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.”
Then Signorina Marchetti appeared behind them, and she spoke quickly, almost agitatedly, in English, “Michele! I did not know you would be here—you should have told me...” She looked from the man to the drooping figure of the slim young Englishwoman, and it seemed to Candy, half asleep as she was, that Caterina Marchetti was taking in the fact that the other two knew each other, and not particularly liking it. Presumably Michele di Lucca was either her fiancé or something very similar, and the idea of his being on speaking terms with any other woman was a thing her Latin spirit resented fiercely just now.
All at once Candy thought of John, and how wonderful it would have been if he had been meeting her in Rome. Tears pricked behind her eyelids and she felt unutterably weary—too weary even to feel amazement at the extraordinary fact that within two hours of arriving in Italy she had run into the Conte di Lucca.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE following morning a neat little Italian maid brought Candy her breakfast in bed, and as her bedroom curtains were drawn back to admit the winter sunlight and she struggled into wakefulness she realized that she had overslept. It was after nine o’clock, and she had intended to be up by seven. But when she asked the maid to apologize for her to Signorina Marchetti the girl only laughed, showing in the process two rows of astonishingly pearly teeth.
“The Signorina’s guests always have the breakfast in bed,” she explained, still smiling, and surveying Candy with frank, uninhibited interest. “The Signorina, she is always up early, but she likes that the guests be comfortable. And also, you have long journey yesterday. She tell me not to wake you till now.”
When the door had closed behind the maid Candy moved her breakfast tray on to the bedside table and slipped out of bed to look out of the window. At first glance there was nothing to see but a narrow street lined by tall, sombrely impressive stone buildings, but after a moment or two she noticed that just opposite her window there was a gap between two of the buildings, and the gap was filled by what was obviously a garden wall. Over the top of the wall it was possible to glimpse the upper branches of a tree ... a fruit tree. She thought at first .that it was an apple tree, carrying a burden of rather late and very golden apples—but then she remembered where she was, and when she looked again she saw that it was not apples but ripe lemons that were hanging in clusters on the other side of the wall. This was Rome, and there was a lemon tree across the road. Feeling suddenly unaccountably cheerful, she walked back to the bed and consumed a hearty breakfast of coffee, warm rolls and preserve.
Afterwards she dressed rather slowly, thinking about the previous evening. The Conti di Lucca had departed almost immediately, saying very little either to her or to their mutual hostess, and at the time she had been too tired to think very much about the coincidence of his being there. But the more she thought about it, the more extraordinary it seemed that the man she had met three weeks ago in Berkshire should, of all the men in Italy, turn out to be a close friend of the woman who had apparently been deputed by either Signor Maruga or Signor Galleo to take charge of her interests while she was in Rome. And perhaps the most amazing aspect was the fact that he himself had seemed to think so little of it.
As she slipped into a grey wool dress and brushed her hair until it shone she found herself wondering just how close the relationship between the Conte and Caterina Marchetti was. It was nothing, of course, to do with her, but there was something about Michele di Lucca that interested her—something that could have been described as tragic. She almost felt sorry for him, and yet somehow he wasn’t the sort of man one pitied. It was difficult to say what sort of man he was, for although she didn’t know much about him she was reasonably certain she had never met anyone like him before.
Outside her bedroom door she ran into her hostess, who had just come up in the lift and was now engaged in issuing instructions to her maid. She was wearing a smart cream-coloured jersey suit, and on her smooth dark head not a hair was out of place. It struck Candy, as it had done the night before, that the Italian woman was extremely good-looking, and possibly would have been more so if her hairstyle had been a little less severe and she had gone in for a little more make-up, and it occurred to her to wonder why Caterina Marchetti wasn’t married.
Perhaps, she thought, the Conte di Lucca was in no great hurry to settle down.
At sight of Candy, the Signorina smiled, and with effortless fluency switched instantaneously from rapid Italian to precise English.
“Good morning! You slept well? I hope Paolina did not awaken you too early.”
Candy shook her head. “I’m afraid I overslept dreadfully.”
“Nonsense. It was not late, even now, and you were so very tired. Come into the salotto, and we will talk.”
As she spoke she pushed a door open, and together they went into the golden room that had enchanted Candy the night before. This morning one or two rays of pale sunshine were slanting through the windows on to the vivid carpet, and in the daylight the loveliness of the old gilded furniture showed up more clearly.
In the fireplace a small log fire was blazing, and Signorina Marchetti suggested that they should sit beside it.
“Even in Rome it is cold in November.” she remarked, “and to-day something has happened to the central heating. You are warm enough?”
Candy, who actually found the atmosphere a little stifling, assured her that she was quite warm enough. And, then, because it was worrying her a little, she asked what she should do about getting in touch with the Convent of the Holy Angels.
“If I could telephone...” she began.
