When Brinnaria returned from her outing she found waiting for her her best friend, chum and crony, Flexinna, a girl four years older, not so tall, decidedly more slender and much prettier. Brinnaria was robustly handsome; Flexinna was delicately lovely, yet they did not differ much in tints of hair, eyes or skin and might have been sisters. In fact, they were not infrequently taken for sisters.
They chatted of their girlish interests and of local gossip and family news, like any pair of girls, until Brinnaria described the escapade that led to her rustication.
Flexinna’s eyes were wide and wider as she listened.
“D-d-do-you really m-m-mean,” she stuttered, “that you had a c-c-chance to be a V-V-Vestal and d-d-didn’t jump at it?”
“Jump at it!” exclaimed Brinnaria. “I jumped away from it! I can’t think of anything, except death, that would fill me with more horror than the very idea of being made a Vestal. It makes me shiver now just to speak of it.”
“You’re a f-f-fool,” Flexinna declared, “the f-f-foolest kind of a f-f-fool. This is the f-f-first f-f-foolish thing I ever knew you to d-d-do. I always th-th-thought you s-s-so s-s-sensible, t-t-too. And you’ve m-m-missed a ch-ch-chance to be a V-V-Vestal. I’ve n-n-no p-p-patience with you. Any other g-g-girl would j-j-jump at the ch-ch-chance.”
“Jump at it!” cried Brinnaria. “Why?”
“Why?” sneered Flexinna, blazing with excitement. “Why, just think what you’ve m-m-missed! You’re as wild as I am to see g-g-gladiators fight, k-k-keener than I am to see a real horse-race in the circus, and you’ll have to wait until you’re g-g-grown up, as I’ll have to, before you s-s-see either. And you’d have g-g-gone to every spectacle, from the very day you were t-t-taken, and not have m-m-missed one. Think of it! F-F-Front seats in the circus, front seats in the amphitheatre, all your life, or for thirty years at least, for certain! And you’ve m-m-missed it. And that’s not half. Your lictor to c-c-clear the way for you whenever you g-g-go out and your choice to g-g-go out in your litter with eight b-b-bearers or in your c-c-carriage, your own c-c-carriage, all your own, and the right to d-d-drive any where in the city any d-d-day in the year. Oh, you f-f-fool, you s-s-silly f-f-fool! A ch-ch-chance to be one of the s-s-seven m-m-most imp-p-portant women in Rome, one of the s-s-six who are on a level with the Empress, and you m-m-missed it! Fancy it; to b-b-be mistress of an income so large that it m-m-makes you d-d-dizzy to think of it, and you throw away the ch-ch-chance! To be able the m-m-moment you were taken, to m-m-make your own w-w-will! To have every legacy c-c-cadger in Rome running after you and m-m-making you p-p-presents and d-d-doing you favors and angling for your n-n-notice all your 1-l-life 1-1-long, and you m-m-miss the ch-ch-chance!”
“Yes,” Brinnaria admitted, reflectively, “I have missed all that, that’s so. But that’s not all there is to think of, when you think about being a Vestal. I’ve missed a lot of fine privileges, mighty valuable to any girl that would care for that sort of thing; but I’ve escaped a lot of things that would go with those privileges. I love bright colors, I always did and I look ghastly in white—I look like a ghost. And I’d have had to wear white and nothing else, even white flowers, like a corpse. And a Vestal has to keep her eyes on the ground and walk slow and stately and stand straight and dignified, and talk soft and low. I’d suffer, even if I could learn all the tricks they teach them as well as Gargilia has. And I don’t believe I ever could. I’d keep my eyes cast down for a month or a year and then, right in the middle of a sacrifice, I’d see something funny, like the gander squawking under the feet of the pall-bearers at poor old Gibba’s funeral at the farm last summer, and I’d wink at the head Vestal or roll my eyes at the whole congregation and spoil the prayers; or, after keeping meek and mum for a year or so I’d be so wild to laugh that I’d roar right out and break up the whole service. I think I’m the last girl alive to be a Vestal. A Vestal mustn’t answer back or make a pun, no matter how good a chance she gets. I just can’t help cutting in, if I see a chance; the words come out of my mouth before I know it, and, if I trained myself to keep still and look as mild as a lamb, I’d be boiling inside and sometime I’d burst out with a yell just to relieve my feelings or I’d jab a shawl-pin into the Pontifex to see him jump, or put out my toe and trip up somebody just to see him sprawl. I couldn’t help it. The more I’d bottle myself up the farther the naughtiness in me would spurt when it burst through the skin. I know. No Vestaling for me! I wasn’t born for that trade!”
“Nonsense!” Flexinna disclaimed vigorously. “You’d g-g-get used to the whole thing in a m-m-month and be the most s-s-statuesque of the six in t-t-ten years. Think of it! I’m just raging inside at your f-f-folly. To have the right to an interview with the Emperor whenever you d-d-demand it, to see the m-m-magistrates’ lictors lower their fasces to you and s-s-stand aside at the s-s-salute and let you p-p-pass whenever you m-m-meet them in p-p-public. To live in one of the finest p-p-palaces in Rome, one of the most m-m-magnificent residences on earth, to have the ch-ch-chance at all that and m-m-miss it; I’ve no p-p-patience with you!”
