“Mi dispiace ... I’m very sorry.” The owner of the voice stood before her on the pavement, and she saw that it was the Conte di Lucca. He had just emerged from an expensive-looking low-slung white Fiat which was parked beside the kerb, and in his beautifully cut light grey suit and immaculate shirt, his dark hair gleaming in the sun, he looked the most perfect example anyone would be likely to meet of a well-dressed and startlingly good-looking modern Italian nobleman. Candy hadn’t realized before that he was so good-looking, and briefly and in a detached sort of way she wondered why.
“I am sorry,” he said again. “I startled you. Caterina asked me to meet you, in case you should become lost ... but perhaps you would prefer not to be met?”
She smiled at him, crinkling her eyes a little against the glare. “Thank you—it’s very nice of you to take so much trouble. But I don’t want to be a burden to anyone. I can easily wander around by myself for a while, and then just take a bus or a taxi back to Miss Marchetti’s flat.”
He hesitated, looking for a moment as if, having salved his conscience by making his offer of assistance, he were now going to remove himself and let her do exactly as she suggested. And then he shook his head. “In Rome it’s too easy to be lost. Tell me where you wish to go and I will take you there.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t do that,” she protested rather vaguely. She would have liked to wander off by herself, for she was feeling, tense and suddenly exhausted after the morning’s ordeal, and she thought that finding her way alone through the sunlit, crowded streets would have been curiously relaxing. “I want to buy some sunglasses, she added, as if this admission might induce him to give her her freedom.
“Then first I will take you to a farmacia, and you may select a pair.” He was holding the car door open for her, and she had no option but to climb inside.
They drew smoothly out into the mid-morning traffic, and reacting to the gentle warmth of the sun on her face, and the superlative comfort of the Fiat, Candy gradually began to feel more relaxed. After about five minutes they came to an excellent chemist’s shop, where a smiling Italian girl helped her choose a pair of sunglasses from a range so varied and bewildering that by the time she emerged into the street again she was feeling almost dizzy, and the glasses she had chosen suited her so well that no fewer than four members of the male sex turned to give her an interested second look as she made her way from the shop doorway to the car.
But her escort hadn’t entered the shop with her, and by the time she rejoined him he had got back into the driving-seat and was staring broodingly through the windscreen. He got out with courteous alacrity to open the car door for her, but he made no comment on the newly acquired sunglasses, and his sudden air of abstraction made her feel uncomfortable. She decided he must all at once have recollected some sort of engagement which made being burdened with her rather tiresome, and she quickly apologized for keeping him waiting outside the shop.
“If you haven’t got time to drive me back to Miss Marchetti’s flat I could still do what I intended to do,” she assured him. “If you drop me here—”
He looked at her. “I have all the time in the world, signorina.” And then after a moment he added: “Well, if not quite that, at least I can offer you to-day.” The car increased speed a little, and he looked at his watch. “Do you take pleasure in hot chocolate?”
She was a little amused by his way of phrasing the question, but she answered: “Yes. Very much.”
“Then I will take you to a cafe where one may see the whole of Rome pass by, and there you will taste chocolate which is worthy of the name.”
For another two or three minutes they wound their way through the crowded, sunlit streets, and then the Conte found a suitable parking space, and when he had manoeuvred his sleek white car into it they both got out, and he guided her across the busy street to a place where, despite the fact that it was November, a few white-painted tables were already being arranged on the wide pavement. The cafe proprietor obviously knew the Conte well, and as they sat down amid the cheerful morning bustle of Rome he pulled their chairs out for them himself. He also looked at Candy as if she were quite the most delightful thing he had seen for months, and she was relieved when he disappeared to attend to the hot chocolate.
“I’ve never seen a pavement cafe before—not a real one, I mean,” she told the Italian beside her. He had put on dark glasses himself now, which made him seem more detached than ever, and when she spoke he glanced at her abruptly, as if he had temporarily forgotten all about her.
“No?” he murmured. Politely, he added: “Do you like it?”
“Yes. But it’s rather a strange sensation ... sitting here, almost in the middle of the traffic.” As if to make her meaning clearer, a Vespa rushed past within a few feet of them, and he smiled but didn’t answer. After a moment she went on: “I think it’s stimulating, somehow. It gives you a feeling of involvement—of being caught up with everything that’s going on around you.”
“And you find that soothing—just at the moment.” It was a statement of fact rather than a question, and this time it was she who said nothing in reply. “To lose oneself in things that don’t concern one, to fill one’s ears with sounds that don’t matter, so that one cannot hear the sounds that are important ... there can be a great peace in that, sometimes.”
Candy looked across at him with surprise and a touch of confusion—how much had he guessed about her?—but by this time the cafe proprietor had arrived with the chocolate, and he was engaged in paying for it. When the man had gone he smiled at her, and urged her to try the steaming beverage while it was still hot.
“I am waiting to hear what you think of our cioccolata,” he remarked. “And when you have told me that, you must also tell me how you enjoyed your singing this morning.”
