And then, all at once, she did see her, Caterina was descending the stairs very slowly, and her dark head was thrown back so that she could look up into the face of the man beside her. The man was Michele, and they were deep in a conversation so absorbing that they didn’t notice Candy until they had very nearly walked past her.
And then she saw Michele’s dark eyes suddenly come to rest upon her, and he said something to the girl at his side. Caterina looked round, and then she moved quickly over to the English girl.
“I was looking for you, cara.” Her eyes were faintly conscience-stricken. “I am going to church with Michele. Signor Marco will drive you home—or to Mass first, if you would like that.”
“Oh!” Candy had an awful feeling that she sounded as flat as she felt, and she made a desperate effort to alter the impression. “It’s been a wonderful evening, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, wonderful.” The other girl looked at her seriously. “You are all right, Candida?”
“Of course. I’ve been having a marvellous time. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yes. Well ... Good-night, cara.”
Just for a moment, over Caterina’s head, Candy’s eyes met the dark, inscrutable eyes of Michele. He didn’t smile, or say a word, and a second later he and Caterina were moving on down the stairway into the haunted shadows of the courtyard.
For about a minute after they had disappeared from sight Candy stood exactly where they had left her, one hand on the broad marble balustrade, the other hanging a little limply by her side. Then, behind her, she heard the voice of Marco di Lucca.
“Don’t look so sad, Candy.”
Startled, she swung round, and with a barely noticeable gesture brushed something bright from the corner of one eye.
“Do I look sad? I’m not.” And she smiled brightly up at him.
“Bene. Now, do I take you home, or do I take you to church? I know you are not Catholic, but it is Christmas. And it might be interesting for you to see the Mass. Especially as everyone else is going.”
She hesitated. “Will you be going to Mass? I mean,” a little ruefully, “will you be going even if you have to take me home first?”
“Certainly I shall go. I am a sinner of incredible blackness, Candy, but I was very nicely brought up, and still, sometimes, I go to Mass to be whitened a little.”
“Then, if you don’t mind taking me with you, I’d like to go too.”
The church they were going to was not far away, but there was a lot of traffic in the streets, and their progress was soon reduced to a crawl. Everywhere in Rome people seemed to be leaving parties or closing the doors of their houses behind them and pouring into the churches, and as their vehicles jammed the roads and sometimes even the pavements, and every so often there were bursts of furious honking from drivers who felt they had been held up long enough, but on the whole there was a kind of tangible good humour in the air, keen, joyous excitement, and Candy was suddenly conscious of a feeling of exhilaration. Once, as they waited, locked in an apparently immovable jam, a man jumped out of his car to run across the road and shake the hand of another driver. He held everyone up for at least two minutes longer than was strictly necessary before he finally hurried back and climbed behind his own steering-wheel again, but his light-hearted pleasure in the evidently unexpected encounter with a friend was so infectious that nobody seemed to mind in the least.
And then, moving a little faster than the cars in the lane on their left, they drew abreast of a gleaming white Fiat, and it didn’t take Candy more than a second to recognize the occupants. Something of the brightness of the scene around her seemed to become dim, and she turned her eyes away from the sports car and its driver to stare into a lighted display window on the other side of the road. Michele was concentrating on the road ahead, but Caterina had her face turned towards him, and it was easy to see that she was gazing at him with a sort of eager intensity. Without wanting to go too deeply into her own reasons, Candy just didn’t want to watch them.
She didn’t know that Marco had been watching both the white car and her own face, and she was surprised when he suddenly said: “In a moment we shall lose them.”
“I should have thought they would have been further ahead of us,” she said lightly.
“Perhaps they have just been unlucky. With the traffic.” He paused, and she had an uncomfortable feeling that he was looking at her. Then he said: “Candy, I should not like you to feel that you have been unlucky in Rome.”
She turned her head. “Unlucky?” she repeated.
He gestured towards the sports car, now drawing quite rapidly away from them. “Don’t think about him,” he said briefly.
There was silence for nearly a minute, and when she spoke her voice was husky. “I don’t think about him—really. That is,” truthfully, “I didn’t. Until...”
“Until to-night? I know, cara. I saw the moment when it came into your eyes. Only this morning he was merely someone kind ... a friend, yes? And to-night he is so much more.”
She looked away sharply, feeling startled and bewildered. It had all been so sudden. She herself had barely had time yet to understand what was happening to her. So how could Marco ... how could he have guessed?
“You must not be upset.” He was speaking gently, staring straight in front of him. “It is not a thing to be ashamed of, falling in love. But one can be badly hurt by it. One can be hurt so badly that one wishes only to the. You think that is too dramatic—”
“No,” she said quickly, “I don’t.”
“Then ... Little one, I wish only to warn you. You are just beginning to fall in love with Michele. Put him out of your mind now. Put him out of your heart.” Somewhere inside her a conventional instinct was urging her to utter some sort of denial—to refuse to discuss it, at least. But the words wouldn’t come, and after a long silence all she said was:
“He’s going to marry Caterina, isn’t he?”