“That’s all very fine,” Brinnaria countered, “but there’s much to be said on the other side. I’ve been in the Atrium. Aunt Septima took me there to call on Causidiena. It’s big, it’s gorgeous, it’s luxurious, that’s all true. But I love sunlight. I’d loathe living in that hole in the ground; why, the shadow of the Palace falls across the courtyard before noon and for all the rest of the day it’s gloomy as the bottom of a well. I heard Causidiena tell Aunt Septima how shoes mould and embroideries mildew and what a time they have with the inlays popping off the furniture on account of the dampness and about the walls and lamp-standards sweating moisture. I’d hate the dark, poky, cold place.”
“Oh,” Flexinna admitted, “there are d-d-drawbacks to any s-s-situation in life, but, really the higher the s-s-station the fewer the drawbacks. The p-p-plain truth is that being a Vestal is the highest s-s-station in Rome except being an Empress. No g-g-girl dare aspire to be an Empress; it would be treason. If any g-g-girl d-d-dreams of it she k-k-keeps her d-d-dreams to herself. But any g-g-girl has a right to aspire to be a Vestal, if she is made perfect and is under ten and has her f-f-father and m-m-mother noble and alive. You’ve got all that and you are offered what any g-g-girl would envy you and you throw it away! I’ve no patience with you.”
“You forget,” Brinnaria argued, “that I’m in love with Almo and I’d have to give up Almo.”
“Not f-f-forever,” Flexinna retorted. “He’s enough in love with you to wait for you, to wait for you! You could have pledged him to wait till your term of service was up and then you two could have married just the same.”
“Just the same!” Brinnaria echoed. “A lot of good it’d do me to marry after I’d be an old wrinkled, gray-haired woman of forty, dried up and withered.”
“Nemestronia,” Flexinna cited, “has married twice since she was forty, and she’s not withered yet, not by a great deal, even if she is gray-haired and has a wrinkle or two.”
“What’s the use of arguing,” Brinnaria summed up. “I hate the very idea of being a Vestal. I’d hate the fact a million times more. I’d hate it even if I were not in love with Almo, furiously in love with Almo. Daddy says I’ve got to wait four years to marry him. I roll around in bed and bite the pillows with rage to think of it, night after night. A fine figure I’d cut trying to wait thirty years for him. I’d swoon with longing for him and write him a note or peep out of the temple to see him go by and then I’d get accused of misbehavior, and accused is convicted for a Vestal; well, you know it. I’d look fine being buried alive in a seven-by-five underground stone cell, with half a pint of milk and a gill of wine to keep me alive long enough to suffer before I starved to death and a thimbleful of oil in a lamp to make me more scared of the dark when the lamp burned out. No burial alive for me. I’m in love. I’m too much in love to balance arguments. I’m not sorry I missed my chance, as you call it. I’m glad I escaped; the chance isn’t missed for that matter. Rabulla’s place hasn’t been filled yet.”
“Do you know who is g-g-going to be ch-ch-chosen to fill it?” Flexinna asked. “You d-d-don’t? The choice has about narrowed d-d-down to that execrable, weasel-faced little M-M-Meffia.”
“Meffia!” Brinnaria cried. “There’s no one alive I despise as much as that detestable ninny. I’ve a mind to chuck Almo and ask Daddy to offer me, just to spite Meffia.”
“Why d-d-don’t you?” Flexinna stuttered. “D-d-do it n-n-now, right n-n-now. You might be t-t-too late.”
“Oh bosh,” Brinnaria groaned. “What’s the use of talking nonsense? What would be the sense in my spoiling my life to spite Meffia? I hate her. I’ll hate to see her putting on airs as a Vestal, but I’d hate worse to be a Vestal myself, and worst of all to lose Almo. I just couldn’t give up Almo.”
“I wish I were you,” Flexinna raged. “If I were only under ten and d-d-didn’t s-s-stutter, I’d d-d-do all I c-c-could to g-g-get D-D-Daddy to offer m-m-me.”
“Bosh!” Brinnaria sneered. “You’re in love with Vocco and you know you wouldn’t even think of giving him up if you had the chance.”
“Just wouldn’t I!” Flexinna retorted. “I love Quintus dearly. But if I had a ch-ch-chance to be a V-V-Vestal, I’d fling poor Quintus hard and never regret him. Not I. Think of the influence a V-V-Vestal has! Every man who wants p-p-promotion in the army or in the fleet, or who wants an appointment to any office would set his sisters and all his women relations to besieging me to use my influence for him. Every temple-carver and shrine-painter in Rome would have his wife showing me attentions. I know; I’ve heard the talk.
“And b-b-besides, in all the Empire a Vestal is the nearest thing to a p-p-princess we have. We read a lot about Egyptian princesses, and Asiatic princesses and we hear about P-P-Parthian p-p-princesses, but the only p-p-princesses we ever see are the Vestals. They are the only p-p-princesses in the Empire, in Italy, in Rome, the six of them. And you had a chance to be one of the only six p-p-princesses in our world and you didn’t take it. Oh, you f-f-fool, you f-f-fool!”
