Song Above the Clouds by Rosemary Pollock Read Free Book Online Page B

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