She knew that Marco di Lucca looked at her and sighed rather heavily. Then he said something beneath his breath, in Italian:
“Perhaps,” he conceded.
“Then—”
“Listen, little one, there is one thing you have to do. You have to go ahead with your music. You have to sing in this opera, and you have to be successful.”
She swallowed. The idea of going through with it all—of endless rehearsals for Faust, with Michele beside her all the time, directing and advising, made her throat feel dry. “I’m really not good enough,” she said flatly.
“Lorenzo Galleo knows you are good enough.” He spoke gently. “You must do this, Candy. You must not give up because of Michele. You must not give up for any reason. If you are unhappy now then it is now that you should dedicate yourself to work. And you will not always be unhappy.”
They had reached the church now, and he drew into the kerb, behind a lot of other vehicles. Somewhere ahead of them in the line was Michele’s Fiat, and as Candy got out of the car a slim figure detached itself from the crowd of humanity still pouring into the church and hurried towards her. It was Caterina, and she was holding an insubstantial black lace scarf, which she pressed into Candy’s hand.
“Put it on your head,” she whispered. “I waited—I remembered that you would not have one with you.” And then she slipped away again. Looking after her, Candy saw Michele’s dark brown head follow hers through the lighted doorway and into the church.
Standing and kneeling through the long, colourful ceremony of the Mass, her nose assailed by incense, her eyes dazzled by the glow of hundreds of candles, Candy’s thoughts were for most of the time in a turmoil. She was profoundly grateful for the press of humanity around her, for their happy, rustling, murmuring presence gave her a feeling of being part of something outside herself which helped to ease, a little, the aching unhappiness at the centre of her being. The throbbing organ seemed to soothe her bruised and bewildered spirit, too, and very gradually the blackness of the depression hanging over her lightened just a
little, But nothing seemed to clear the despairing confusion in her mind, and it wasn’t until the final blessing had been given, and above the soaring strains of Adeste Fideles the Christmas bells were starting to peal out across the city, that the mists clinging about her thinking powers began to evaporate, and then, quite suddenly, she knew that Marco di Lucca was right. She must go on with her singing career. Here, in Rome, with Michele or without him, she must work to justify the confidence that had been placed in her. She must take the part of Marguerite and she must do her best to make a success of it. But only she herself, and perhaps Marco, would ever know how much it was going to cost her.
CHAPTER NINE
THE next few weeks were the most exhausting and bewildering that Candy had ever experienced. She seemed to work day and night, pausing only for rest, for short walks through the wintry city, for increasingly light meals—increasingly light only because she felt less and less capable of facing food. Her health was undoubtedly suffering, as everyone around her noticed with genuine concern. But they attributed it all to tension and excitement and the strain of all the hard, gruelling work she was putting in—work that was absolutely essential if she was to stand any chance of meeting the challenge of the seventh of February with any success. They saw with approval that she was really keen to achieve that success, and for the most part they imagined she thought of very little else.
In actual fact she was profoundly thankful for the fact that the ordeal ahead of her—and she couldn’t think of it as anything but an ordeal—left her with so little time to think. She not only had to learn and perfect her presentation of a series of difficult and demanding arias, but for the first time in her life—if she were to discount the part of a small angel, once allocated to her in a school Nativity Play—her acting ability was to be put to the test in public. At first, on top of all the effort and concentration called for by the musical side, it had all seemed far too much for her to attempt to tackle with success, but Signor Galleo had been bracing on the subject. Theatrical ability, he remarked, came naturally to women, and he had no reason to believe that Candy was any exception. He did, however, arrange for a certain amount of drama coaching to be added to her curriculum, and within a short time the idea of impersonating another human being on a stage began to hold fewer terrors, for her. Signor Galleo was actually far more pleased than he would have been prepared to admit, with the rapidity of her progress in every respect, and his confidence in her increased every day.
Michele was unfailingly kind and unfailingly helpful, and in spite of everything during the hours when she was with him she was almost happy. Sometimes she would be singing and he would be, accompanying her, sometimes he would be helping her to learn the complicated French libretto—yet another hurdle to be crossed—and sometimes they would simply be talking over a break for coffee and sandwiches, but whenever she was with him she felt that in a curious way they were completely and utterly in sympathy with one another, and while they were together the uncomfortable memory of his uncle’s words—even the shadow of Caterina, who didn’t often take part in these sessions—seemed obliterated as if nothing of the sort had ever been.
Very early in January she met Giulio Preti, the Italian tenor who was to sing opposite her in Florence, together with the rest of the cast, and thereafter she had to take part in frequent joint rehearsals. Everyone was friendly and helpful, and although Giulio was decidedly overweight and anything but good-looking he was a very competent singer whose support on stage was obviously going to be invaluable to her. Gradually, very gradually, she began to feel more at home in the part, less appalled by the vastness of the whole undertaking.
