Behind the Throne Part 13

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 coa.r.s.e type, proud of her position, fond of crude colours and a dazzling show. Her carriage in Rome was painted a bright gra.s.s green, and the livery of her servants was a blue-grey with yellow c.o.c.kades. 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?"

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 a.s.sured 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 doc.u.ments 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 a.s.sociation in Italy, remembering that whatever secret information, or more especially any doc.u.mentary 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.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE VILLA SAN DONATO.

The sky was aflame in all the crimson glory of the Tuscan sunset.

The Angelus of a sudden clashed forth from the high castellated tower of the village church away over the Arno, winding deep in its beautiful fertile valley, that veritable paradise of green vale and purple mountain, and was echoed by a dozen other bells clanging discordantly from the hillsides, while from afar came up the deep-toned note of the big bell in the campanile of brown old Florence.

It was the hour of the _venti-tre_, and those patient toilers, the _contadini_, in the vineyards, who had been busy since dawn plucking the rich red grapes that hung everywhere in such luscious profusion, crossed themselves with a murmured prayer to the Madonna, and prodded their ox-teams homeward with the last load for the presses. All day long "babbo," with his wife and children of all ages, had worked on beneath that fiery sun, singing as they laboured; for the grape harvest was a rich one, the wine would be abundant, and they, sharing half the profits with the padrone in lieu of payment, would receive a good round sum.

Like most of the great estates in Tuscany, that of San Donato, the property of His Excellency Camillo Morini, was held by the peasantry on what is known as the _messeria_ system, by which the whole of the land was divided into a number of fields, or _poderi_, half the produce of which was retained by the _mezzadro_, or peasant who cultivated the soil, and the other half went to the landlord as rent. The _poderi_ varied in size, but were usually about thirty acres in extent, each with its _contadino's_ house colour-washed in pale pink, and upon the wall, painted in distemper, a heraldic shield bearing the bull's head erased argent, the arms of the proprietor.

The estate of San Donato, with its huge old fourteenth-century villa--a great castellated place with high, square towers, that would in England be called a castle, on the crest of a hill--and its _fattoria_, or residence of the bailiff, another great rambling place with its oil mills and wine-presses, in the valley below, was one of the largest in Tuscany.

The villa, with its long facade of many windows, its flanking towers, its enormous salons of the cinquecento, its splendid frescoes, its antique marbles, its grey old terraces and broken statuary, was indeed in a delightful situation. Perched on the summit of a lofty and broken eminence, it looked down upon the vale of the Arno and commanded Florence with all its domes, towers, and palaces, the villas that encircle it and the roads that lead to it. The recesses, swells, and breaks of the hill on which it stood were covered with groves of pines, ilex, and cypress. Behind, deep below, lay quiet old Pistoja in the distance, and still farther off swelled the giant Apennines.

From the villa ran a broad open road, straight to the ancient gate of the little walled village of San Donato itself--a remote, ancient place, almost the same to-day as when in the days of Dante it guarded the valley against the incursions of the Pisans. From its high brown walls, now crumbling to decay, the view was, like that from the villa of its lord, without rival in all Italy. Its tiny piazza was gra.s.s-grown, and outside the walls, in a shady cypress grove, stood a ruined calvary with some of Gerino's wonderful frescoes.

San Donato, though only seven miles from Florence as the crow flies, was an un-get-at-able place, inaccessible to the crowd of inquisitive English, and therefore unchanged and its people unspoilt. Indeed, in winter a week often went by without communication with the world below; for the post did not reach there, and the little place was self-supporting. The people, descendants of the men who had shot their arrows from those narrow slits in the walls, were proud that they had the great Minister of War for their lord, and that the estate was not like that adjoining, going to decay through the neglect and gambling propensities of its owner, who had not visited it for twenty years! On the contrary, San Donato, still almost feudal, was prosperous under a generous padrone, and the few weeks each year which the Minister and his family spent there was always a time of rejoicing with the whole countryside. Then the _contadini_ made excuse for many festas, and there was much dancing, playing of mandolines, and chanting of _siomelli_. The padrone delighted to see his people happy, and the signorina was always so good to the poor and the afflicted.

Out upon the great wide stone terrace that ran the whole length of the villa, where spread such a wonderful panorama of river and mountain, Mary was standing beneath an arbour of trailing vines; for even though the _venti-tre_ was ringing, the sun's rays were still too strong to stand in them bareheaded. She presented a slim, neat figure, delightfully cool in her plain white washing gown with a bow of pale blue tulle at the throat, yet, as her face was turned towards the far-distant heights of Vallombrosa, there was in her handsome countenance a look of deep anxiety.

Jules Dubard, leaning against the grey old wall at her side, noticed it and wondered. He too was dressed all in white, in a suit of linen so necessary in the blazing Tuscan summer, and as he folded his arms he smiled within himself at the effect of his words upon her.

"But you don't really antic.i.p.ate that my father's enemies are plotting his downfall?" she asked seriously turning her great dark eyes upon him.

"Unfortunately, I fear they are," was his reply. "What I heard in Paris is sufficient to show that here, in Italy, you are on the eve of some grave political crisis."

"For what reason?" she inquired earnestly. "Tell me all you know, for your information may be of the greatest use to my father. I will write to him to-night," she added, in a voice full of apprehension.

"No. Do not write," he urged. "You will see him in a week or ten days, and then you can tell him the rumours I have heard. It seems," he went on, "that there is a group of Socialists fiercely antagonistic to the Government, and that they have formed a most ingenious conspiracy to secure its downfall. Other men, rivals of the present Ministry, are eager for office and for the pecuniary advantages to be thereby obtained."

"What is the character of the conspiracy?" she inquired seriously.

"Perhaps my father can thwart it."

"It is to be hoped that he can, but I confess I doubt it very much," was his slow answer. "Downfall seems imminent. Indeed, a friend of mine, whom I met the other day in Biffi's cafe, in Milan, was discussing it openly. It seems that our French secret service has been at work on your Alpine frontier, and that the plans of the new fortress at Tresenta have been sold by one of the officers of the garrison. Out of this the Opposition intend to make capital, by charging your father with neglect, even connivance at the traitorous dealings with France, and thereby hounding him from office."

"But it is unjust!" cried the girl wildly. "It is disgraceful! If the spies of France have been successful, it is surely not my father's fault, but the fault of the officer who prepared and sold them. What is his name?"

"I hear it is Solaro."

"Solaro!" she gasped hoa.r.s.ely. "Not Captain Felice Solaro, of the Alpine Regiment?"

"Yes, signorina, that was the name."

She stood staring at him, utterly amazed and mystified. Felice Solaro!--a traitor!