watch.”

When they got to the old, stone-walled convent, it seemed to Candy that for this one afternoon at least the whole building had been thrown open to all the children in Rome. The nuns’ long dining-hall had been transformed into a fairyland, with tinsel and paper-chains and huge boughs of evergreen in all directions, and along the walls trestle tables laden with cakes, jellies, sandwiches and big bowls of
pasta
were obviously exercising such a fascination for hundreds of pairs of small dark eyes that there seemed every possibility of a stampede if supervision should not be adequate. Supervision, however, was adequate, and in fact it seemed to Candy that the Sisters’ skill with such a fantastic assortment of urchins was positively miraculous. Some of the children, it was explained to her, came from the poorest and roughest homes
i
n that part of the city, and under normal circumstances their manners probably matched their backgrounds. But the mere fact that they were under the Convent roof seemed to have a powerful effect upon them, and although they were obviously enjoying themselves very few of them gave any trouble.

Candy was enchanted by them—by their small, olive-
t
inted faces and their silky black curls, their long, sweeping eyelashes and the delicate features that in so many cases bore the unmistakable stamp of old Rome, and in her broken Italian she tried to talk to some of them. They were certainly quite willing to talk to her, and here and there she managed to understand a lot. They nearly all belonged to big families—one little boy claimed proudly that he had eight brothers and six sisters—and most of them went to school. The Holy Virgin and the g
o
od Sisters played an important part
in
their conversation and, apparently, in their lives, and some of the saints seemed as familiar to them as members of their own families. They weren’t curious about Candy—they had seen foreign
signorine
before—but
t
hey were curious about
the small presents hanging in clusters on the tall Christmas tree by the door.

Eventually, when practically all the
pasta
and the cakes and the jellies had been consumed, but everybody’s eyes were still fastened on the tree, two of the nuns set upon it and solemnly divested it of its colourful burdens. Then the interesting packages were carefully distributed so that not a single child was left out, and for ten minutes there really was a kind of controlled pandemonium. Each child had one box of sweets and one package containing a toy, and there were shrieks of delight in all directions as Cuddly stuffed animals, small vehicles of every description and diminutive sets of dolls’ furniture cascaded over the floor like something out of a child’s Christmas dream.

“Everybody gives, so that there is enough for them all,” Caterina Marchetti said softly. “Once,” she added, “it was the custom to give them things to wear—shoes and gloves, and jumpers of wool. But the Reverend Mother decided it was more important that they should be given something which would make them truly happy
... just once in the year.” Her face softened. “They have so few toys.”

The distribution of presents, however, was not the ultimate climax of the afternoon, and after a reasonable interval had been allowed for gloating over new acquisitions the nuns called for silence. One of them started speaking in Italian, and Caterina turned to her English companion with a slightly guilty expression on her face.

“Candy, I did not tell you before, but—at the end of the Christmas party it is the custom to sing. Hymns, you know, and one or two songs of the kind children like. Some of the nuns have good voices, but this is not quite the sort of thing they are used to. So...” she smiled apologetically, “I told them you would lead them!”

After the first shock of discovering what was expected of her, and of realizing that she couldn’t possibly get out of it, Candy began to enjoy herself more than she would have believed possible. She had never done anything of the sort in her life before, and for a few moments, as she went over to stand beside the small bespectacled nun who was seated in front of the piano, she felt decidedly shy, for the suddenly solemn eyes of what looked like several hundred Italian children were fixed exclusively on her, and every one of the Sisters seemed to be regarding her with exactly the same smile of gentle expectation. But the little nun at the piano began to play immediately, and she discovered to her relief that the hymns to
b
e
s
un
g
were all more or less famil
i
ar to her. And although she sang in English while the nuns and children sang in Italian, somehow the mixing of the languages didn’t seem to matter. They sang
Away in a Manger
and
Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,
and she was amazed to discover how many of the hymns she had always thought of as belonging to the Church of England were apparently well known to Roman Catholics. Then there were the songs that had been selected for her. These she was expected to sing more or less solo, but the nuns joined in here and there, and in any case she knew all the songs well, and her confidence increased by leaps and bounds. The children didn’t understand English, but they were none the less appreciative for that, and as she progressed from
Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer
to
Little Donkey
and
Mary’s Boy Child
they became raptly attentive.

Although Candy’s whole training was tending towards the preservation of her voice for opera and fairly serious music she was not at all the sort of singer who finds it impossible to cope with an ordinary, catchy melody, and as she stood between the piano and the Christmas tree, in the stone-flagged dining-hall of the convent, singing the songs of Christmas for the entertainment of poor Roman children she felt her spirit lightening, and a new warmth and energy pervading her voice.

As the last notes of
Mary’s Boy Child
di
e
d away on the piano the little plump Sister leant towards Candy, her eyes sparkling behind her rimless spectacles, and whispered that it would be nice if they could now have
Silent Night.
Candy agreed enthusiastically, and as if at a pre-arranged signal two of the novices went round the
room turning practically all the lights out. The children were beckoned closer, and Candy began. By now she had lost every trace of self-consciousness, and her voice, clear and pure and incredibly soft, had a breathtaking quality about it.

