“Yes.” Who did that voice belong to?
“It’s me ... John.”
“John?” There was a pause, and then realization hit her. “Oh!”
“Candy, I’m in Florence. Just a couple of blocks away from you, as a matter of fact.” He waited, but there was no answer. “Candy?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m here.”
“Did you hear what I said? It’s ridiculous, when I’m within walking distance of your hotel, but this line doesn’t seem too good.”
“I can hear you very well, John.” Her voice had never sounded calmer.
“Good. Listen, Candy, I want to see you. I’m dying to see you.” Another short pause. “Will you have dinner with me to-night?”
She sighed, but so softly that he didn’t hear. “Haven’t you got a date with the Contessa di Lucca?”
She heard him say something violent under his breath. “No! Anna’s in Rome, and I shan’t be seeing her again. Candy, I’ve a lot to explain—”
She interrupted him. “No, you haven’t. You haven’t got anything to explain. I don’t know anything about your ... your relationship with the Contessa, but that doesn’t matter, because it’s nothing to do with me.”
“Don’t be absurd!” The voice she had once thought so shatteringly attractive sounded irritated. “Darling, I’ve made a fool of myself, I know that, but—hang it all, she is one of the most beautiful women in the world! When I met her I was hypnotized. Any man would have been the same. But it’s over now, and— Candy, are you there?”
“Yes. But, John—”
“Well, listen to me, will you? I love you, Candy. I suppose I always have done, but it took this little—episode to get it sorted out in my mind.” There was a moment’s hesitation, and when he went on his tone was subtly confident. “Look, we can’t talk over the phone. I’ll pick you up at half past seven, and we’ll go out and discover Florence. It’ll be an evening, to remember!”
“You go out and discover Florence, John, and I hope you do have an evening to remember.” Her voice was cool and even. “But I’m tired to-night, and I’ve got a good deal of work ahead of me. Thanks for asking, but I’d rather not. And I don’t think we have anything to talk about.” She waited a moment, and then said quietly: “Good-night, John.”
She lowered the receiver to its rest, and then a few seconds later picked it up again to speak to the hotel switchboard.
“I’m sorry to be a nuisance,” she heard herself saying, “but I’d really rather not have any more calls put through to me to-night. Yes, room three hundred and ninety-one.”
She hung up again, and leant back against the bed’s padded headboard. Well, she had settled that. He might try to get in touch with her in other ways, he might ring her in the morning, but she would just go on finding means of avoiding him until, finally, the message penetrated. He probably wouldn’t persevere very long, in any case.
The call had certainly been a bit of a shock, and she knew that if she were to be honest with herself she would have to admit that her vanity had been gratified. She wouldn’t have been a normal woman if she had not derived some satisfaction from the knowledge that the man whom she had once imagined herself desperately in love with, and who had been stolen from under her nose by the fantastic Anna Landi, had now come rushing back to throw himself, metaphorically speaking, at her feet. Admittedly, there had been little enough in the way of humility about his attitude on the telephone, but then, as she realized now, humility in the ordinary sense just wasn’t possible with John.
She sighed, and was conscious of a feeling of peace. John was out of her system once and for all—he no longer had any hold over her. And she knew that whatever it was that she had felt for him it had not been love.
For the next four days Candy and the rest of the cast worked almost non-stop. Dividing their time between the Hotel Michelangelo—where their expenses were being met by the rather obscure fund which had financed the whole enterprise—and the imposing baroque theatre in which their performance was to be staged they saw about as little as it was possible to see of the city on the Arno, but Candy at least felt no urge whatsoever to engage in sightseeing activities, and everybody else seemed to have been familiar with Florence since early childhood.
On the morning of Martedi Grasso—the Italian name for Shrove Tuesday—Candy awoke to find that the rain which had been falling steadily ever since the morning of her departure from Rome had disappeared at last, and the city was bathed in the glow of a golden sunrise. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen anywhere, and when, on impulse, she flung her bedroom window open and leant out to look down into the glistening street she was greeted, unaccountably, by the drifting scent of invisible mimosa. Drawing a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and the strain and weariness and tension that she had lived with, day by day, for weeks, seemed to recede a little.
But it didn’t recede for long, and by the time she had eaten a hurried breakfast in her room and had gone down to the Company’s private sitting-room to meet Lorenzo Galleo she was as taut and keyed up as a well-tuned violin string. The Italian’s eyes narrowed a little as he looked at her, and he came to meet her, taking both her hands in his.
“Candida...” He smiled at her. “My child, you must relax.”
She smiled back at him, a little helplessly. “I know, but I can’t.”
“Sit down.” Watching her as she obeyed him, his brows contracted a little. “You know, it is perfectly natural that you should be very tense, very nervous just now. And because you have had to work so very hard to prepare yourself for this performance in such a short time it is also natural that you should be tired. But you are more than tense, more than nervous, more than tired.” He laughed a little, shaking his head at her. “Almost, you make me feel that I should call a doctor, and ask him to tell me if you are well enough to go ahead!”
“Oh, but that’s ridiculous ... I’m quite all right. I’m fine!”
