"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
_entree_ 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!"
Filomena 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.
Filomena 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, Filomena 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?"