"Let us show her the marble likeness," suggested Paulus, in an eager
whisper, with the air of a child devising mischief.
While they were discussing this topic, a gentle knock was heard at
the door, and then a very pretty girl of about fifteen, with an
open, sweet countenance, and a remarkably modest, cheerful bearing,
presented herself, carrying a sort of tray with various articles for
supper arranged thereon.
"May I come in? I am Benigna," said the girl, courtesying.
"Come in, Benigna," said the Greek lady.
"Come in," added Agatha, in Latin, but by no means with so good an
accent as her mother's. "You seem like your name; you seem to be
Benigna."
The girl looked at the beautiful child with a sweet, grateful smile,
and immediately proceeded to prepare a table and three covers for
supper.
"Do you know Greek?"[60] asked Aglais.
"No, lady," replied the daughter of the house. "My father is quite a
scholar; he was one of the secretary slaves in the great house before
he got his freedom, and my mother has learnt much from him; but I
have been brought up to help mother in the inn, and never had time to
learn high things."
Agatha clapped her hands, and exclaimed,
"Then I'll talk my bad Latin to Benigna, and she shall make it good."
The girl paused in her operations at the table, and said,
"I thought Latin came naturally to one, like the rain, and that it
was Greek which had to be worked out, and made, just as wine is."
The landlady, carrying various articles, entered as her daughter
uttered this valuable observation, and she joined heartily in the
laugh with which it was greeted. Benigna gazed round for a moment in
amazement, and then resumed her work, laughing through sympathy, but
very red from the forehead to the dimples round her pretty mouth.
The supper-table was soon ready.
Paulus, at whom the hostess had frequently looked wistfully, now
remarked that they all felt much gratitude for the kindness they were
receiving, and never could forget it. Crispina, who was going out at
the moment, did not reply, but lingered with her hand upon the door;
the other hand she passed once across her eyes.
Then the Greek lady observed,
"Good hostess, these are the apartments you intended for some
barbarian queen, I believe?"
"Yes, my lady; for Queen Berenice, daughter-in-law of King Herod
the Idumæan, called Herod the Great, with her son Herod Agrippa, a
wild youth, I understand, about eighteen years old, and her daughter
Herodias."
"I heard the tribune quæstor, who commands the prætorians, plead for
us with your husband," continued Aglais; "and I suppose that the
quæstor's generous eloquence is the cause of our being received into
your house at all. But this does not account for your extraordinary
kindness to us. We expected to be barely tolerated as inconvenient
and unwelcome guests, who kept better customers away."
"Inconvenient and unwelcome!" said Crispina, who seemed ready to cry,
as, looking around the little group, her glance rested again upon
Paulus.
"Whereas," resumed Aglais, "you treat my dear children as if you were
their mother. Why are we so fortunate as to find these feelings in a
stranger?"
The hostess paused a moment. "Honored lady," said she, "the reason
is, that I once was the nurse of a youth whom I loved as if he were
my own child; and it seemed to me as if I saw my brave, beautiful,
affectionate nursling again when I saw your son; but so long a time
had passed, I nearly fell with fright and astonishment."
Agatha went to the bust of Tiberius, lifted it, and, pointing to the
marble image, said in a low, tender voice,
"You nursed him?"
A little cry of dismay escaped the lips of our hostess.
"No one ever thought of looking beneath," said she. "My daughter and
I arrange and dust the room. I must remove my poor boy's image. He is
indeed forgotten by most people now; but it might harm us, and alas!
alas! could not help him, if this silent face, that never smiles at
me, never talks to me any more, were to be discovered. Do not speak
of this to any body, I beg of you, good lady, and my pretty one. You
will not?" added she, smiling, but with tears in her eyes as she
looked at Paulus. "I feel as though I had reared you."
They said they would take care not to allude to the subject at all,
except among themselves, and then Aglais remarked,
"You speak in sorrow of the youth whom you nursed. Is he then dead?"