They wrangled about their conflicting views for a long time.
It was only as Flexinna was leaving that she inquired casually:
“Have you heard what Rabulla d-d-died of?”
“No,” said Brinnaria, “what was it?”
“Hadn’t you heard?” Flexinna wondered. “It was the p-p-pestilence.”
Pestilence!
Brinnaria heard the word often during the next few days. Rome talked of little else. It had begun with a few deaths along the river front in the sailors’ quarters, and among the stevedores and porters of the grain-warehouses, southwest of the Aventine Hill in the thirteenth ward. Next it came to notice when there were many deaths along the Subura in the very centre of the city. From there the infection had spread to every wind. Panic seized the people. There was an exodus of all who could afford it, to their country estates, to the mountains, to the seaside. Brinnarius and Quartilla discussed arrangements for their departure to his mountain farm in the Sabine hills above Carsioli. Their difficulty was to decide to whom to commit their great house in Rome. They had no slave whom they implicitly trusted, and no one certainly who would be willing to stay in the city. To close the house was to invite burglary, for in the general panic watchmen were unreliable and house-breakings were frequent. Into their consultation Brinnaria thrust herself uninvited.
“Why don’t you leave me in town?” she suggested. “I hate the country and I hate it near Carsioli worse than any neighborhood I ever saw. I want to stay right here. I love Rome. And I’m not afraid of pestilence. Nobody can die more than once and nobody dies till the gods will it. There’s more danger of dying of fright and worry than of pestilence. Anyhow a pestilence never kills all the people in a city, most of the towns- folk stay right at home and keep alive all right. Half the people that die scare or fret themselves to death. I won’t fret or worry and I’ll keep well here; but if you take me with you I’ll be miserable and chafe myself ill. I can run the house as well as mother can. Most of the slaves worship me and will obey me for love, the rest are deadly afraid of me and will not dare to disobey me. I’ll keep order and I will not waste a sesterce. Can’t I stay, Father?”
Brinnarius knit his brows and looked at his wife. Her eyes answered his.
“It would save a deal of trouble,” he said, reflectively.
“It would make a deal of gossip,” Quartilla declared. “All my enemies would say that I am an unnatural mother, that I do not love my youngest child, that I hate her, that I am exposing her to certain death, that I am as bad as a murderess.”
“Nonsense!” her husband retorted. “We can’t bother about all the malice of all the slanderers in Rome. Other people’s daughters are remaining. Lucconius means to stay here in Rome with his family. If he ventures to keep Flexinna here we might venture to leave Brinnaria behind.”
“You might,” that self-assertive child cut in, “and you know there is really no use in taking me if I do not want to go. You know how much trouble it will make for both of you.”
Quartilla sighed.
“Perhaps we had best leave her,” she said. “Certainly the house will be safe and the slaves kept in order. I shan’t have an instant’s anxiety about that. Then Brinnaria is so genuinely brave that she will really not dread the pestilence, and all the doctors say that there is nothing like that feeling to protect any one from the danger. She makes me feel that she will be safe. I don’t believe I’ll worry about that either.”
“Fine!” Brinnaria squealed. “I’m to stay.”
“Not so fast,” her father rebuked her. “I haven’t said yet that you may stay. But if I say so, then you must stay. I’ll not have you changing your mind and deciding to leave Rome after we have arranged to put you in charge here. It would make trouble indeed to have you shutting up this house in a hurry and chasing after us to Carsioli.”
“Epulo!” his wife reproached him, “the child has her faults, but changeableness is not one of them. She is the most resolute child I ever knew. If you leave her, she will not fail us. If she gives her word she will keep it. I never knew Brinnaria to break an earnestly made promise.”
“Will you promise?” her father asked her.
“I promise,” Brinnaria shouted, “I pledge myself. I take oath. I swear by my love of both of you, by my respect for our clan, by my hopes of marrying Almo, that I’ll stick it out here in Rome, going out only when necessary, unless you send for me to come away. If anything happens that makes me think I ought to leave the city I shall send a message to you, but I shall not cross the city boundaries nor relax my watch on this house without your permission. I swear.”
“That’s enough, dearie,” her father said, “enough and too much. If your judgment tells you that you ought to flee from Rome, you have my permission to send me a messenger; I know you will not resort to that without real need. I rely on your judgment. The gods be with you, child. You have taken a load of my shoulders, two loads, in fact.”
Thereupon preparations for departure were pushed and soon after sunrise on the next day Brinnaria found herself left to her own resources, responsible for the welfare of a large retinue of obsequious slaves, autocrat over them, and mistress of one of the largest private houses in Rome. She acquitted herself well of her duties. She had been right in claiming that she was loved by most and feared by the rest. Certainly she was trusted and respected by all as if she had been five times her age. She made them as comfortable as town-slaves could be and they knew it. To her they accorded instant and implicit obedience. The life of the household went on as smoothly as if the master had been at home. And its life was not gloomy. Although the main subject of conversation was the pestilence, open forebodings were not indulged in and the house was outwardly cheerful.
Equally cheerful was Flexinna, whom Brinnaria saw daily. Neither of them had the slightest fear of the pestilence and no member of either household had shown the slightest symptoms of any kind of illness. Of the daily deaths among their large acquaintance or among the nobilities of the city, they talked calmly, without any feeling of gloom or of dread, secure in the confidence of youth and health.