“You wish to speak to them?” Caterina Marchetti looked rather perplexed. “But it is not necessary. I have arranged everything with them.”
“Oh ... Then they are expecting me?”
“Expecting you? But of course not. I told them that while you are in Rome you will remain with me. It is a so much better arrangement.” Her expression altered, and her dark eyes became puzzled and anxious. “You do not like it so? You would like better to go to the Convent?”
“But...” Candy felt acutely embarrassed. “That’s not the point. I can’t possibly impose on you—I may be here for months.”
“Please—you do not impose on me.” The Italian woman’s slender, expressive hands were spread a little dramatically. “I live all alone here, and for me it will be most pleasant. The idea did not come to me until last night, when the Sisters were unable to receive you, but now I see that nothing could be better.” She added a little dryly: “The Sisters were unable to receive you last night—if you had wanted to stay they would have given up one of their own beds to you, but really they had no room.”
“But...” Candy began again, and stopped.
“Of course if you do not wish to stay with me I will telephone Sister Maria Giuseppina and tell her that I was wrong.” The soft voice sounded hurt, and Candy saw that there was only one thing she could possibly do.
“I’d love to stay with you,” she told the other woman warmly. “But if you get tired of having me—well, you must let me know.”
“I shall not get tired,”
said Caterina Marchetti with confidence.
It had been arranged that Candy should have her first interview with Signor Galleo on the following day, so that afternoon she was free to do what she liked, and her hostess, who also seemed to have plenty of time on her hands, suggested that they should go out for a walk around Rome.
“We will not go to-day to see the great churches or the ancient ruins,” she said. “You will have so much time for that. I am always sorry for the tourists who hurry from St. Peter’s to the Colosseum, and then just stop to see quickly the Catacombs before driving on to Naples. They never see the soul of Rome. And then too much beauty and history at one time is hard to digest—like too much chocolate, yes?”
Candy enjoyed that afternoon as she could not remember enjoying anything for quite a long time. She and Caterina strolled at a leisurely pace through streets and squares that she had merely glimpsed the night before, and as they walked the Italian woman talked about their surroundings with the affectionate familiarity that came from having lived almost all her life in Rome. Long before they got to the end of their excursion Candy understood what she had meant about seeing the ‘soul’ of the city. The soul of Rome, she decided, was in its old yellow stones, in its quiet corners where broods of cats assembled around lovely, unexpected iron gateways and where little fountains played unseen by any but the most adventurous of the tourists. It was in the hundreds of colourful little shrines established by the faithful at street corners, and perhaps above all it was in the faces of old, work-weary women and in the shrieks of little boys playing Red Indians in the dark, narrow tunnels of the ancient strade. It was even, she thought, in the roar of the motor-scooters, the modern Roman’s favourite means of transport. But however it was that she had discovered it, by the time she got back to Caterina Marchetti’s apartment that day Candy really felt that she had glimpsed the essential spirit of the Eternal City.
That night, Caterina explained apologetically, she had to go out—and it was apparently not the sort of expedition on which she could invite her English guest to join her. If anything, Candy was relieved to know that she was to be left to herself for the evening, for she was tired and wanted to go to bed early, but she couldn’t resist a touch of curiosity as to who it was who would be engaging her hostess’s attention. Was it the Conte di Lucca, and if so was there some close relationship between them?
But Signorina Marchetti wasn’t communicative on the subject and if anybody did come to collect her Candy didn’t see who it was. She herself had a light supper in her room—for she had firmly refused the formal meal in the dining-room that the Italian woman had wanted to insist she had—and very shortly afterwards she went to bed.
She awoke in the morning to the sound of torrential rain—rain that dropped from the heavens, as only Italian rain can, with a solid, drenching violence that struck her as being very nearly as alarming as a bad thunderstorm—and at the same moment she remembered that to-day she had to see Signor Galleo. The thought oppressed her, and the oppression grew as she toyed with her coffee and rolls, once again brought to her by Paolina on a tray. Deep down inside her the conviction was growing that there was something almost fraudulent about her being here in Rome. In all sincerity and without, she thought, being unduly modest, she didn’t believe she had a great singing voice. In her own private opinion, in fact, her voice was no more than passable, and apart from that, the idea that she might become a professional soprano struck her as almost absurd. The idea had never entered her head until Sue, feeling that something ought to be done about her only sister, had decided that she might stand a chance of attracting the great Caspelli’s attention, and then, helped by the daze of misery she had been in over John, the whole thing had snowballed until now here she was in a foreign country, accepting a lot of gratuitous help from a variety of people who were absolutely nothing to her. It was only since her arrival in Italy that she had been thinking clearly enough to see all this, but now, suddenly, the realities of the situation had come home to her, and they struck her as so absolutely awful that she pushed her breakfast away almost untouched, and for a good five minutes simply sat staring in front of her. It was rather a strenuous five minutes, for while the pretty antique clock on the writing-desk in her room was ticking away the seconds she was struggling to come to a decision about the whole course of her future life, and when the time was up she had made that decision.