"_Eheu!_ lady, he is dead nearly twenty years; but he was just about
your son's age when they put him to death."
"Put him to death? Why was he put to death, and by whom?" asked
Aglais.
"Hush! Mæcenas and the emperor ordered it to be done. Oh! do take
care. The whole world swarms with spies, and you may be sure an inn
is not free from them. Things have been more quiet of late years.
When I was young, I felt as if my head was but glued to my shoulders,
and would fall off every day. As for Crispus, did I not make him
cautious how he spake?"
"But your foster-son?"
"Ah poor boy! Poor young knight! He was mad about the ancient Roman
liberties; a great student, always reading Tully."
"Was that his crime?" demanded Aglais.
The hostess wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her _stola manicata_,
and said, in a tone little above a whisper, looking round timidly,
and closing the door fast,
"Why, Augustus came suddenly one day into a _triclinium_, where he
caught a nephew of his trying to hide under a cushion some book which
he had been reading. Augustus took the book, and found that it was
one of Tully's. The nephew thought he was lost, remembering that it
was Augustus who had given up Cicero to Mark Antony to be murdered.
There the emperor stood, fastened to the page, and continued reading
and reading till at last he heaved a great breath, and, rolling up
the book on its roller, laid it softly down, and said, '_A great
mind, a very great mind, my nephew_;' and so he left the room."
"Then it was not your foster-son's admiration of Cicero that caused
his death?"
"My foster-son was not Augustus's nephew, you see; but _eheu!_ how
different a case!--the nephew of a former rival of Augustus. Nor
used the emperor's nephew to talk as my poor child would talk. My
foster-son used to say that for Augustus to have given up Tully, his
friend and benefactor, to be murdered by Mark Antony, in order that
he, Augustus, might be allowed to murder somebody else, and then to
discover that neither he nor the human race could enjoy justice, nor
see peace, nor have safety, till this very same Antony should be
himself destroyed, was not a pretty tale. Cicero had sided against,
and had resisted Julius Cæsar; yet Julius had given back his life to
a man of whom Rome and the civilized world were proud. The same Tully
had sided _with_, not against, Augustus, and had been the making of
him; yet the life which a noble enemy had spared and left shining
like a star, a base friend stole, and suffered to be quenched; and
this for the sake of a monster who, for the sake of mankind, had to
be very soon himself destroyed. This was not a nice tale, my poor
Paulus used to say."
"Nor was it; but your Paulus?" cried Aglais. The travellers all held
their breath in surprise and suspense.
"Yes."
"What! the youth whom that bust represents, and whom Augustus put to
death, was called Paulus?"
"Yes. They said he had engaged in some conspiracy, the foolish dear!
But now, lady, I have been led, bit by bit, into many disclosures,
and I beseech you--"
"Fear not," interrupted Aglais; "I cannot but cherish a
fellow-feeling with you; for, although I have something to ask of
the emperor, it is justice only. I, too, look back to experiences
which are akin to yours. My son yonder, whom the marble image of your
foster-son so strikingly resembles, bears the same name, Paulus; and
the name of his father was that which headed the first list of those
who, the Triumvirate agreed, should die."
"Permit me, now, to ask once more who you are, lady?" said Crispina.
"I know well the names upon that list."
"My husband," replied the Greek widow, "was brother of the triumvir
Lepidus."
"The triumvir was our master," answered the landlady; "and alas! it
is too true that he, the triumvir, was timid and weak, and his son,
about whose image you have asked me, knew not, poor youth, when he
so bitterly blamed Augustus for sacrificing Tully to Mark Antony,
that his own father had given up a brother--that brother whom you
married--in the same terrible days, and just in the same kind of
way."
"Whose bust, then, do you say is this which is so like my son?" asked
Aglais.
"The bust of your son's first cousin, lady. My foster-son's father
was your husband's brother."
"No wonder," cried Agatha, "that my brother should be like his own
first cousin!"