But the strain grew progressively greater, and by the evening of February first, as she returned alone to Caterina’s flat after a lengthy session with Signor Galleo, she knew she felt decidedly odd. She had been singing for more than five hours with very little in the way of rest, and she hadn’t bothered to eat much that day, either. The following morning they were all due to leave for Florence, and she found herself wondering suddenly just how she was going to face it all.
Slowly, she made her way up in the lift, and let herself into Caterina’s flat. Then she closed the front door behind her and leant against it. And instantly a voice spoke to her.
“So very tired, Candida?”
It was Michele. She had closed her eyes, but now she opened them quickly, and stood up straight. “Not really tired,” she lied valiantly. “I’ll be quite all right after a good night’s sleep.”
“Are you sure?” He was frowning a little.
“Absolutely sure.”
He helped her out of her coat, and guided her through into Caterina’s sitting-room as if she were an exhausted child. Caterina didn’t seem to be anywhere about.
“You are ready to leave for Florence in the morning?”
“Yes.” With a trace of anxiety she added: “You’re going to join us at the station, aren’t you?”
“No, Candida. That’s one of the reasons why I came to see you to-night. I shall not be going to Florence with you.”
Afterwards she could only hope that the dismay she felt hadn’t shown too clearly in her face. “You aren’t coming?” she repeated a little stupidly.
“No. I have to go abroad—to Switzerland. It is ... unexpected business. I must go. I am sorry, because I wanted to help you as much as I could, but I am sure you will be all right without me.”
She wanted to say that of course she wouldn’t be all right, that she would be lost without him. But all she actually said was: “I hope you have a good journey. Do you leave to-morrow?”
“The following day. But to-morrow I shall have many things to do. I may not have time to see you off at the station.”
“Oh!” She made a brave attempt to smile. “Well, I’ll do my best not to let you down. You’ve been such a wonderful help to me.”
“I am glad.” Abruptly, he stood up. “I came only to say good-bye ... arrivederci. You are tired to-night, and there is no need to give you more advice now. We have been over everything, and besides you will have with you people much better qualified than I am to help you.” At the door of the flat she gave him her hand, and: he held it for several seconds in a light but remarkably comforting clasp that she felt for a long time afterwards. A little uncertainly, she said:
“You will be in Florence for the performance... won’t you?”
He looked down at her, and his brown eyes took on a strange, unreadable expression.
“Of course, Candida, I shall be there to support you. And now, good-night ... and good-bye until we, meet again.”
And then he turned and left her. A moment or two later she heard the clash of the lift doors, and knew that he had really gone.
The next morning it was raining hard, and she awoke with the beginnings of a headache, and the knowledge that she didn’t feel in the least like setting out for Florence. But there was no possibility of avoiding what had been planned for her, and punctually at half past nine, as they had been instructed, she and Caterina arrived at Rome’s central railway station. Caterina was insisting on going with her to Florence, and she was grateful, for she had grown really fond of the Italian girl. Somehow, she couldn’t feel resentful of whatever relationship it was that existed between her and Michele. Not, as she constantly reminded herself, that she had any right to feel resentful, anyway.
At the station they were met by Lorenzo Galleo and Giulio Preti, both very alert and cheerful despite the damp greyness of the morning, and one by one the rest of the cast arrived to join them. Laughing and chattering in English and Italian, they all climbed aboard the long, streamlined, north-bound train, and precisely at ten o’clock they began to draw slowly out of Rome.
Candy, looking very English and very attractive in a misty turquoise woollen suit, attracted a good many interested glances from her travelling companions, both male and female, but she didn’t feel at all in the mood for conversation, and for most of the time she buried herself
in an absorbing book which Michele had thought might be of use to her. Michele...
Time and again she put the book downward, staring through the rain-streaked window at an endless vista of dimly-seen grey olive slopes and distant hills, wondered why Michele couldn’t have been with her. Whatever the business was that was taking him to Switzerland, it must be important, for she was sure he hadn’t wanted to let her down. And besides, if he had come to Florence he could have been with Caterina.
They reached the city of Dante and the Medici during the afternoon. It was raining harder than it had been in Rome, and it was also a good deal colder. Candy, who felt tired and stiff, was grateful for the smooth efficiency with which she and her fellows were whisked from the station to their hotel, and still more grateful for the fact that she was immediately left alone to rest. Only a few months earlier the last thing she would have wanted to do on arrival in Florence was lie down and have a nap, but these days, outside working hours, she was almost always tired.
The hotel they had all been taken to was a comfortable middle-grade establishment, and her room was small but well furnished. After taking one look through the wide plate-glass windows at the rain-soaked rooftops of Florence she curled up on the bed with her book, and almost immediately fell asleep.
She was awakened about an hour later by the sound of the telephone ringing close beside her. The room was almost in darkness, and as she struggled into a sitting position she reached first for the receiver and then for the light switch.
At the other end of the telephone line a man’s voice spoke, rather uncertainly.
“Is that Candy?”
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