Song Above the Clouds (4 page)

The size and beauty and splendour of everything around her overwhelmed Candy, and her own insignificance struck her rather violently. She began to be conscious of feeling tired and a little lost, and despite the breathtaking wonder outside the windows of the taxi she knew she would be glad when her destination was reached. Rome would still be there in the morning,
and perhaps then she would feel more like taking it in—perhaps then it wouldn’t seem so frightening.

All the arrangements for her stay in Rome had been undertaken for her by the assistants of Signor Maruga, and they had decided that at least until she had had time to find her feet in their capital city she should be accommodated in the guest house of a Benedictine convent which was situated, she understood, not far from the magnificent bulk of St. Peter’s itself. She had never before stayed in a convent, and the idea had seemed strange when it was first mentioned to her, but now it struck her that in the midst of this sea of noise and bustle and confusing, conflicting impressions the tranquillity of the cloister would be a very pleasant refuge.

They entered a maze of narrow streets and tiny squares, and the noise of the tr
a
ffic
di
e
d away, to be replaced by the rushing of fountains and the shouts of small tousle-haired
raggazzi
who ought to have been in bed. At the street
corner
s lights burned beneath brightly coloured images of the Virgin and the saints, and every now and then, from an upper window, there was a burst of music. Even inside the taxi Candy could hear it. One moment it was a radio, blaring forth the latest money-spinner from the world of Italian pop, the next it was a wonderful cascade of Beethoven from an unseen piano. She was fascinated, and absorbed in the sights and, sounds of the streets she didn’t realize they had reached their destination until the taxi-driver got out to open the door for her.

Then she saw that they had come to a halt in the shadow of a very old wall. Set in the wall was a handsome iron-studded door, and over the door a swinging
lantern shed light upon a small, gleaming brass plaque to one side of it.

“The Convent of the Holy Angels,” said the taxi-driver in careful English, and extricated Candy’s suitcases from the boot. He stuffed all three cases more or less under one arm, and with his free hand pulled the bell-chain that hung beside the stout old door. Candy got out of his taxi and stood beside him, and as she stared up at the finely carved iron-work of the lantern he thought she looked very white.

“You are tired,
signorina?
You make a long journey to-day?”

She smiled and shook her head, so that her uncovered hair swung around her.

“It was a long journey, but a very easy one.”

“Yet you are tired. N
o
w that you are in Rome you will rest.”

She was just about to disabuse him of any idea that she had come to Rome to rest when a light suddenly appeared behind a tiny window next to the doorway in front of them, and she saw that a nun w
as
looking out.

“The Sisters wish to know who you are,” the taxi-driver told her. “It is their custom. It is very old. They cannot open the door until they know who you are.” He bent towards the beautiful, finely wrought grille that protected the window and said something in extremely rapid Italian. The nun seemed to hesitate, and she bent her head a little to study the English girl more closely through the thin, ornate bars that separated them.

“You say that we are expecting, you,
signorina
?” Her voice was quiet and soft, and her English very good,

“Yes.” Candy moved closer to the tiny aperture, feeling very much as if she had suddenly stepped back into the Middle Ages. “Well,
I ...
I think so. Signor Maruga made all the arrangements.”

“Signor Maruga...
?
” It could hardly have been called a frown, but a faint pucker certainly did appear between the nun’s slim, straight brows. Then she smiled.

“Wait, I will let you in. Then you can, explain to us.”

She disappeared, and Candy swallowed and glanced at the patient taxi-driver.

Two minutes later the doors in front of them swung open, and another nun appeared. Once
again the taxi-driver spoke quickly, and she nodded and
s
miled, and told him to leave the suitcases just inside the door. Then she beckoned Candy inside, and when she had paid the driver he touched his cap and beamed on her paternally.

“You will be all right now,” he told her. “With the Sisters you will be all right.”

Candy stepped across the worn threshold of the Convent, and as the outer door closed she glanced uncertainly at the white-robed figure beside her.