She tasted the chocolate and burnt her tongue, but blinked the tears out of her eyes and told him it was delicious. “It really is. I didn’t know it could be like that. In England it isn’t very interesting.”
“But here it is a speciality of the country.” He stared across the road at a group of American tourists who were clustering round a jeweller’s shop. “How did you find Lorenzo Galleo?”
She took another sip of the chocolate, and put her cup down slowly. “He was very kind,” she said truthfully. “He gave me confidence.”
“He would do. You pleased him?”
“I don’t really know. Perhaps—I think perhaps I did.” She hesitated for a moment, and then repeated what Signor Galleo had said. “He told me I must work very hard—that’s what I want to do. And he said...” She broke off.
“Yes? What did he say?” He was still watching the American tourists as if their apparently unending debate on the question of whether or not to buy a souvenir interested him far more than she did, and she felt suddenly relaxed.
“He said I must give my heart to my work ... that I must lose myself in it. He said that if I wanted to be an—an artist I couldn’t be an ordinary human being as well.” She stopped, colouring slightly, and wondered why she had had to say so much. Whether or not she gave her heart to her work, it was nothing to do with the Conte di Lucca.
The American tourists had moved away along the street, and his attention having been released he looked across at her.
“That is excellent advice,” he remarked. “Have some more chocolate.”
“No, thank you. It was absolutely delicious, but I’ve had enough.”
“You are not—what is the word—slimming?”
She laughed. “Oh, no.”
“I am relieved. In such an insubstantial person it would be alarming, I think. You might disappear altogether.” A half smile played around his lips, and he seemed to study her consideringly from behind the dark glasses. “You will not be homesick in Rome, I hope.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Good.” He hesitated a moment. “You know of course that your friend John Ryland is here?”
Aft
erwards Candy was not certain whether or not she had actually started. All she did know was that suddenly the light breeze that had been stirring the tablecloths and playing with the ends of her hair was almost cold, and the lively bustle of the colourful Roman street irritated her a little. Some of its strength seemed to go out of the sun, and hurriedly finishing the cold dregs of her chocolate for the sake of something to do she decided that they tasted bitter.
“No,” she admitted, “I didn’t know.”
'For several moments the Conte didn’t say anything, and she felt that his eyes were penetrating her soul. And then he shrugged. “You will see him soon, I expect.”
A short time later they got up to go, and he asked her if there was anything she would like to do or see during what was left of the morning.
“There is scarcely time for St. Peter’s, but we could perhaps go to the Piazza di Spagna. It is near here, and there will be flower-sellers...” He hesitated, waiting possibly for her to betray some sign of enthusiasm. “On a bright winter morning there is nowhere more pleasant.”
“I’m taking up too much of your time...” She felt dazed, as if the information that had just been passed on to her about John Ryland had had almost the effect of a physical blow. She scarcely knew what the man beside her was talking about, but she did understand that he was offering her a choice between remaining in his company for a while longer and being taken back to Caterina Marchetti’s flat, there to be left to her own devices, and she suddenly knew that whatever happened she didn’t want to be alone. Not just at the moment.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’d love to see—to see...”
“To see the Piazza di Spagna? I am glad.”
He suggested that they should walk, and as he guided her through the laughing, hurrying crowds that packed the pavements, he pointed out everything that he thought would interest her. He was a good guide, and although the babel of bewildering sound that ebbed and flowed around them prevented her from hearing everything he said she heard enough to realize that he knew his city very well indeed. The Piazza di Spagna was the ancient square dominated by the graceful height of the Spanish Steps, and during the nineteenth century, her companion told her, it had been the favourite haunt of nearly all the British and American artists who at that time flocked to Rome. He told her how they had used the colourful figures of the flower-sellers for models, paying them very well, sometimes, to pose in picturesque attitudes amid the profuse brilliance of their flower baskets, or against the soaring honey-coloured campanili of Santa Maria Maggiore, the church at the top of the steps. He pointed out the house where Keats died, the famous English tea-room which had consoled generations of English exiles, the graceful bulk of the Renaissance palaces, and the worn cobbles under their feet that had once echoed to the ring of thoroughbred hooves' and the rumble of princely coach wheels. In the eighteenth century, the Conte said, the Piazza di Spagna had been one great parking place for the ponderous equipages of the nobility. As he said it, Candy recollected that he himself was a part of that nobility, and glancing up for a moment at his thin, classically perfect features she found herself wondering just how much of the old dark soul of Rome lurked behind that shuttered, unreadable face.
All at once she realized that he was asking her where she would like to go for lunch, and with a shock it occurred to her that he seemed to think it was his duty to entertain her for the rest of the day. Feeling a flush creep into her cheeks, she thanked him enthusiastically for giving her a wonderful morning.
“But now you’ve got to leave me to my own devices. I’d rather like to wander about by myself. Well, I mean...” She floundered awkwardly.
“You would prefer to be alone?” His soft voice was neither surprised nor hurt. It was just completely expressionless.