On the tenth day after Brinnaria had been left to her own devices Flexinna visited her as usual. Early in their talk she said:
“D-D-Dossonia died last night.”
“The Chief Vestal?” Brinnaria queried.
“Yes,” Flexinna replied, a bright tear in each eye.
“She couldn’t live forever,” Brinnaria said. “She was ninety-four, wasn’t she?”
“Ninety-four years and eight months yesterday,” Flexinna replied. “She had been Chief Vestal ever since C-C-Calpurnia P-P-Praetextata died, and that’s fifty- six years ago. She had been Chief Vestal longer than any ever and she had lived longer than any Vestal ever.”
“Well,” said Brinnaria, the practical, “she ought to have been glad to go, and she stone blind for twenty years.”
“Yes, I know,” Flexinna rejoined, “but she was such an old d-d-dear, she looked so much younger than her age, her face so healthy and pink, and b-b-beautiful even with all its wrinkles, so calm and placid and holy I loved to look at her sitting in her big chair like a great white b-b-butterfly, so plump and handsome and soft-looking. She always put out her hand to my face and recognized me at the first t-t-touch, almost, and gave me her blessing so b-b-beautifully. Sometimes Manlia let me read to the old dear, and she always seemed to enjoy it so much. I’m real shaken at her d-d-death. I really loved her.”
“Everybody loved her,” Brinnaria declared. “But everybody loves Causidiena too, and she’s Chief Vestal now. She’s not fat and placid like Dossonia, but she is wonderfully dignified. My, I admire that woman!”
“I wonder,” Flexinna reflected, “who will be chosen in her p-p-place.”
“Poor wretch!” Brinnaria commented. “I’m sorry for her, whoever she is. Just think, she’ll have to pair with that unspeakable little muff of a Meffia. I hate that girl.”
“Whoever she is,” Flexinna continued, “she is sure to be chosen and taken mighty quick. For with this p-p-pestilence in the city, and all the trouble the P-P-Parthians are making in the East, of the Marcomanni on the Rhine colonies, and the thunder-storms that have raged about lately, there’ll be need felt for all the p-p-prayers all the offer. They’ll not leave the vacancy open long. I’ll bet they have it filled by d-d-day after to-morrow. Old B-B-Bambilio is a stickler for pious precision an observance of all ritual matters and the Emperors are with him.”
“Marcus is,” Brinnaria agreed, pertly, “but Lucius doesn’t care what happens so long as he has his fun.”
“You mustn’t t-t-t-talk that way about the Emperors,” Flexinna cautioned her. “If you were overheard you’d get into no end of trouble. Anyhow, Verus defers to Aurelius in everything, so that whatever Aurelius wishes is as if both wished it. And there never was a more p-p-pious Emperor than Aurelius. So the place is certain to be filled p-p-promptly.”
“At once, for sure,” Brinnaria agreed. “I wonder who the victim will be? Do you suppose it will be Occurnea?”
“It would have been Occurnea, I think,” Flexinna said. “You know it was a chance for a while whether she’d get it instead of Meffia. But she’s not eligible now. Her mother d-d-died yesterday.”
“Tallentia, perhaps,” Brinnaria hazarded.
“Impossible,” Flexinna declared. “You remember how recklessly she rode and how her horse f-f-fell on her. She has limped ever since and always will.”
“Cuppiena?” suggested Brinnaria.
“Not she,” said Flexinna; “she has some k-k-kind of skin rash and has lost almost all her hair.”
“Sabbia,” Brinnaria proposed.
“Her mother’s d-d-dead too,” Flexinna reminded her; “has been for months.”
“Fremnia,” came the next suggestion.
“She’s off to Aquileia with her family,” said Flexinna; “they all left the d-d-day your folks went.”
“Eppia,” ventured Brinnaria.
“She’s ten years old now,” Flexinna demurred. “She celebrated her b-b-birthday three days before the Kalends. I was at the party.”
“Pennasia, perhaps,” Brinnaria suggested.
“D-d-deaf in one ear like her mother and grandmother,” said Flexinna, “and you know it.”
“Licinia,” Brinnaria ventured.
“She’d be the last they’d choose on account of the b-b-bad luck Vestals of her family have had;” Flexinna reminded her. “The very name suggests disgrace. Anyhow, she’s in Baiae with her p-p-people.”
“Rentulana,” came the next conjecture.
“Has a b-b-big wen on the side of her head,” Flexinna proclaimed.
“Numledia?” came next.
“You’ve lost your memory, Brinnaria,” said Flexinna, severely. “She’s got a b-b-big purple birthmark on her neck.”
“Magnonia,” Brinnaria proposed.
“She’s far away, in Britain, with her father and mother; might as well be out of the world.”
Brinnaria was at a loss. She meditated. “Gavinna!” she said at last.
“She has a bad squint and you know it,” laughed Flexinna. “Why don’t you think of an eligible c-c-candidate?”
They tried a dozen more names, all of girls out of the city or defective in some way, or with one parent dead.
