Chapter Twelve. Concerns some Curious Instructions.

“Well?” she asked, as he paused and looked at her. “Why are you in Bologna?”

“I am here,” he answered, “for the purpose of sending you to England.”

“To England!” she echoed, half rising from her chair.

“Yes. You speak English quite well, therefore I have obtained for you a situation as governess in a highly respectable and wealthy family,” he said. “You remember you asked me a year ago to arrange that you might leave home and become your own mistress, for you told me you were tired of living on your mother’s narrow means.”

“But I—”

“As I have already said, signorina,” he interrupted, “there are no buts where the safety of Italy is concerned. You are wanted to go to England for two reasons: the change will be beneficial to you, and you will render a service to the Ministry.”

“Then I am to accept the post with an ulterior object in view?” she remarked quickly.

“Of course,” he replied, with a smile. “There are certain matters of which we desire information, and it lies with you to supply it. You are well educated, a good linguist, and just the stamp of young lady who goes as governess in a wealthy family. Therefore, the post being vacant, I at once secured it for you by giving you a very strong recommendation.”

“I would rather remain in Italy,” the girl implored, recognising almost for the first time how entirely she was in that man’s hands.

“No,” he declared. “They expect you in England next week. The young lady, your pupil, is to begin her studies at once—while you will commence to study other matters on our behalf,” he added, his dark face relaxing into a meaning grin.

She was silent, twisting her handkerchief nervously in her gloved hand. She realised that so cleverly during the past three years had this man weaved a net about her she was now bound to obey him. But she had never dreamed that the services she rendered to the Ministry of War were to take her abroad—to England.

There, in Bologna, her status as the daughter of a colonel who had served with distinction and had died a commendatore gave her the entrée into what was a select circle of society for a provincial town, but strange perhaps to English ideas—a society composed mostly of needy counts and seedy countesses, marquises who lived in bare, half-furnished palaces upon the remnant of what past generations of gamblers and spendthrifts had left them, and government employees, together with the officers of the garrison. It was a degrading thing that she should go out as a governess, yet if it were really necessary, she must, she knew, bow to the inevitable.

At first she resisted his request, urging that it was impossible. She had only made the suggestion as a joke; she was ready to serve the Ministry of War at home in her own small way, but to go abroad, to become a secret agent of Italy in England, was quite another matter.

He smoked on in silence, standing at the window and pretending to be interested in the people passing in the street below.

“My dear signorina,” he exclaimed at last, turning his thin, unprepossessing face to her, and looking straight at her with his dark, crafty eyes, “I quite admit that to leave your home and friends is not a pleasant outlook. But you see it is imperative—absolutely imperative. You can render us most valuable assistance. Indeed, we are relying entirely upon you.”

“My mother will never consent to it,” she assured him.

“Leave the signora to me,” he laughed drily. “She will believe that you have become companion to an English lady. I will arrange it all. You know what entire confidence the signora has in me!”

Filoména smiled. This man, who held such a high office in the Ministry, had always been a friend of her family. Indeed, the colonel’s widow was greatly indebted to him, for, through him, the War Office now paid her a small sum annually in recognition of her late husband’s services to the kingdom, a payment which was not legal, but which had been ordered by Borselli and made law by decree of the Minister Morini himself.

“You will have a very pleasant time of it in England, I assure you,” he went on. “As governess you will, of course, be treated as an underling, but remain patient, watchful, and attentive always to your instructions. Remember that upon you depends much, that you may render greater service to Italy than even her ambassadors. Knowledge is power, is an old and trite saying—and knowledge is in no place more powerful than the Ministry of War.”

He treated her with a certain fatherly solicitude and confidence which impressed her. Four years ago, when she left the convent school at Ravenna and resumed the acquaintance formed in her childhood, he had gradually taken her into his confidence. He required certain information regarding certain officers in the Bologna garrison which with her woman’s subtle way of learning secrets she could obtain, while on his part he was ready to further her interests, to obtain that very necessary income for her mother—to act, in fact, as her friend, and to place her, in secret, under the protection of the Ministry of War. But secrecy was to be observed—secrecy in everything. To him alone was she to report, by letter or verbally. She was to act the spy on his behalf with cunning, care, and caution.

In the various tasks he had set her she had acquitted herself well, more especially in the mysterious affair of Captain Solaro, the man who, to his cost, had fallen in love with her. At heart she hated herself for the despicable part she had been compelled to play, yet she had become Borselli’s spy in order that she and her mother should receive that small but very necessary pension from the War Department.

In character she was one of those silent, watchful women whom nothing escapes, and who note every look and every gesture—one of the few women, indeed, who can keep a secret. Borselli, the man who used the Minister Morini as his cat’s-paw, and was as cunning an adventurer as there was in all the length of Italy, had recognised these qualities as those of a secret agent of the most successful type, and therefore had resolved to turn to account his ascendency over her.

She had taken up her little fan and was fanning herself with quick nervousness. The evening was a stifling one in September, for in that month Bologna, with its long streets of stucco porticos, is a veritable oven.

“The address of your new mistress is here,” remarked the Under-Secretary, producing a card from his pocket-book, whereon was written in pencil in an English hand: “Mrs Charles Fitzroy, 186, Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, W.”

