She had a healthy love of mere enjoyment too. Except when she happened to be on duty watching the sacred fire, she never missed a theatrical performance, a gladiatorial display or an exhibition of chariot-racing in anyone of the vast race-courses flanked by tiers of stone-seats, which the Romans called circuses. At all shows, whether of scenic artists, fighting men or speeding horses, the Vestals had specified seats, as good as the best.
Besides these formal pleasures, she took great delight in mixing in society merely for society’s sake. Moderns are likely to imagine that the Vestals of ancient Rome were nuns or something like nuns. They were nothing of the sort. They were maiden ladies of wealth and position whose routine duties brought them into familiar association with all the men important in the Roman government, hierarchy, nobility and gentry and with their wives and daughters. They were women of such importance in their world that their acquaintance was sought by all who had any pretensions to being entitled to meet them and by shoals of social bounders who had none. Their influence was so powerful that they were unremittingly sought, waylaid, pursued and besieged by persons who hoped to enlist their interest in the appointment or promotion of this, that or the other connection or relative; by the same persons they were continually overwhelmed with presents of flowers, fruit, delicacies, dainties, ornaments, laces, garments, pieces of furniture, horses, slaves, and of anything and everything capable of being made a present of in the Roman world; likewise with social invitations-chiefly to dinners, banquets and feasts. Invitations to banquets and dinners Brinnaria seldom declined, unless her duties made acceptance impossible or the invitation came from people beneath her notice. As she had said to Aurelius, she had an excellent appetite. She had an epicurean tendency from her early years and was fond of oysters, sweetbreads, eels, thrushes, turbot and other articles of food esteemed as delicacies by the Romans. But she was a hearty eater and consumed generous portions of roast meats, particularly of pork, which even in late imperial times was the staple of Roman diet. She never lost her childish relish for boiled pork and cabbage, for bacon, for ham, hot or cold. She was by no means a glutton, ate deliberately and daintily, and while she ate, joined in the general conversation or even led it. She had a quick wit and a sharp tongue and her sallies were acclaimed. She was sought after as a guest not merely because she was a Vestal, but for herself, for her gaiety and her unexpected utterances.
On the whole she preferred informal dinners to formal banquets and liked better to dine with her friends than with the most luxurious entertainers in Roman society.
With Vocco and Flexinna she dined frequently, three times a month at least and generally oftener. Brinnaria loved children, especially babies, and there was always a baby in the Istorian household—Flexinna’s babies were all healthy and grew famously. Of the six children, Brinnaria could not have told which she loved or which loved her most. Her arrivals were always heralded with shouts of glee, her romps with the children always put her in a good humor, her swim with Flexinna sharpened an appetite which needed no edge, while the cosiness and informality of Flexinna’s dining-room, where each of the three had undivided possession of one entire sofa, made it certain that nothing marred her enjoyment.
CHAPTER XIII - PERVERSITY
ABOUT three years after her farewell to Almo, on entering Vocco’s house one afternoon, Brinnaria had a presentiment of something wrong. The children were as vociferous and as whimsical as usual, but there was a nameless difference in Flexinna’s expression and bearing. As soon as they were alone in their bath, after she had had one good plunge in the pool, Brinnaria, treading water in the deepest part of the tank, shaking her head like a wet spaniel, demanded:
“What is the matter? There’s something wrong. You might as well tell me.”
But Flexinna put her off and laughed at her insistence.
To Brinnaria the laughter seemed forced and so did the talk at dinner. No sooner was the dinner over and the tray of figs, almonds and pomegranates and other fruit on the table, than she whispered to Flexinna: