Part 18 (1/2)
The Emperor nodded and Almo bowed himself out.
”Do you know,” said Aurelius, when they were alone, ”I have been thinking over what you said about Almo's peculiar notability of looks.
It puzzles me as it puzzles you. He is not merely of distinguished appearance, he is unusual, striking, unforgettable, conspicuous. I have talked about it to several of my gentlemen-in-waiting, equerries and orderlies. They have seen him lately about the stables of the Greens.
They all say that he is, in fact, as normally proportioned as any youth alive, but they confirm what you said about his long-legged appearance.
Julia.n.u.s used almost the same word you used, said Almo looked 'Gra.s.shoppery.' They all say Almo is precisely the most unmistakable, the most readily and quickly recognizable youth in all our young n.o.bility.”
Brinnaria rose to go. Aurelius bent on her a kindly smile.
”I have been talking about you with Faustina,” he said. ”We are both much interested by the strangeness of your fate, by the difficulty and delicacy of your situation and by the wonderful constancy of you both.
Faustina and I are a most united pair, never happy out of each other's company and very proud of our domestic felicity. We are, if I may use the word, rather p.r.o.ne to gloat over it, and, while continually congratulating ourselves and each other, we cannot but mourn the infrequency of such happiness throughout our Italian n.o.bility. There are few matrons in Rome as serenely happy as your friend Flexinna, few indeed who find all their happiness in children, husband and household.
And of those who really enjoy their homes most are remarried after a divorce, or even after two or more. Our society suffers from a plague worse than the pestilence itself, a plague of greed for excitement, eagerness for novelty, of peevishness and fickleness.
”In this unhealthy atmosphere such households as Vocco's are most notable. And that you, who seem by nature fitted for just such blessedness as has befallen Flexinna, should have been robbed of it by a strange series of peculiar circ.u.mstances wins for you our interest and our solicitude. Still more are our hearts drawn towards you by your unwavering fidelity, alike to your present duties and all that they imply and to that love which you have had to put away and forget, to the ideal of that felicity which you have had to postpone so far.
”Faustina desires an interview with you. She is now in the amber gallery. I shall have you conducted there, if you do not object.”
Brinnaria could not very well object and after an equerry, very stately in his garb of duty, and two gaudily clad pages had escorted her through what seemed like miles of corridors, she found herself alone with the Empress.
The Empress she had so far seen infrequently and spoken with only seldom. It was impossible to be a Vestal, in the heyday of Rome's Imperial times, and not meet and know the Empress of Rome. Brinnaria had seen her whenever they were both present at the Circus or the Amphitheatre; had been close to her at all important state functions; had occasionally dined with her at formal Palace banquets, when the curved sofa about the Empress' table was always occupied by the Empress, the wives of the chief Flamens and the Vestals; but had hardly ever exchanged a word with her.
Faustina was endowed with the general healthiness with which Roman n.o.blewomen were blessed. But she had had the bad luck to suffer from many and severe illnesses. These and her slow recoveries from them had kept her away from very many official functions and public festivals.
Numerous had been the occasions on which Aurelius had appeared without her. When she was well, indeed, they were always together, if possible.
A great proportion of his time, however, was occupied with official duties of such a nature that, according to Roman etiquette, no woman could partic.i.p.ate in them. During such enforced separations Faustina sought amus.e.m.e.nt. And with the overflowing energy and abounding vigor which she displayed between her illness, she threw herself into the whirl of her pleasures with such impetuosity, there was so much rollicking and roistering about her favorite diversions that she attracted to herself and kept around her just those elements of Roman society with which the Vestals were least likely to mingle, professional idlers, and what we moderns would call the fast set. Naturally, therefore, Brinnaria and Faustina had never had any familiar intercourse. This was their first real conversation.
Faustina was not a large woman. She was of medium height, slender and graceful. She was noted for the originality of her coiffures, which made the most of her magnificent hair. Her hair Brinnaria noticed the moment her eyes fell on her.
Her habitual expression of haughtiness and boredom had vanished from the Empress's face and she was all kindliness and solicitude.
Faustina put her at her ease at once.
”I have always been so sorry,” she began, ”that I was ill the day you climbed over the bal.u.s.trade of the podium and rescued the retiarius.
I've missed many a sight I regretted, I miss so much by falling ill again and again, but I never missed a sight I regretted missing more than that. Nothing more worth seeing ever happened in the Colosseum.”
”I was terribly ashamed when I found what I had done,” said Brinnaria.
”Of course you were,” the Empress agreed.
This broke the ice between them and Faustina led her into a long talk about all her past, her love affair, her life as a Vestal, her bereavements, her embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances, her future, her hopes.
Brinnaria left the Empress, feeling that she had found a real friend and also feeling comforted at heart.
CHAPTER XII -OBSERVANCES
BRINNARIA found that, with Almo definitely and permanently out of the way, she did not worry about Calvaster. She also found that she did not worry about Almo and that her glimpse of him had rather calmed her feelings. She confessed as much to Aurelius when she had a third audience with him before he left for the Rhine frontier, and she thanked him for his insistence.
With her mind at peace Brinnaria settled more and more into the routine of her life and enjoyed it more and more.