“
Silent night, holy night
... all is calm, all is bright
.”
The
nuns folded their arms about their white-robed figures, and their tranquil faces beamed.

Carried away by he
r
singing, Candy didn’t notice that one of the main doors to
the passage way had opened, and at first she didn’t see the new arrival who had slipped unobtrusively into the room and taken up his position behind a cluster of novices. She had reached the second verse, and was beginning to be conscious of a faint prickling behind the eyelids at the thought, suddenly conjured up, of half-forgotten childhood Christmases when her attention was attracted by a movement, and she saw Michele di Lucca. He was standing in the shadows watching her, and in an odd way the sight of him was a shock. Her voice wavered, throwing the pianist into temporary confusion, and although s
h
e recovered quickly and went on more or less as before she knew that all the adults present were looking at her in mild surprise. All, that is, except the Conte, whose
dimly seen face looked unreadable.

“
Christ the Saviour is born...
.”
Softly and sweetly, her voice
di
e
d away on the familiar last words of the carol, and as the hushed piano also faded into silence she was startled and embarrassed by an eager, spontaneous burst of applause.

“That was
bellissima, signorina
.”
It was Reverend Mother, coming towards her with hands outstretched.

“And now we will have
Adeste Fideles
, and you will lead us.”

The little nun struck a resounding chord on the piano, and everybody stood. Slowly, and with as much feeling as she could infuse into it, Candy sang
O Come, All Ye Faithful
as she knew it, and all around her Italian voices, young and old, joined in. The surge of sound was melodious and heart-warming, the sound of Christmas itself, pure and simple and unchanging, and this time, as she sang the last note she knew that her cheeks were wet.

Again the piano fell silent, and in the stillness that followed Candy felt all the exhilaration she had been feeling seep out of her, to be succeeded by a wave of dejection so overpowering that it seemed to her she was physically crushed by it. All her energy drained away from her, and all at once felt bitterly lonely
... utterly isolated. The childhood memories mocked her for a moment, and then receded. She looked around for Caterina, but somehow she couldn’t see her. Instead she saw the Conte di Lucca, and he was coming towards her.

Afterwards she had a vague recollection of the white-clad Sisters crowding round her, thanking her and congratulating her, and she remembered too that one of the little girls was deputed to present her with a small, neat bouquet—a bunch of hothouse roses. But the only thing she was really clear about was the fact that she had felt completely exhausted and extraordinarily miserable,
and
that the only person it had been possible to lean on
was Michele di Lucca.

She didn’t know what happened to Caterina—at the time it didn’t occur to her to wonder—but she did know that very quickly she found herself outside in the narrow street with Michele. It
w
as a cool, starlit evening, and somewhere bells were beginning to clang for Benediction. Not attempting t
o
pretend,
she leant against the stone wall of the convent, and passed a hand across her forehead.

“I suppose it was too hot in there ... or something.” She managed a rather wan smile.

“It was too much for you. Altogether too much.” He was frowning as he watched her. “Would you like to walk a little?”

“No.” She laughed shakily. “No, thanks. I’m all right, really. I don’t know why—”

“I do.” Gently, he placed a hand beneath her arm. “Get into the car. Caterina should have had more sense. That—that session in there was a strain for you in every way. I do not blame the Sisters, of course— they would not understand how bad such a thing would be for you.”

She realized that his car was beside them, and he was helping her into the passenger seat.

“I don’t think it could have been bad for me
...”
she began, but he interrupted her.

“Naturally it was bad for you. For weeks you have been under strain, although perhaps you don’t understand that. Physically and emotionally, this afternoon was simply too much for you.” He glanced at her. “You could ruin your voice through such carelessness.”

“But I loved doing it,” she said earnestly. “And anyway, I couldn’t have refused.”

He said nothing, but started the engine, and they moved away along the narrow street.

“Aren’t you going to wait for Caterina?” she asked involuntarily.

“No.” She thought his mobile, good-humoured mouth tautened a little. “She has her own car, and besides she will probably stay with the Sisters for a while.”

“Won’t she wonder where I’ve got to?”

“She saw you leave with me.”

Candy hesitated. “I know,” she confessed, “that I shouldn’t have done what I did this afternoon.” She sensed .that he was inclined to be critical of her Italian hostess’s part in the afternoon’s events, and although she knew it was only a temporary annoyance, caused by the fact that he had, after all, gone to a good deal of trouble recently to help with the development of her, Candy’s, voice, she didn’t want to be the means of causing even the smallest rift between them. She didn’t understand their relationship, but it seemed to her obvious that there was something between them, and it would be dreadful if she were to be responsible for any kind of coolness between two people who had done so much to help her. “I know,” she went on, “that I shouldn’t really sing at all without asking you or Signor Galleo what you think. You’ve been so kind—you’ve done so much to help me...
”

She broke off, feeling unhappy and uncomfortable, and after a moment he spoke quietly, Actually, she thought, his voice sounded a little odd.