“It is in the best and most fashionable part of London,” he added. “And they have a fine place out in the country. The child whom you are to teach is aged eight—a little friend of mine. So you see I have arranged it all for you. You have only to go there and commence your duties.”

She shrugged her shoulders. The idea of taking a situation as governess did not appeal to her. She would, indeed, have refused point-blank if she dared, only refusal might mean the cessation of her mother’s slender income.

She knew Angelo Borselli’s wife and son, and had visited them in Rome. The Signora Borselli was a stout woman of rather coarse type, proud of her position, fond of crude colours and a dazzling show. Her carriage in Rome was painted a bright grass green, and the livery of her servants was a blue-grey with yellow cockades. She dressed expensively, but without taste, as might be expected of one who was daughter of a straw hat manufacturer at Sancasciano. The son was aged eighteen, a superb young cub, who was now at the University of Ferrara studying law. Filoména Nodari was of gentle birth, and therefore despised the woman who had treated her so patronisingly. She looked upon Angelo Borselli as her dead father’s most devoted friend and her mother’s benefactor, but the wife of the Under-Secretary she held in disdain as an uncouth countrywoman aspiring to a great position—as indeed she really was.

“England is a long way off, signore,” she remarked in a blank voice, after a long pause, the silence being unbroken save for the strains of the military band playing outside in the piazzi, as it does every evening in summer. “Cannot you send someone else?” she begged.

“There is no one so well adapted as yourself,” he declared. “You know English and French, and could act the part of governess to perfection. I admit that to accept a menial office is not really pleasant, yet you must recollect that as a servant of the Ministry you are acting your part for the benefit of Italy—just as your poor father so valiantly acted his part through all his life.”

She sighed, and lapsed again into thought. Like a thousand other girls living at home upon slender means, she had often longed for a change of life and for sight of those foreign places about which she had read so much—and most of all of London. And here, he pointed out, was an opportunity of serving Italy abroad.

She believed all that he told her—how the information she furnished was necessary for the successful conduct of the Ministry in order to thwart the machinations of Italy’s enemies. She had no idea that her actions and inquiries, directed by him, were always with one end in view—to oust from office the Minister himself.

On the one hand, Filoména Nodari was extremely clever and far-seeing, a veritable genius in the discovery of secrets, while on the other she was as wax in the hands of this man whom for so many years she had regarded as her friend.

“Am I to write to this person, my employer?” she asked with a slight sigh, still holding the card in her hand.

“Only to announce the day and hour of your arrival in London—at the station of Charing Cross, remember. I told Mrs Fitzroy who and what you are—that you are tired of sleepy Bologna, that you were an officer’s daughter, and all the rest of it. Your wages are seven hundred francs a year, or twenty-four pounds in English money, with your railway fare paid to London, and your return fare if you don’t suit. But,” he added, with a meaning laugh, “you will suit, signorina—you must suit, recollect?”

She shrugged her shoulders dubiously, saying—

“Of course, if it is really necessary, I will go. But I fear I may fail.”

“Not if you are determined to succeed,” he assured her. “You have good looks, and they go such a very long way. That is why a pretty woman is so successful as a secret agent.”

She flushed slightly at his flattery.

“Well, and what am I to do? What information do you require?” she asked, speaking almost mechanically and gazing fixedly across the room.

“The facts, simply told, are these,” he said, tossing his cigarette into the ash-tray and halting before her. “This Mrs Fitzroy is the wife of a Mr Charles Fitzroy, a London fur merchant, and Alderman of the City, and sister to a man named Morgan-Mason, a member of the English House of Commons. This man you must watch. Recollect his name. Although he is a bachelor and lives in an apartment in Westminster, he spends much of his time at his sister’s house; hence you will have an opportunity of forming his acquaintance and keeping observation upon his movements. He is clever, crafty, and quite unscrupulous, therefore be cautious in all your movements. You must try and seize an opportunity to get a glimpse through his private papers if possible, and see if there are any documents in Italian of an unusual character.”

“Then you suspect him to be an enemy of Italy?” she remarked seriously.

“We suspect that this blatant, pompous orator, who is now gathering such a following in the House of Commons, is forming certain plans to undermine our strength, to turn English opinion against an Italian alliance. Therefore it is necessary that we should be in possession of all the details, and you alone can obtain knowledge of the truth. He does not know Italian, a fact which gives you distinct advantage. Watch him very carefully, and report each week to Genoa; while, on my part, if I have any important instructions to send, I shall address the letter to the Poste Restante at Charing Cross—which is opposite the railway station. Your aim must be to find out all you can; to discover with whom this man is in association in Italy, remembering that whatever secret information, or more especially any documentary evidence you can secure, will be of the utmost service to us. Go, my dear signorina,” he added, placing his hand upon her shoulder, “go to London, and carry with you my very best wishes for success.”

The woman sat silent, thinking over his instructions, while through the open window on the evening air came the strains of military music.

And as he watched her his thin, sallow face slowly relaxed into a sinister smile, when he reflected within himself the real reason why he was sending the pretty spy to England.