For a moment or two he was silent, staring at her. And then, almost imperceptibly, he shrugged. “Benissimo! And now, what would you like to do to-day?”
“Do—? Well, I suppose I’ll be—rehearsing, won’t I?”
“Not to-day. You have worked very hard, without rest and without complaining, but you have worked enough. I do not think that another rehearsal would, help your performance to-night at all.”
“I am flattered.”
“Then you remember, of course, that I told you hard work would be necessary.”
“I’ve never forgotten it.”
“That I realize.” Once again he smiled his wide, paternal smile. “But if I had known that you were going to be such a good pupil I would also have told you that it is possible to work too much as well as too little. It is good to be a fine singer,” teasingly, “but not if one has no strength left with which to sing!”
“I have plenty of strength, signore. For singing.”
“Well, well, that’s good.” He hesitated, feeling oddly unsure of himself. “I told you also that you must lose yourself in your music. But, you know, I did not really mean that you should lose yourself completely, so completely. When you came to me one could see that you were unhappy. Then, I thought, you became happier. Now ... now you are unhappy again.”
She looked away from him, and out of the window at the sunny morning. “I’ve just been getting a bit nervous,” she said after a pause. “I’ll be all right by to-morrow.”
Lorenzo Galleo sighed, and decided that no good could come of further probing at the moment. He stood up. “Very well. Now, what would you say to a little walk in the sunshine?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think ... Oh, I’m sorry. I’m being terribly difficult.”
“But,” a little desperately, “I must do something.”
“Then do whatever you would like to do—provided it is not too tiring, of course! But no more work until the curtain rises to-night. You understand me?”
“I feel much better when I’m working,” she pleaded
. “I don’t get so ... so edgy.”
“I know, I know.” Sitting down beside her, he studied her with an anxiety that he tried to keep out of his eyes. When he had taken her on, three months earlier, as totally untried material, he had thought it important to explain to her, as he did to all his pupils, that the road ahead would be anything but an easy one. Hard work and a sense of dedication, he had told her, were indispensable if she were to achieve even the smallest measure of success. But he hadn’t really expected her to take him so seriously. She had worked as he had never known a pupil work before, and although, recognizing the real value of her developing talent, he had been delighted by her single-mindedness it hadn’t been long before he had also begun to be afraid that she might overdo it. She was a sensitive, emotional sort of girl, and physically rather fragile. In such a case, too much dedication could be even more dangerous than too little.
“Do you remember, Candida,” he asked her now, “what I told you when you first came to me?”
“Yes, signore. Every word.”
“To-day you have a right to be difficult. Would you —perhaps you would just like to be left alone?”
“Oh, please!” She looked up at him gratefully.
“Then I will leave you. But—” He stood still. “Candida, there is one thing that I wanted to ask you.”
“What is it, signore?”
“Are you happy about appearing to-night? Or do you feel that you have been hurried into this ... that it is too soon, that you are not ready to appear in public?”
“What do you think?” she asked quietly.
“I know that you are ready, but I wish to be sure that you will not do this against your will.”
“It won’t be against my will. I want to go ahead, and I want to be successful.” And something inside her added: “Because there is nothing else in life.”
Candy spent the rest of the day trying to rest. By tacit consent everybody seemed to leave her alone, and she spent a good deal of the time in her room, reading—the only occupation that enabled her to keep still at all. As the day wore on she grew more and more keyed up, and was annoyed with herself, for she knew it wasn’t only the thought of the performance looming ahead of her that was throwing her off balance. Something was missing—or rather somebody—and she didn’t merely wish he were with her; without him she felt as lost as a dinghy in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
John Ryland had tried to telephone her twice, but as on both occasions she had put the receiver down without hesitation he seemed to have given up. Once, apparently, he had turned up in person and asked for her at the reception desk, but she had flatly refused to see him, and now she was hoping against hope that he really understood. She couldn’t have cared less whether he resumed his violent interest in the beautiful Anna, or, for that matter, removed himself to a monastery, but the idea of having to speak to him nauseated her. She realized, now, that her feelings for him had been essentially childish, the result, mainly, of a desperate urge to cling to something ... anything. All at once, with astonishing clarity, she saw all the things in him that were least attractivehis weakness, his selfishness, his conceit. But at the same time she knew that if she had really loved him—if between them there had been that mysterious bond of magnetism which defies all explanation—no fault of which the human character was capable would have made any difference. She hadn’t loved him, and she knew she was very lucky to have escaped the disaster that might have overtaken her if his own ideas where she was concerned had clarified themselves a little earlier. She felt like someone who has only just discovered how close they have been to the edge of a precipice. She might have been married to him!
As for his own feelings for herself, she had very little doubt that they would evaporate soon enough. In his world there were plenty of Anna Landis. He wouldn’t go without consolation for long.
At five o’clock an excellent English-style tea was brought to her room, accompanied by a message of good wishes from the hotel manager. She sent the manager a note of thanks and poured herself a cup of tea, but left the cakes and sandwiches untouched, rather wishing she didn’t have to look at them. There had still been no message of any kind from Michele, and she was fighting against a kind of rising panic!
