Part 8 (1/2)
Promptly she plunged in and rescued her victim.
Numisia, hurrying to the sound of Meffia's squawk, was horrified at the sight of a dripping Vestal toiling up the steps of the tank carrying over her shoulder another Vestal, equally dripping and limp as a meal-sack, her arms and legs trailing horribly.
Agitation at Meffia's prolonged insensibility postponed inquiry as to how she came to fall into the tank. It so happened that Causidiena first questioned some of the maid-servants, who all hated Meffia and liked Brinnaria. Therefore the ones interrogated told a story as much at variance with the facts as they saw fit.
Brinnaria, after she was again dry-clad, quaked inwardly in antic.i.p.ation of Causidiena's wrath and suffered a good deal more at the thought of her pained, silent displeasure. Hours pa.s.sed, long hours pa.s.sed and nothing was said on the subject. From none of her sister Vestals did she hear a word of reproach, not one of them behaved towards her any differently from what was usual.
Finally one of the maids enlightened Brinnaria. Promptly she sought a private audience with Causidiena. First she made sure that none of the maids would suffer for their duplicity and partiality; then she confessed.
The Chief Vestal was not wrathful, not even stern. She talked mildly and gently, yet made Brinnaria feel very much ashamed of herself and acutely penitent.
The end of the interview was that Causidiena said:
”You are such a robust child that you do not realize how frail Meffia is. She is perfectly healthy, but is very easily unnerved or exhausted.
You have given her such a shock that she is unfit for duty. Any Vestal is allowed to be ill for two nights and one day, if the trouble seems trifling. But, if any Vestal is ill for a longer time, she is promptly removed from the Atrium for nursing. I fear that Meffia may not recover within the permitted time. I am most anxious that there should be as few as possible cases of recorded illness in the Atrium under my management.
As you have caused the situation you must help me to avoid what I fear.
Go to Meffia and nurse her out of this and get her about to-morrow morning.”
”Castor be good to me!” Brinnaria cried. ”Smell that girl for a day and a night! Whew! Pretty severe punishment! But I deserve that and worse.
And I'll do anything for you, Causidiena.”
Meffia hated Brinnaria cordially, yet she found her a deft, tactful and silent nurse. But the very sight of Brinnaria was to her an irritant tonic. She was entirely fit for duty the next day, not a trace of slackness, unwillingness or sullenness.
Causidiena early made up her mind that Brinnaria's intentions were good and that she was far from planning her outbursts. She had herself no prevision of what was coming, not an inkling of what was about to happen, she blurted out her shocking remarks without herself knowing what she was going to say and was overwhelmed with confusion when her own ears heard the totally unexpected words which she had uttered; she contemplated aghast the havoc she had wrought. Generally she made a pretty fair attempt at demeaning herself as a Vestal should; but, every once in a while, without warning, something of her old wild self surged up in her and the speech was spoken or the action completed before she realized she was about to speak or act at all.
One such freak gave her a sort of notoriety, brought her name to the lips of every gossip in Rome.
She was as pleased with her privileges as a normal child of her age with a set of new toys, as warily insistent on them as any aristocrat of her build and appearance.
She learned the precise nature and extent of her prerogatives and did her utmost to enjoy them all. Being an adept at accounts she ascertained the character of the various estates and investments that went to make up the great property which was her jointure as a Vestal, made sure of the exact income from each of its components, also the total amount; both how far she was allowed to have her way in spending it and how soon she would be free of supervision in that respect. She made her will before she had been a Vestal for a month, leaving all her property to Almo, should she die before him; but the whole to the order of Vestals if he died before her.
Of all her privileges the one she enjoyed most was the right to drive where she pleased through the city in her private carriage, with her lictor running ahead and clearing the way for it. Carriage-driving within the city limits was restricted in Rome by severe regulations rigorously enforced.* Ordinary travelling carriages might use only the great main thoroughfares leading to the city gates. The owner of one, unless he happened to live on one of those chief arteries of the traffic, might not step from his house door into his carriage but must have it halted at some point on the permitted avenues and must reach it on foot or by litter. But there was no street or alley in Rome wide enough for a carriage which a Vestal might not drive through; a.
Vestal might drive anywhere. Brinnaria was first taken out driving by Causidiena and Numisia, then by the others in succession. Driving with Meffia was no pleasure to her, but it was the etiquette of the order that each Vestal in turn should offer the courtesy of her carriage to a new member of the sisterhood.
*In fact, wheeled vehicles except for those of the Emperor and the Vestals were forbidden in the city during the daytime.
After that formality had been complied with Brinnaria was permitted to drive where she pleased, with what guest she chose, or accompanied only by her official companion or by her maid. Systematically she drove everywhere, once alone with her maid, once with each of the other Vestals, often with her mother, often with Flexinna. It gave her great pleasure to drive up the long zigzag approach to the Capitol, where no human being save the Vestals and the Empress might be driven, and where few Empresses had ever ventured to drive, to have her carriage halted before the great Temple of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, where no carriage except the carriages of the Vestals had been seen for more than a hundred years, to enter the temple and say her prayers. It gave her even more pleasure to take her mother or Flexinna with her, as was her privilege; to make them sharers in her right to be driven to Rome's chief temple, to which all other Romans, even the Emperors, must walk or be carried by litter-bearers.
She discovered another privilege of her position. Roman women of the better cla.s.ses never went out of doors alone. On the streets a lady, if not companioned by one or more equals, was always accompanied by a maid-servant. This had been the custom from time immemorial and had come to have the force of a moral law. The sight of a woman of wealth and position entirely alone in her carriage would have been startling, to see a lady in her litter without a maid walking behind the bearers would have been shocking: the spectacle of a lady alone on foot would have given scandal.
But, by some survival of the simplicity of the manners in those primitive days in which the order originated, the Vestals were exceptions to this mandatory fas.h.i.+on. A Vestal might never go abroad on foot, except in one of the solemn processions. But, in her litter or her carriage, she might go anywhere in Rome unaccompanied, protected only by her lictor and her bearers or coachman. This privilege, like many others, marked the Vestals as being apart from and exalted above the rest of woman-kind.
As soon as Brinnaria learned that she possessed this right she proceeded to exercise it. Though she felt lonesome when driving alone and enjoyed her outing far more when she had a companion, yet she drove alone day after day, merely because it was her prerogative. So driving she had, in one day, two thrilling experiences. She had told her coachman to drive where he pleased and hardly noticed where she was being driven.
Suddenly turning from a side street into one of the main thoroughfares of the city, she encountered the co-Emperor Lucius Verus with his official escort. It was during the busy days preceding his departure for Antioch and his great campaign against the Parthians. Verus, roused from his devotion to sport and pleasure, was feverish with enthusiasm and full of mercurial energy. He bustled in and out of Rome, inspecting camps, presiding at ceremonials and keeping everything in a ferment.
That day he was returning from an inspection amid a large and gorgeous retinue. Brinnaria had a blurred vision of splendid uniforms and dazzling accoutrements. Her vision was blurred because her eyes filled with tears; she turned hot and cold and almost fainted with emotion, when the Emperor's twenty-four lictors lowered their fasces, the whole procession halted, the escort and the Emperor himself swerved their horses aside to let her pa.s.s and remained at the salute until she had pa.s.sed. The sudden realization of the importance of her official position overwhelmed her.
As she drove on, when she recovered herself, she meditated on the experience, and told herself that she must live up to her exalted station, that she must never, never, never for such as one instant, forget herself or behave otherwise than as became a Vestal. On the very same drive, before she returned to the Atrium, she completely forgot herself.