“But who will it be?” Brinnaria wondered. “It’s bound to be somebody and quick.”
She jumped to her feet.
She screamed.
“They’ll take me! They’ll take me! Oh, what am I to do, what am I to do? I’m the only possible candidate in the city. And they’ll be after me the moment they run over the lists and find no one else is in town.”
She stood a moment, considering, then she called Guntello, and a lean Caledonian slave called Intinco. She gave them each a written journey-order to show to any patrol that questioned them, told Guntello to take the best horse in the stable and to give the next best to Intinco, bade Intinco ride to Carsioli and Guntello to Falerii, gave Guntello a letter for Almo and Intinco a letter to her father and told them verbally, in case the letter was lost, to make it plain that she was in danger of being taken for a Vestal and bid her father come quickly to interfere and her lover to ride fast to claim her in time. She enjoined both slaves to spur their horses, gave them money in case they needed to hire fresh mounts and wound up:
“Kill Rhaebus, kill Xanthus, kill as many hired horses as need be, ride without halt or mercy. Get there and get father and Almo here. Be quick. You can’t be too quick.”
She watched them ride off at a sedate walk, for no man was allowed to trot a horse in the streets of Rome. Both had assured her that they would ride at full gallop from the moment they passed the gates.
Then began for Brinnaria a tense and anxious period of waiting. Flexinna obtained her parents’ permission and remained with her friend. The entire household continued in good health and there was nothing to distract t he two from their dread on the one hand that the Pontifex might come to claim Brinnaria before Almo and her father arrived, and their hope on the other hand of seeing them come in time.
On the whole the strain told on Flexinna more than on Brinnaria, who never once shed a tear, attended to her housewifely duties calmly and steadily and talked little. Flexinna fidgeted constantly and talked a good deal.
“If I were in your place,” she said, “I shouldn’t be waiting here inertly for Faltonius to come and claim me. Instead of dispatching messengers for your father and Almo, you ought to have left the city at once and made your best speed for Carsioli yourself.”
“I couldn’t,” Brinnaria declared, “and you know why. I passed my word to stay in this house and not so much as to go out unless some compelling necessity arose. I pledged myself not to leave here unless I sent a messenger saying I needed to leave and received permission before I started. I took my oath not to cross the city limits without Father’s consent. I can’t break my oath and I shouldn’t break my word, even if I hadn’t sworn in addition to promising.”
“You f-f-fool!” Flexinna declared.
“All members of our clan keep their word,” said Brinnaria proudly. “We do not ask whether it is advantageous to keep our word or pleasant; when we have passed our word we keep it. I’ve given my word and there’s nothing to do but to wait for Almo and Daddy and hope that both, or at least a message from Daddy will get here before Faltonius.”
“There is something else you might do,” Flexinna suggested. “You might easily arrange to be ineligible before Bambilio comes for you.”
“I shall,” spoke the matter-of-fact Brinnaria. “The moment Daddy and Almo come, I’ll be Alma’s wife in less time than it takes to tell it and will be able to snap my fingers at Bambilio.”
“Suppose he comes before your father,” Flexinna suggested.
“I’d be a Vestal and all hope gone,” said Brinnaria,
“I mean,” said Flexinna, “suppose Almo comes before your father.”
“I’ve thought of that,” Brinnaria admitted. “But I’d hate to break the record of which our family is so proud. None of our women ever were so much as accused of any misbehavior before marriage.”
“I’ve no p-p-patience with you,” Flexinna raged. “You’ll throw away your life for a mere scruple. You risk being made a Vestal every moment. Faltonius may be on the way here now. If I were in your place I’d make sure. I’d not wait for Almo. Any lad would do for me. You c-c-could make sure, if you had sense. Almo would forgive you and marry you anyway. Your father would forgive you; he’d never approve, I know.”
“Not he!” Brinnaria proclaimed, “and he’ll never have any such dishonor to forgive. No man of our clan ever had reason to be ashamed of his daughter or of his sister. I’ll not be the first to disgrace the clan. If Faltonius comes he’ll find me as eligible as the hour I was born, unless Daddy and Almo come in time for me to be married first.”
“At least,” Flexinna persisted, “you might say no when he asks you. That would stall the whole ceremony and give you t-t-time.”
“Do you suppose,” Brinnaria sneered, “that I haven’t thought of that? I’m tempted, of course. But that would be to advertise myself a disgrace to the Pontifex during a solemn interrogatory.”
“At least,” Flexinna pleaded, “you might say you are over age. You look sixteen to anybody, and no one would imagine you are under fourteen. You could halt the proceedings, at least, and gain t-t-time.”
“Faltonius has the lists,” said Brinnaria wearily, “with all the birthdays sworn to by both parents for every girl on them and attested by four excellent witnesses, besides. He’d know I was lying and it would do me no good.”
Flexinna changed the subject.
But when the next day dawned and neither Brinnarius nor Almo appeared, she returned to the attack. Brinnaria was very pale, very tense, but obdurate. She controlled herself, did not forget, did not express her feelings, but she posted a slave at each street corner, right and left of the house-door, and had them look out for what she hoped and what she feared.
Dastor brought word that the Pontifex and his retinue were approaching; three litters, each with eight bearers, preceded by the lictor of the Chief Vestal.