"No," said Aglais; "but it is as surprising as it is fortunate that
we should have come to this house, and have fallen among kind persons
disposed to be friends, like our hostess, her good husband, and
little Benigna yonder."
"There is nothing which my husband and I would not do," said
Crispina, "for the welfare of all belonging to the great Æmilian
family, in whose service we both were born and spent our childhood;
the family which gave us our freedom in youth, and our launch in life
as a married couple. As for me, you know now how I must feel when I
look upon the face of your son."
A pause ensued, and then Aglais said,
"Your former master, the triumvir, wrote to my husband asking
forgiveness for having consented to let his name appear in the list
of the proscribed, and explaining how he got it erased. Therefore,
let not that subject trouble you."
"I happen, on my side, to know for a fact," answered the hostess,
"that the one circumstance to which you refer has been the great
remorse of the triumvir's life. The old man still mumbles and
maunders, complaining that he never received a reply to that letter.
He would die happy if he could but see you, and learn that all had
been forgiven."
Before Aglais had time to make any answer, the landlord appeared,
carrying a small _cadus_, or cask, marked in large black letters--
L. CARNIFICIO
S. POMPEIO
COS.
Benigna had previously set upon a separate _mensa_, or table,
according to custom, fruits, and fictile or earthen cups.
"I thought so!" cried good Crispus. "Women (excuse me, lady, I mean
my wife and daughter) will jabber and cackle even when ladies may be
tired, and, as I sincerely hope, hungry. Do, Crispina, let me see the
ladies and this young knight enjoy their little supper. This Alban
wine, my lady, is nearly fifty years old, I do assure you; look at
the consul's name on the cask. Benigna, young as she is, might drink
ten _cyathi_ of it without hurt. By the by, I have forgotten the
measure. Run, Benigna, and fetch a _cyathus_ (a ladle-cup) to help
out the wine."
"Jabber and cackle!" said the hostess. "Crispus, this lady is the
widow, and these are the son and daughter of Paulus Æmilius Lepidus."
The landlord, in the full career of his own jabber, was stricken
mute for a moment. He gazed at each of our three travellers in turn,
looking very fixedly at Paulus. At last he said,
"This, then, accounts for the wonderful likeness. My lady, I will
never take one brass coin from you or yours; not an _as_, so help me!
You must command in this house. Do not think otherwise."
And, apparently to prevent Aglais from answering him, he drew his
wife hastily out of the room, and closed the door.
Benigna was left behind, and, with winning smiles and a flutter
of attentions, the young girl now placed the chairs, and began to
cackle, as Crispus would have expressed himself, and to entreat the
wanderers to take that refreshment of which they stood so much
in need. They all had the delicate and graceful tact to feel that
compliance with the kindness which they had so providentially found
was the only way to return it which they at present possessed.
It is historical to add that appetite gave the same advice. Their
hunger was as keen as their tact. During supper the mother and son
spoke little; but Agatha, both during the repast and for some time
afterward, kept up a brisk conversation with Benigna, for whom the
child had taken an inexpressible liking, and from whom she drew,
with unconscious adroitness, the fact that she was engaged to be
married. That sudden affection of sympathy which knit the soul of
David to that of Jonathan seemed to have bound these two together.
The landlady's considerate daughter at length advised Agatha to defer
further communications until she should have a good night's rest.
Paulus seconded the recommendation, and left his mother and sister
with their Greek slave Melena and with Benigna, and retired to his
own bedroom. This chamber overlooked the _impluvium_, or inner court,
whence the incessant plash of the fountain was heard soothingly
through his lattice-window, the horn slide of which he left open. The
bedroom of the ladies, on the other hand, overlooked the garden and
bee-hives, to which Crispina had alluded. The sitting apartments,
opening into each other, in one of which they had supped, stood
between; all these rooms being situated in the projecting west wing,
which they entirely filled. Thus closed the day which had carried to
their destination the travellers from Thrace.