“Oh that you were still the idolatress—the heathen priestess—or anything but an apostate from Jehovah! Go, leave me, guileful Gentile; leave me in solitude and misery to curse the day when first a true Israelite gazed on your fatal form, and, all-forgetful of his creed, madly doted upon the daughter of the stranger.” With these words Adonijah quitted the presence of the distressed and weeping Lucia Claudia.
CHAPTER XIII.
“No place could be better calculated to answer all the purposes of the primitive and persecuted Christians, than the subterraneous caverns of the Arenaria.”
The measure Lucia Claudia was compelled to adopt was one of necessity rather than choice. She would willingly have remained in her brother’s house, if that house had been a safe abode for a virtuous woman. If she could have kept the retirement of her chamber inviolate, the Christian would not have considered it an imperative duty to quit the protection of her natural guardian.
While she still wore the vestal habit, no one dared utter a word to wound her pure and spotless virtue but when the sacerdotal profession became inconsistent with her worship of the God of Abraham, and she abandoned the sacred robes, each sensual guest of Julius Claudius seemed to forget the deference he once had paid to the vestal sister of his friend, and openly congratulated her upon her change of life. Atheists and scoffers had hitherto been unable to disengage their minds from the chain superstition had woven round their earlier years. Now that restraint was gone, and, incapable of appreciating the motives that had influenced Lucia Claudia, even if they had known them, they daringly imputed them to guilt, and considered her as something more profane and lost to virtue than themselves. Nymphidius Sabinus alone still regarded Lucia Claudia as the purest of her sex. At first he had suspected that she had quitted her lofty position to espouse some favoured patrician, but he vainly watched for some confirmation of his suspicions. To him she appeared as icily chaste, as vestal-like, as inaccessible, as when she wore the consecrated robes of the dedicated virgin. The idea that she was a Christian suddenly entered his mind. He remembered that memorable day when she had claimed the privilege of her order to save a Christian pastor. It was clear to him that the woman he adored was a secret disciple of Linus, Bishop of Rome. It was strange that he had not discovered this before. His knowledge of her secret would render him the master of her destiny. For her creed he cared not, so that she were but his wife. He communicated his suspicions to Julius Claudius, who seemed convinced of their truth. It was then agreed between them that a removal to Tivoli would preclude Lucia Claudia from taking counsel with the sect whose tenets she had embraced. Nymphidius was to intimidate her into an acceptance of his suit, in which he was to be seconded by his friend. The fears of a timid young woman they considered would lead her to a marriage that she denied to his love. Ignorant of these devices against her peace, Lucia Claudia had listened in indignant silence, while on the way to Tivoli, to the artful hints thrown out from time to time by her brother Julius, who daringly insinuated that a marriage with the son of the bondwoman, Nymphidius, could alone restore her tarnished reputation. The feeble-minded Antonia, the wife of Julius, took that opportunity of repeating all the idle reports in circulation in Rome respecting Lucia Claudia’s abandonment of her vestal life. Among other things she assured her that no one was more severe in her judgment upon her conduct than Cossutia, the Maxima, or Chief Vestal. Lucia knew this was true, and it pained her deeply, for Cossutia had loved her intensely, and had been the faithful guardian of her youth. She had vainly endeavoured to see this lady, that she might clear her fame by avowing the motives that had influenced her conduct. The Maxima had haughtily declined the interview, and her displeasure had planted another thorn in the bosom of her former pupil.
Forsaken by the wise and virtuous among the heathens, and obliged to associate with dissolute persons of both sexes, who frequented the house of her brother, exposed to the suit of Nymphidius, and deprived of the support a noble Roman matron ought to have afforded her, she felt that the roof of Julius was no suitable abode for her, and that to join the brethren had become her only choice.
She had indulged the benevolent wish of rearing the lovely scion of her house, the infant son of Julius and Antonia, in the principles of the Christian faith. The babe greatly resembled his lamented uncle Lucius, whose name he bore, and this likeness joined to the winning smiles of infancy had endeared him to his aunt.
She was compelled to give up this hope, but she left him with deep regret. Her parting interview with Adonijah greatly unnerved her; nor did the presence of Nymphidius Sabinus at all revive her spirits. Her languid appearance seemed to plead for rest, and her early retirement to her dormitory excited neither surprise nor suspicion.
In the privacy of her own chamber, Lucia Claudia mentally recalled the trials she had endured since she had abandoned the idolatrous worship of Vesta. Was not this the literal fulfilment of the command of Jesus, “Take up the cross and follow me,” and should she repine?