“No, of course not.” She shook her hair back from her face in a gesture that had recently become a nervous habit. “It’s just that I’m being a nuisance to you.”
“You are not a nuisance,” he said seriously. He bent his head to study her, and a faint smile began to play about his lips. “Listen, Signorina Candida, you must be honest with me. Do you wish to be alone, or is it only that you think I do?”
She found herself smiling back. “No,” she admitted, “I don’t want to be alone—particularly.”
“Then be kind, and spend the day with me.” He spoke whimsically, but there was a kind of undercurrent beneath the words—could it, she thought, be an undercurrent of loneliness?—that made her look at him rather quickly. And then she smiled wryly at the absurdity of the idea. He was titled, good-looking, extremely well-off and apparently unburdened with a wife—his problem was much more likely to be the difficulty of getting a moment to himself. Nevertheless, probably because he felt sorry for her, he seemed genuinely anxious that she should accept his offer of lunch, and she knew she couldn’t obstinately persist in refusing without being positively rude.
They went to a small but obviously excellent restaurant in the shadow of St. Peter’s—which the Conte promised Candy she should see in detail after lunch, or as soon after lunch as she should feel equal to it—and there, despite an almost non-existent appetite she struggled to do reasonable justice to very well prepared ravioli and veal alia Milanese, while her companion talked knowledgeably and entertainingly about the glories and horrors of the story of Romp, and every so often their ear-drums were assailed by a melodious, world-shaking clangour of bells.
After lunch they walked in the afternoon sunlight through the splendour of Bernini’s colonnade and into the great basilica itself, and as they passed beneath the portico and paused for a moment on the edge of the glowing interior Candy caught her breath. In one of the chapels a visiting priest was saying Mass, and the murmurous intonation of the ritual was like the living echo of two thousand years of faith. They walked forward, towards the great High Altar, with its towering canopy of bronze, and she felt as if she were drowning in beauty and vastness. Even the air she breathed seemed vaguely electric, as if the wonder and penitence and gratitude of the multitudinous faithful kept it charged with an ecstasy of emotion, and all around the unending whisper and rustle of humanity reminded her that for millions upon millions around the world this spot was second only to Jerusalem as a centre of pilgrimage.
Candy felt bewildered and shaken and dazzled, for it was all too much to take in at once. She stood staring in front of her with something of the awed fascination of a child, and after a moment Michele di Lucca gently put his fingers beneath her arm and guided her on again until they stood beneath the echoing vaulted magnificence of the huge dome itself.
“Look up!” he said quietly. “It is one of the sights of the world. Look up!”
She obeyed, and then gave a little gasp. “Oh!”
Above her head the glowing magnificence of Michelangelo’s masterpiece soared into incalculable distance—or, at least, to her it seemed incalculable. Its hugeness and the incredible symmetry of the design on which those long-dead craftsmen had tirelessly poured out their skill amazed her, and as she gazed upwards the jewel-clear colours, gilded by sunlight, dazzled her, so that she had to blink and look away.
“Some people,” said the Conte, “find St. Peter’s much smaller and less impressive than they have expected it to be. Others find it great and beautiful and inspiring beyond anything they could have imagined. I think that you are of the second sort.”
“Yes.” The word sounded almost like, a sigh. “Oh, yes.”
They spent nearly another half hour breathing in the incense-laden tranquillity of St. Peter’s, and because there was so much to see, and Candy, entranced and bewildered, lingered so long over everything it was not until they were practically on the point of leaving that they came to a standstill at last before the majestic bronze figure of Peter before which countless thousands of pilgrims down the centuries have paid homage. As they stood watching, an unending stream of men and women approached the statue, and although at first Candy couldn’t see what they were doing it
wasn’t long before she understood. As each person stepped forward, he or she quickly bent and kissed the statue’s half extended right foot. In every case the gesture was completed very swiftly and unobtrusively, and it was difficult to study the faces of the pilgrims as they went forward, but something in their very movements conveyed a little of what they were feeling. Some of them were old, some very young, some wore smart English or American clothes, others the dusty black of the Mediterranean peasant, but for all of them this was obviously the supreme moment. As they kissed the gleaming foot of the Apostle they fulfilled a sacred duty, and attained a grace and benediction that sent them away with shining eyes and a new lightness in their step.
Before they turned away, Michele di Lucca pointed out that the toes of the bronze foot had been almost worn out of existence by the lips of the faithful.
Outside on the steps, Candy shook her head a little, as if to clear it. She had seen too much—too much for one day, and a strange sort of emotional exhaustion was sweeping over her. Michele looked at her shrewdly, and lightly put a hand beneath her arm.
“We’ll go back to the car.”
When they got back to his car he held the door open for her, and with relief she climbed inside. As he got in beside her he looked at her a little quizzically.
“All right?” he enquired.
She nodded.
He let in the clutch, and they drew away from the kerb. “I was afraid,” he remarked, “that you were going to faint. You are too sensitive, I think, to the influence of emotion.”
Song Above the Clouds Page 6