Brinnaria, pale and tense, did her best to look collected and controlled. She succeeded well, heard calmly the announcement of her august visitors, ordered them shown into the atrium, and received them with proper dignity. Her self-possession did not desert her when she recognized in the train of the Pontifex her rejected suitor Calvaster, sly, malignant and with an air of suppressed elation.
Faltonius Bambilio, the Pontifex of Vesta, was a pursy, pudgy, pompous old man, immensely self-important, almost ridiculous in his fussiness, but clothed with a certain impressiveness by the mere fact of his religious office. He gazed about him, stared at Brinnaria, hemmed and hawed and threw himself into poses intended to be stately.
With him was Causidiena, now Chief Vestal, a tall, spare woman of about forty-five, her austere face kindly and reassuring, her dark hair barely showing under her official head-dress, a statuesque figure in her white robes of office.
“My daughter,” spoke Faltonius to Brinnaria, “Rome has but five Vestals. I have come to take you into the vacant place. You have been chosen, as best suited to this high dignity, from among those whose names were on the lists of those fit for the office. Was it proper that your name should be on the lists?”
“I believe so,” spoke Brinnaria, weakly, almost in a whisper.
“Are you fit to be taken as a Vestal, my daughter?”
“I believe so,” came the answer.
“Have you any blemish or defect of body, any impediment of speech, any difficulty of hearing?”
Brinnaria’s awe was wearing off, and the irritating pomposity of Faltonius was producing its usual effect of arousing antagonism, as it generally did in those he talked to. Brinnaria felt all her wild self surge up in her.
“I’m sound as a two-year-old racing filly,” she replied. “I’m clean as fresh curd; I hear you perfectly and you can hear me perfectly.”
Bambilio bristled like a bantam rooster.
“That is not the way for a Vestal to speak,” he rebuked.
“I’m not a Vestal yet,” Brinnaria retorted, “and that was my answer to those questions. If you don’t like it I don’t care a shred of bran.”
“Come! come!” fussed Bambilio, “answer the interrogatories properly.”
“I have and I shall,” Brinnaria maintained mutinously.
“Are you fit in mind and in faculties to be a Vestal?” he continued.
“Fit to be Flaminica or Empress,” Brinnaria responded.
“Are you pure?” came the next query.
“As when I was born,” said Brinnaria emphatically.
“What is your age?” the Pontifex queried his victim.
“I’ll be ten on the Ides of next September,” quoth his victim.
“Are your parents both alive?” he asked.
“They were the last time I heard of them,” spoke Brinnaria flippantly.
“When was that?” he insisted.
“This is the twelfth day since they left Rome,” said Brinnaria, “and I’ve not heard from them since they sent a messenger back from the ninth milestone on the road to Tibur.”
Faltonius was irritating her more and more, and she added:
“They may both be dead by this time, for all I know.”
“This will not do,” spoke Faltonius. “We must be sure that they are both alive.”
“Find out,” snapped Brinnaria.
Up spoke young Calvaster, his pasty face alight with a sort of malicious glee.
“I passed Quartilla’s travelling carriage at Varia last night. Quartilla was alive and well. I passed Brinnarius this morning at dawn, this side of Tibur. He was alive then and puffing.”
“How did you get here ahead of him?” Brinnaria interjected.
“I am light built,” Calvaster explained with obvious relish, “and I rode the best horse in Italy. His mount labored heavily under his load.”
“Both parents are then alive,” spoke Faltonius. “I hereupon and hereby pronounce you in all respects fit to be taken as a Vestal. Are you willing?”
“Not I!” Brinnaria fairly shouted.
“Not willing!” Faltonius cried, incredulous.
“Not a fibre of me!” she proclaimed emphatically.
“Wretched girl!” expostulated the Pontiff. “Have you no sense of patriotism? Do you not realize your duty to your country, to the Roman people, to Rome, to the Emperor, to all of us, to the commonwealth? Do you not realize Rome’s need of you? Shall it be said that Rome has need of one of her daughters and that her unnatural child refuses?”
“I have not refused,” said Brinnaria. “I only said I was unwilling.”
“It is the same thing,” declared the bewildered ecclesiastic.
“Not a bit the same thing,” Brinnaria disclaimed. “I know my duty in this matter perfectly. Castor be good to me, I know it too well. I know that a refusal would avail me nothing, if I did refuse. I have not refused. I would not, even if I could escape by refusal I realize my duty. If I am taken I shall be all that a Vestal is expected to be, all that she must be to ensure the glory and prosperity and safety of the city and the Empire. I shall not fail the Emperor nor the Roman people, nor Rome. But I am unwilling, and I said so. Little good it will do me. But I am no liar, not even in the tightest place.”
“Stand up, my daughter,” said Faltonius, rising himself, suddenly clothed in dignity, a really impressive figure, in spite of his globular proportions.
Brinnaria stood, her eyes on the door to the vestibule, her face very pale, trembling a little, but controlled.
The Pontifex took her hand and spoke:
“As priestess of Vesta, to perform those rites which it is fitting that a priestess of Vesta perform for the Roman People and the citizens, as a girl who has been chosen properly, so I take you, Beloved.”