“
Is
it all right?” she asked, a little anxiously. “Can I stay here?”

T
h
e Sister smiled with the tranquillity of a being for whom no problem is insoluble.

“I am sure you can
stay,
signorina.
Come with me.” They passed through into a small cloistered courtyard, where three more dim lanterns shone on the exquisite tracery above rows of Renaissance arches, and a tiny fountain gushed softly in the stillness of the evening. And in the shadows on the far side of the courtyard the, nun escorting Candy came to a halt beside a narrow door. She knocked, and then almost, immediately turned the handle and gestured to Candy to
go in ahead of her.

The English girl found herself in a small, square, white-walled room, very plainly and sparsely furnished. Against the wall there stood a black oak bookcase filled with books and a prie-
di
e
u with a simple crucifix above it,
and
in the middle of the room, under the central light, there was an enormous and very tidy deal desk. Two women were sitting facing one another across the desk—one
a nun in immaculate white, the other a slim, black-haired girl in the dress of fashionable
modern
Rome
.

T
he nun who had accompanied Candy said something quietly, and her fellow behind the desk looked up and smiled.

“Ah! We are expecting you,
sig
nor
ina.
What is your name?”

Candy told her, and her expression changed
.

“You
are
Candida Wells?”

“Yes.”

The nun’s rather humorous mouth curved into a wry smile, and she looked across at the young woman sitting opposite her.

“What a coincidence!” she remarked in English. “But there has been a mistake, I think. We were not expecting you until to-morrow, Signorina Wells. It was tomorrow, was it not?” And she looked again at her companion from the outside world, who had risen to her feet, and was studying Candy with interest.

“Yes, Sister, I thought it was to-morrow. But this
must be my fault
.
” The young woman’s voice was as soft and gentle as the voices of the nuns, and she had the same air of detachment from the rough-and-tumble of the world, but when she turned round Candy realized that she w
as
n’t quite as young as she had seemed at first. There was something about her that at first glance gave an impression of extreme y
o
uth, but a closer look at her serious dark eyes and neat features told Candy that she was probably about thirty. She made a small, very Latin gesture with one well-manicured hand, and smiled apologetically.

“I thought you would be here on the ninth, but it must have been the eighth. I often make such mistakes. I am very sorry.”

She looked intensely worried, and Candy, already tired and bewildered, felt uncomfortable as well. The nun behind the desk intervened.

“Signorina Marchetti arranged for you to stay with us, Miss Wells, but unfortunately there seems to have been a little confusion. We were not expecting you until to-morrow, but, as you say in England, no harm has been done.” She smiled reassuringly at Candy. “Our guest-house is really full, but we shall accommodate you.” She didn’t look worried, but Candy had a feeling that she might have added ‘somehow’. Signorina Marchetti leant towards her across the desk, and said somethi
n
g quietly and urgently. The two women talked in Italian for about a minute, and then the nun spoke to Candy again.

“The Signorina suggests that you stay with her to-night. She has a most
charming flat not far from here, and with her”—she shrugged and smiled—“you
will be much more comfortable than you would be in our guest-house. But you
m
ust tell me what you would like to do.”

Candy felt more bewildered than ever. Although they were careful hot to betray the fact, it was obvious that if she stayed with the nuns she would definitely be putting them to some sort of inconvenience. But on the other hand it seemed a bit much that this strange Italian woman should be expected to entertain her— even though she was, presumably, some sort of agent of Signor Maruga.

“It’s very kind of you...” She looked at Signorina Marchetti, and hesitated. “If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble?”

“To me it is no trouble.” The
other woman spoke almost eagerly. “I shall be most happy if you will agree to stay with me—for to-night at least. Your trunks
... they are here?”

Candy nodded a little wryly, thinking of her three small cases reposing in the outer porch of the convent. “Yes, my luggage is here. But there isn’t very much of it.”

“Then we will go. In the morning, if you wish, you may return here.”