What, she wondered, would she do if he didn’t come? She knew she was probably crazy to allow herself to depend on him in any way whatsoever—when, as he had shown so clearly on Christmas night, Caterina was the only person in the world who really meant anything to him but she couldn’t help it. If only, just this once, he could be there to give her courage ... Afterwards, she would have to fight her battles alone, for she knew she must stop seeing him, but she didn’t want to think about that now. Not yet.
It occurred to her that if Michele didn’t come Caterina probably wouldn’t come either. She really was going to be alone.
Soon after five a cable was delivered to her, and even before she opened it she knew it was from Sue and Paul.
‘Best possible luck, darling. Everyone thrilled to bits.’ She read the words several times before returning them to their envelope, and she thought briefly that it was nice to know there was still someone in the world who took a personal interest in her.
Immediately after that Lorenzo Galleo telephoned through to her room. His voice with its heavy accent was cheerful and reassuring, and as he suggested to her that possibly they ought soon to be thinking of setting out for the theatre she didn’t feel nearly as panicky as she had expected to feel. She felt rather flat, and also rather cold inside, but on the whole she was conscious of a strange new sense of detachment.
They reached the theatre soon after six, and as she sat in her dressing-room with several of the other girls involved in the production fussing around her sympathetically she wondered for a moment if she could be dreaming. This couldn’t be her, Candy Wells. It didn’t make sense. She didn’t feel excited, she couldn’t honestly have said that she was nervous—everything was completely unreal.
The performance was scheduled to begin at half past seven, and by seven o’clock she was fully dressed, and as near to being ready as she was likely to be. Giulio Preti came and talked to her for a few minutes, but once they had gone over the various musical technicalities that it was important they should go into their conversation more or less dried up, and he disappeared again.
Then another cable was delivered to her. Almost without thinking, she opened it slowly, and it wasn’t until the slip of cream-coloured paper was spread in front of her that the fingers holding it started to tremble, and the blood pounded wildly in her veins. It was from Michele ... And it had been sent from Switzerland.
‘I cannot be with you...’ The lines blurred in front of her eyes. ‘Sing as you have never sung. God bless you. Michele.’
Her hand dropped, and the cable fluttered to the floor. She was thankful that she was alone. He couldn’t come ... he didn’t say he was sorry. But he did say: ‘God bless you!’
She sat down slowly on the chair in front of her dressing-table, and stared unseeingly at her own unreal, carefully made-up reflection.
And at that moment there was a sudden outburst of raised voices in the passageway outside the door. At first she scarcely noticed it, but it was followed almost immediately by a violent shaking of the door itself. Somebody was evidently trying to turn the handle, and was being forcibly prevented from obtaining entry. Still she sat gazing into the mirror, unable somehow to summon up the interest or even the energy to find out what was going on, but a few seconds later persistence was rewarded, and the door swung open. On the threshold stood the Contessa di Lucca.
She was wearing a magnificent sable coat, and from head to toe she was as perfectly turned out as she almost invariably seemed to be, but underneath its flawless make-up her beautiful face looked pale, and her eyes were wide and strained. Behind her stood Lorenzo Galleo, his face almost as taut as her own.
“This ... man would not let me come in!” The famous beauty gestured dramatically towar
ds her compatriot. “But I had to see you—I had to talk to you.”
“Contessa....” Not ungently, Signor Galleo placed a hand on her arm. “I had no wish to offend you. You are remarkable, you are incomparable, and I admire you as much as any man in Italy. But for this child...” He stopped, and then went on talking in Italian. She answered him, rapidly and volubly, and as Candy stood staring a little dazedly from one to the other he suddenly seemed to give way.
“Very well, very well! Five minutes!” He looked across at Candy, and it seemed to her he looked desperately anxious. “Little one, whatever happens, don’t be upset. Remember that to-night you are going to sing—nothing else happens!”
He went out, closing the door behind him, and for a moment the two women stood staring at one another. Then, to Candy’s astonishment, huge, slow tears started to cascade down the Contessa’s cheeks.
“Oh, Candida, Candida, I am sorry.” Her voice sounded choked. “I know what it is like, a first night. And you have never appeared before! But—but, Michele...”
“Michele?” Candy’s voice sounded small and still. “What about Michele?”
“You are close to him. What has he told you?”
“He hasn’t told me anything, Contessa. I—I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong impression. Your son has helped me a lot, but I—we’re not close friends.” A little stiffly, she picked up the heavy, spreading skirts of her stage costume and moved across the room to pull a chair out for the visitor. “Won’t you sit down?”
“You mean he hasn’t told you about—why he went to Switzerland? You don’t know?”
“Know?” Candy felt as if a chill ran through her, starting in the tips of her fingers and gradually spreading over her whole body. “I don’t know anything—except that he went to Switzerland.”
“But he has gone for an operation! He is ill—very ill—and, oh, Candy, I didn’t know!”
“He ... he’s ill?” Candy put out her right hand, and took hold of the back of a chair. The blood seemed to be pounding in her neck, and she felt as if reality were receding.
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