At the word “Beloved,” which made her irretrievably a Vestal, Brinnaria could not repress a little gasp. Her eyes no longer watched the vestibule door. She looked at the Pontiff. He let go her hand.
“You will now go with your servitor to be clothed as befits your calling.”
He indicated one of Causidiena’s attendants, a solidly built woman, like a Tuscan villager, who carried over her arm a mass of fresh white garments and robes.
With her and Causidiena Brinnaria left the atrium; with them she presently returned, a slim white figure, her hair braided and the six braids wound round her forehead like a coronet, above them the folds of the plain square headdress of the Vestals.
“I thought,” she said, “that my hair would be cut off.”
“That will be after you are made at home in the Atrium of Vesta,” spoke the Pontiff.
“And remember,” he continued sternly, “that you are now a Vestal and that young Vestals may not speak unless spoken to.”
Brinnaria bit her lip.
At that moment they heard hoofs and voices outside, the door burst open and Brinnarius entered.
“Too late, Daddy!” cried Brinnaria. “You can’t help me now. I’m not your little girl any more; I don’t count as your daughter; you don’t count as my father; I’m daughter to the Pontifex from now on. I’m a Vestal.”
She was trembling, but she kept her countenance. Brinnarius uttered no sound, the whole gathering was still and mute, the noises of the street outside were plainly audible. They heard horse-hoofs again, again the door flew open wide. In burst Almo, wide-eyed and panting.
At him Brinnaria launched a sort of shriek of expostulation.
“Why couldn’t you ride! You call yourself a horseman! And you’ve come too late! I mustn’t even kiss you good-bye. And I mustn’t speak to you, I mustn’t see you, I mustn’t so much as think of you for thirty years, for thirty years,for thirty years!”
WHEN Brinnaria found herself actually domiciled in the House of the Vestals she experienced an odd mingling of awe and elation. The mere size of it was impressive, for it was nearly two hundred feet wide and almost four hundred feet long. Also it stood alone, bounded by four streets. Besides, it gained much dignity from its location, near the southeast corner of the great Forum of Rome, that most famous of all city squares, and under the very shadow of the Imperial Palace, the walls of which towered nearly three hundred feet above it, where it crouched as it were, on a site scooped out of the huge flank of the Palatine Hill.
Completely as it was dominated by the enormous bulk of the Palace it yet looked very large, having three lofty stories. Inside it was both spacious and stately. Brinnaria was habituated to space and stateliness, for her father’s house had both, yet the Atrium of Vesta, as the House of the Vestals was officially denominated, impressed her as vast and splendid. That this immense and magnificent building was to be her home gave her sense of her own importance that thrilled her through and through. Its numerous retinue of deft and obsequious maid-servants added to this impression. Brinnaria’s personal attendants, entirely at her beck and call and serving her alone, made up a considerable retinue by themselves. She found herself, like each of the other Vestals, served by a special waitress at table, by a waitress who had nothing to do but look after her wants. Then she had a sort of maid-of-honor, who had no duties except to act as companion, make herself agreeable, read aloud, if requested, accompany her on her outings and help to pass her leisure pleasantly. As she was a mere child in years she had a sort of governess to instruct her in all those subjects in which a Roman girl of good family was generally given lessons: correct reading; a smattering of mathematics, about equivalent to the simple arithmetic of our days; some knowledge of literature; a steady and efficient drill in reading and talking Greek; instrumental music, similar to the guitar-playing of modern times, and embroidery. She had a personal maid to bathe her, arrange her hair and otherwise make her comfortable; also a special maid to attend to her private apartment, which included what we would call a sitting-room, a tiny bedroom, and a large bath-room. The largest room was used mostly as a school-room for lessons with her instructress. Outside the Atrium Brinnaria had her private stable, her carriages, her coachman and ostlers, and her lictor, the red-cloaked runner, who preceded her carriage, announced its coming and cleared the way for it through the crowds of foot-passengers who thronged the streets of Rome. Life in the Atrium was austere and formal, but in no respect ascetic. The austerities extended only to attire and behavior. The decorations of the courtyard, of the corridors and stairs, of the two hundred rooms, were bewilderingly varied and overpoweringly gorgeous. Every appointment of the Atrium was luxurious to the last degree; the furnishings were beautiful and precious, every object a work of art; the bathrooms cunningly devised for comfort, the beds deep and soft, scarcely less so the sofas on which the Vestals reclined at their meals, the table service of exquisite glass-ware and elaborately chased silver, the food abundant and including every delicacy and rarity most appetizing and enjoyable.
Except Meffia her co-Vestals were immediately liked and speedily loved by Brinnaria. Meffia, a month older than herself and looking six years younger, was a small, awkward, ungainly girl, with pale blue eyes, pale yellow hair and babyish pink complexion. She had never had an ill hour in her life, yet she always appeared ailing, shrank from any effort, hated exercise and exertion and at every necessity for movement asserted that she was tired, often that she felt weak. Brinnaria thought her merely innately lazy and a natural shirk. The more she saw of her the more her loathing for her and her hatred of her intensified. Quite the reverse with the others. Manlia was a large young woman of about twenty-two, a typical Roman aristocrat, her hair between dark brown and black, her complexion swarthy, her figure abundant. Gargilia was older than Manlia; a tall, slender creature with intensely black hair and piercing black eyes that looked straight at you out of a face healthfully tinted indeed, but of a whiteness which was the envy of half the beauties in Rome. Numisia Maximilla was much like an older Manlia, but sparer and of markedly haughty bearing and carriage. Causidiena, newly become Chief Vestal, was a woman of about forty-five years of age, mild, gentle, and charming, with cool gray eyes and glossy brown hair, a being who aroused affection, inspired admiration and compelled love from all her household.