The nuns smiled at
Candy
, and ‘
arrivedercis
’ were exchanged in all directions. Robed figures escorted the two young women from the outer world back across the little courtyard and through the echoing passageway to the massive main door leading on to the street. Outside, in the late evening tranquillity of the Via Santa Cristina, Signo
ri
na Marchetti’s car was waiting, drawn up rather quaintly on the pavement, and before the English girl knew quite what was happening one of the nuns had briskly seized her suitcases and deposited them in the Signorina’s boot. Then, smiling at her distressed expression, they opened the car door for her and helped her inside. She noticed that before stepping back one of them stroked the gleaming paintwork of the vehicle with a kind of childlike pleasure.

The car, a streamlined Italian model which would have cost a fortune in England and probably hadn’t cost so very much less in Rome, moved off with nothing more than a subdued purring sound, and as it slid quietly down the narrow street and round the corner into a piazza the woman behind the wheel glanced at Candy.

“We have not been introduced,” she remarked. “I am Caterina Marchetti. I was asked to make the arrangements for your stay in Rome, and to”—her serious mouth relaxed a little into a half smile—“and to ‘keep an eye’ on you
... that is the term, I think.”

“It’s very good of you,” said Candy, feeling slightly awkward. “I’m afraid I’m causing rather a lot of trouble.”

The Signorina shook her head. “For me it is no trouble.”

They
ca
me to a halt in a quiet cul-de-sac, outside a high stone building where one or two lights still gleamed behind heavy curtains, and where a general air of expensive sobriety indicated to Candy that they had reached a rather exclusive
corner
of the city. Signorina Marchetti got out of the car and beckoned what was evidently a porter from the shadows of the doorway before which they had come to rest, and the English girl followed her out on to the pavement just in time to see her suitcases being borne through swinging glass doors into the entrance hall of what seemed to be quite a luxurious block of flats.

The hall, when they went in, was large and rather dim, for it was lit only by a single lamp, which had been placed near the door, but as soon as she crossed the threshold Candy could see that she was in what must once have been one of the great
palazzi,
now converted into flats. In front of her a wide, shining marble staircase rose in a graceful curve towards the faintly visible splendours of a distant painted ceiling, and at the foot of the stairs the dully gleaming figures of bronze nymphs held aloft candelabra in which the
last candles had long since been extinguished
.

Si
gnorina Marchetti hurried her guest past the antique glories of the staircase towards a corner where an ultramodern lift had been installed, and together they ascended to the fourth floor, where the Signorina’s own flat was located.

And, tired and dazed as she was, when she entered Signorina Marchetti’s wide
salotto
Candy could only stand and gaze around her.

It was a room that had probably once been a bedchamber—not one of the best bedchambers, for they would have been found on the lower floors, but still an apartment
fit for a respected guest. Because it had never been one of the most important rooms its ceiling was not too uncomfortably high, and all in all, for a room in an ancient
palazzo
it had an astonishing air of cosiness about it. And at the same time it was bright and elegant, with white walls and tall windows, hidden at the moment behind curtains
of gold brocade. There was a gold carpet that spread into every corner of the room, and the furniture was a subtle blend of twentieth-century comfort and Renaissance elegance.

Her hostess was talking to the porter, and almost too tired to move, Candy simply went on staring.

And then a figure suddenly rose from one of the massive, comfortable-looking armchairs, and she heard a man’s voice speaking to her. Or at least, not to her, but to the person the speaker thought she was. The voice spoke Italian, and although she recognized it for a moment or two she couldn’t think who it belonged to. And then the figure loomed up in front of her, and she blinked in astonishment.

For it was the Conti di Lucca who stood in front of her—a Conte di Lucca who looked as if the last week or two had done little or nothing for his spirits, and whose lean, tanned face looked rather haggard.

He was obviously very nearly as surprised as she was, but he was the first to recover.

“For a moment I thought I was dreaming,” he said, staring at her. “But I was not asleep.”