For a moment or two she had been on the point of backing out—of giving up the whole thing, making apologetic explanations and returning to London on the first available plane. It was unquestionably the easy way out, and even taking into consideration the fascinations of Rome, it was tempting. But the empty vacuum that her life would become once she was safely back in London made her shiver a little. The years she had spent in London, she realized now, had been utterly aimless. They hadn’t seemed so at the time—or if they had the aimlessness had been very pleasant—because John had been there to give them colour. But if there was one thing that seemed absolutely certain it was the fact that a future in which John didn’t feature was something with which she had got to come to grips. The meaning had been taken out of her life, and a new meaning had to be found for it. Perhaps, here in Rome, that meaning would become clear. Signor Maruga and a number of other people had confidence in her, and their confidence was a challenge. She could at least try...
She felt as if she were setting off blindfold along an arduous and lonely road, but once her decision had been reached her mind was clear, and when she stood up to comb her hair and get ready for her first interview with Signor Galleo she felt happier than she had done for weeks.
CHAPTER SIX
LORENZO GALLEO was a small man—at least, he wasn’t tall—and at first sight Candy thought he looked rather insignificant. But that was before she had had time to notice the; magnetism in his brilliant dark eyes, and to feel the full effects of his boundless, dynamic energy. After half an hour in his company she felt very much as if she had been caught up with a hurricane, and the experience had left her decidedly shaken. He said at once that he was anxious to hear her sing, and she was hardly given time even to decide whether she was nervous or not before her coat and gloves were whisked away from her, and his accompanist was leading the way into her favourite Caro Nome.
She sang well, she knew, though she couldn’t imagine why; and when she had finished the maestro’s gratification was obvious. He was silent for several seconds, and then he came over to her and squeezed her hands.
“My friend Giacome Maruga did not lie to me,” he remarked. “You have a talent, signorina. Just now it is only a little talent—a very little, a tiny talent! But if 'you will work hard, and give your heart to your work, it will grow ... Let me look at you, please.” He stood back, studying her critically. “For a cantante, you are very small and slim. And you look not strong. Are you strong enough for such a life?”
“I’m very healthy,” she told him quietly. “I’m quite strong enough.”
“Bene, bene. Then to-morrow we will begin to work.” But something in her face still seemed to trouble him, and when his accompanist had been dismissed he passed a hand thoughtfully over his thinning black hair and gave her another very penetrating look. “You know, of course, the story of the opera La Traviata.”
“Yes, of course.”
“As you know, it is a love-story—a sad and a dramatic story. When you take the part of Violetta you must put everything you have into your voice, for unless the audience are made to feel the power and the tragedy of her love your performance will be empty.” He paused for breath, spreading his hands in aft extravagant gesture. “When you are on the stage you must always remember that it is not you who are singing, but that other woman—the woman you are representing. Your music is very important—it is almost everything—but your music will be dead unless you realize this. You must try very hard to understand and to live everything that woman is supposed to be feeling. Joy, misery, anger, relief, boredom, contentment ... love. L
ove, perhaps, is the most important of all. But...” For a moment he paused again, allowing his square-tipped brown fingers to drum a little on the top of the piano. “But in your own life, signorina, for the moment at least, there must be no thought of love. As I told you, all your heart must be in your singing. You have been unhappy, one can see, but that is almost over, I think. Lose yourself in your music, Signorina Wells, forget everything else—for a time, if not for ever. A brilliant artist cannot be an ordinary human being, remember that.”
She said nothing, and he walked over to one of the wide windows, beckoning to her to follow him. The windows commanded a panoramic view of the city—a view so staggering that she caught her breath a little when she saw it.
“Rome is a great city, no e vero? One day, if you work hard—if you work very hard—it may be that you will become the fine singer I think you could be, and then ... and then perhaps all that great city down there will be at your feet. And not only that city, but many others also, around Italy and around the world.”
Candy followed the direction of his eyes. “I want to work,” she told him. “Not because I think I might become famous”—she smiled rather enchantingly, causing him to relax and smile back—“but just because...” Her voice trailed away, and she finished abruptly: “I want to work more than anything else in the world.” When she emerged from the elegant dimness of Signor Galleo’s audition room she blinked a little in the unexpected brilliance of the winter sunlight, and it occurred to her that before she did anything else she was going to have to buy herself a pair of sunglasses. For a minute or two she stood hesitating on the well-scrubbed doorstep, wondering in which direction to start walking—for a taxi had delivered her to Signor Galleo’s door, and Caterina Marchetti wasn’t with her—and then, as she stood there, a man’s voice suddenly spoke her name, and she jumped.
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