IX

For a hundred francs a month Rodolphe was relieved of all thought for

the necessaries of life. But, in consideration of the outlay the

Stopfer couple expected to make, they bargained for three months'

residence and a month's payment in advance. Rub a Swiss ever so

little, and you find the usurer. After breakfast, Rodolphe at once

made himself at home by depositing in his room such property as he had

brought with him for the journey to the Saint-Gothard, and he watched

Leopold as he set out, moved by the spirit of routine, to carry out

the excursion for himself and his friend. When Rodolphe, sitting on a

fallen rock on the shore, could no longer see Leopold's boat, he

turned to examine the new house with stolen glances, hoping to see the

fair unknown. Alas! he went in without its having given a sign of

life. During dinner, in the company of Monsieur and Madame Stopfer,

retired coopers from Neufchatel, he questioned them as to the

neighborhood, and ended by learning all he wanted to know about the

lady, thanks to his hosts' loquacity; for they were ready to pour out

their budget of gossip without any pressing.

The fair stranger's name was Fanny Lovelace. This name (pronounced

/Loveless/) is that of an old English family, but Richardson has given

it to a creation whose fame eclipses all others! Miss Lovelace had

come to settle by the lake for her father's health, the physicians

having recommended him the air of Lucerne. These two English people

had arrived with no other servant than a little girl of fourteen, a

dumb child, much attached to Miss Fanny, on whom she waited very

intelligently, and had settled, two winters since, with monsieur and

Madame Bergmann, the retired head-gardeners of His Excellency Count

Borromeo of Isola Bella and Isola Madre in the Lago Maggoire. These

Swiss, who were possessed of an income of about a thousand crowns a

year, had let the top story of their house to the Lovelaces for three

years, at a rent of two hundred francs a year. Old Lovelace, a man of

ninety, and much broken, was too poor to allow himself any

gratifications, and very rarely went out; his daughter worked to

maintain him, translating English books, and writing some herself, it

was said. The Lovelaces could not afford to hire boats to row on the

lake, or horses and guides to explore the neighborhood.

Poverty demanding such privation as this excites all the greater

compassion among the Swiss, because it deprives them of a chance of

profit. The cook of the establishment fed the three English boarders

for a hundred francs a month inclusive. In Gersau it was generally

believed, however, that the gardener and his wife, in spite of their

pretensions, used the cook's name as a screen to net the little

profits of this bargain. The Bergmanns had made beautiful gardens

round their house, and had built a hothouse. The flowers, the fruit,

and the botanical rarities of this spot were what had induced the

young lady to settle on it as she passed through Gersau. Miss Fanny

was said to be nineteen years old; she was the old man's youngest

child, and the object of his adulation. About two months ago she had

hired a piano from Lucerne, for she seemed to be crazy about music.

"She loves flowers and music, and she is unmarried!" thought Rodolphe;

"what good luck!"

The next day Rodolphe went to ask leave to visit the hothouses and

gardens, which were beginning to be somewhat famous. The permission

was not immediately granted. The retired gardeners asked, strangely

enough, to see Rodolphe's passport; it was sent to them at once. The

paper was not returned to him till next morning, by the hands of the

cook, who expressed her master's pleasure in showing him their place.

Rodolphe went to the Bergmanns', not without a certain trepidation,

known only to persons of strong feelings, who go through as much

passion in a moment as some men experience in a whole lifetime.

After dressing himself carefully to gratify the old gardeners of the

Borromean Islands, whom he regarded as the warders of his treasure, he

went all over the grounds, looking at the house now and again, but

with much caution; the old couple treated him with evident distrust.

But his attention was soon attracted by the little English deaf-mute,

in whom his discernment, though young as yet, enabled him to recognize

a girl of African, or at least of Sicilian, origin. The child had the

golden-brown color of a Havana cigar, eyes of fire, Armenian eyelids

with lashes of very un-British length, hair blacker than black; and

under this almost olive skin, sinews of extraordinary strength and

feverish alertness. She looked at Rodolphe with amazing curiosity and

effrontery, watching his every movement.

"To whom does that little Moresco belong?" he asked worthy Madame

Bergmann.

"To the English," Monsieur Bergmann replied.

"But she never was born in England!"

"They may have brought her from the Indies," said Madame Bergmann.

"I have been told that Miss Lovelace is fond of music. I should be

delighted if, during my residence by the lake to which I am condemned

by my doctor's orders, she would allow me to join her."

"They receive no one, and will not see anybody," said the old

gardener.

Rodolphe bit his lips and went away, without having been invited into

the house, or taken into the part of the garden that lay between the

front of the house and the shore of the little promontory. On that

side the house had a balcony above the first floor, made of wood, and

covered by the roof, which projected deeply like the roof of a chalet

on all four sides of the building, in the Swiss fashion. Rodolphe had

loudly praised the elegance of this arrangement, and talked of the

view from that balcony, but all in vain. When he had taken leave of

the Bergmanns it struck him that he was a simpleton, like any man of

spirit and imagination disappointed of the results of a plan which he

had believed would succeed.

In the evening he, of course, went out in a boat on the lake, round

and about the spit of land, to Brunnen and to Schwytz, and came in at

nightfall. From afar he saw the window open and brightly lighted; he

heard the sound of a piano and the tones of an exquisite voice. He

made the boatman stop, and gave himself up to the pleasure of

listening to an Italian air delightfully sung. When the singing

ceased, Rodolphe landed and sent away the boat and rowers. At the cost

of wetting his feet, he went to sit down under the water-worn granite

shelf crowned by a thick hedge of thorny acacia, by the side of which

ran a long lime avenue in the Bergmanns' garden. By the end of an hour

he heard steps and voices just above him, but the words that reached

his ears were all Italian, and spoken by two women.

He took advantage of the moment when the two speakers were at one end

of the walk to slip noiselessly to the other. After half an hour of

struggling he got to the end of the avenue, and there took up a

position whence, without being seen or heard, he could watch the two

women without being observed by them as they came towards him. What

was Rodolphe's amazement on recognizing the deaf-mute as one of them;

she was talking to Miss Lovelace in Italian.

It was now eleven o'clock at night. The stillness was so perfect on

the lake and around the dwelling, that the two women must have thought

themselves safe; in all Gersau there could be no eyes open but theirs.

Rodolphe supposed that the girl's dumbness must be a necessary

deception. From the way in which they both spoke Italian, Rodolphe

suspected that it was the mother tongue of both girls, and concluded

that the name of English also hid some disguise.

"They are Italian refugees," said he to himself, "outlaws in fear of

the Austrian or Sardinian police. The young lady waits till it is dark

to walk and talk in security."

He lay down by the side of the hedge, and crawled like a snake to find

a way between two acacia shrubs. At the risk of leaving his coat

behind him, or tearing deep scratches in his back, he got through the

hedge when the so-called Miss Fanny and her pretended deaf-and-dumb

maid were at the other end of the path; then, when they had come

within twenty yards of him without seeing him, for he was in the

shadow of the hedge, and the moon was shining brightly, he suddenly

rose.