She won Brinnaria’s heart at once by telling her that she herself, when she had first entered the Atrium of Vesta, had found it difficult to learn the etiquette of the order, had wanted to shout and sing and laugh out loud, to run up and down stairs instead of walking, to skip and jump.
That Causidiena had triumphed over similar tendencies comforted Brinnaria and helped her to try to overcome her own. Most difficult to curb was her tendency to be rude to Meffia. This Causidiena noticed at once and set herself to obliterate. Brinnaria unbosomed herself and Causidiena listened so sympathetically that Brinnaria sat silent through the long lecture that followed and was very submissive during a searching interrogatory. She promised to comport herself as a Vestal should.
“But,” she said, “I shall suffer. That girl is unpleasant in ten thousand ways, but the smell of her is the most unpleasant thing about her. She’s been tubbed and scrubbed and massaged and perfumed twice a day ever since I came here and she smells worse than a polecat, anyhow, all day long, even the moment after her maid has finished her toilet. A whiff of Meffia sets me frantic. I’d be capable of any crime to get rid of her.”
More lecturing followed.
“But it’s true!” Brinnaria maintained. “You can’t help smelling her yourself; she smells like nothing else on earth. It isn’t the smell of a dirty girl or of an ill girl, nor the smell of a girl at all or of any kind of a human being. I can’t describe it, but it’s a thin sour smell, sharp and shrill like the note of a cricket, if a sound and a smell can be compared. It’s horrible; it’s not human.”
More lecturing, a long session of lecturing, followed this outburst. At the end of it the victim was meek and pliable, or so professed herself. For at least five days Brinnaria kept up her effort to be comradely with Meffia. By the sixth day she was completely exhausted and the two avoided each other as before.
Agonies indeed Brinnaria suffered in her efforts to live up to Causidiena’s ideas of what she should be. On the whole she succeeded pretty well and committed few errors of deportment. Outwardly she controlled herself from the first; for, before her first cowed sensations had worn off, her adoration of Causidiena had gained full sway over her. Yet inwardly she suffered more and more acutely as time went on, partly feeling that she must burst out in spite of herself, partly dreading that she would.
At last, after many days, she perpetrated her first and most undignified prank. It was a terrific occurrence, judged by the standards of the Atrium.
The great peristyle of the House of the Vestals, including nearly three-fourths of the whole courtyard, was beautified with a splendid double colonnade, two tiers of pillars, one above the other, the lower of delicately mottled Carystian marble wavily veined with green streaks varying its whiteness, the upper of coral-red brecchia. Midway of the court was a tank lined with marbles and always filled with clear water.
One morning Meffia, walking about the court, in her irritatingly aimless fashion, passed between Brinnaria and the edge of the tank. There was no earthly reason for her so doing, as Brinnaria was barely a yard from the margin of the pool, and on the other side of Brinnaria was the ample expanse of the pavement of the spacious court.
Brinnaria was exasperated by Meffia’s proximity, by her lackadaisical manner, by her shambling gait, by her sleep-walking attitude, most of all by the peculiar thin, sour odor which Meffia exhaled. At the sight of Meffia’s elaborately disagreeable demeanor of isolation, all Brinnaria’s natural self began to boil in her; at the whiff which assailed her nostrils she boiled over, all her uncurbed instincts surging up at once. She put out one foot and gave Meffia a push.
Meffia, with a squall and a great splash, fell into the tank.
She not only fell in, but she went under the water.
She went under and did not come up.
For an instant Brinnaria thought she was shamming to scare her; but, in a twinkling she realized that Meffia had fainted.
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 anticipation of Causidiena’s wrath and suffered a good deal more at the thought of her pained, silent displeasure. Hours passed, long hours passed 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 classes 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 fashion. 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 pass and remained at the salute until she had passed. 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.
It was a hot, sultry afternoon and it suited her coachman to drive homeward along the Subura, that thronged and unsavory Bowery of ancient Rome. Three street urchins were teasing and maltreating a rough coated, muddy little cur. Brinnaria called imperiously to her lictor to interfere. He was too far ahead to hear her. Her coachman had all he could do to control her mettlesome span of Spanish mares. She spoke to the boys and they laughed at her. Before she knew it she had flung open her carriage door, had leapt out, had cuffed soundly the ears of the three dumbfounded gamins, and was back among her cushions, the dog in her arms.
This escapade brought upon her a visit from the Pontifex of Vesta, the semi-globular Faltonius Bambilio, diffusing pomposity. From him she had to listen to a long lecture on deportment and to a reading of the minutes of the meeting of the College of Pontiffs which had discussed her public misbehavior.