Читать книгу The Unwilling Vestal - Edward Lucas White - Страница 6

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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."