THE VIRGIN’S WREATH.
“My dear,” said Longa Duilia to her daughter, “with wit such as you have,
that might be drawn through a needle’s eye, it is positively necessary to
have you married as quickly as possible. I can no longer bear the
responsibility of one so full of waywardness and humors as yourself.”
“That, mother, is as Lamia chooses. You know that I can marry only him.”
“And I do not ask you to take another. I will get it settled forthwith.
I’ll see his father by adoption and have the settlements looked to. You
are a good match. I presume you are aware of that, and this explains
certain poutings and bad temper. Well—reserve them for Lamia, and don’t
vex me. I wash my hands of you, when that you are married. A camel carries
his own hump, but a man his wife’s humors.”
Domitia was sufficiently acquainted with her mother’s elasticity of spirit
and fertility of invention to be satisfied that she had a motive for
pressing on her marriage, and what that motive was seemed obvious. But it
was one that distressed her greatly.
“My dearest mother,” she said timidly, “I hope—I mean, since you are so
good as not to urge me further to break my engagement with Lamia, that you
have not set your mind—I mean your heart——”
“My excellent child,” answered Longa Duilia cutting her daughter short,
“make no scruple of blurting out what is on your tongue. You allude to
Domitian. Well! If you had common sense, you would know that to get on in
life, one must fit one’s heart with the legs of a grasshopper, so as to be
able to skip from an inconvenient, into any suitable position. When a dish
of ortolans is set on table, none but a fool will dismiss it untasted to
be devoured by the servants in the kitchen!”
“But, mother, he is quite young.”
“By the favor of the Gods, Domitia, youths always fall in love with women
somewhat older than themselves. The Gods ordered it for their good. If
they, I mean the young men—would only follow their—I mean the
Gods’—direction, there would be fewer unhappy marriages. For my part, I
can’t see anything attractive in half-baked girls.”
But the thoughts of her own future, and approaching happiness took up the
whole of Domitia’s brain, and left no space for consideration of her
mother’s schemes, and their chances of success.
The young prince was away. It was, as had been feared, too late for him to
reap laurels in Germany, the revolt had been quelled by Cerealis, but as
there was a ferment working in Gaul, it was deemed advisable that Domitian
should go thither and overcome the dissatisfied instead of crossing the
Alps. He had accordingly changed his route, and had appeared in Lyons.
The marriage between Domitia and Lamia could not take place so speedily as
Duilia desired. She was wishful to have it over before the return to Rome
of Domitian, so that she might be left a freer hand, and her daughter put
out of the way who, she thought, exercised a peculiar fascination over the
young prince; but she was unable to decide in her own mind whether what
drew his eyes towards Domitia was dislike or love; possibly it was a
commingling of resentment at her treatment of him, and admiration for her
loveliness.
But hindrances arose. Lamia was absent on his estates in Sicily, where
there had been disturbances among the slaves, and till matters were
settled there, he could not return.
Then came the month of May in which no marriages might be performed owing
to the hauntings of the _Lemures_, or ghosts of bad men, and such as had
not received burial. These, seen in the forms of walking skeletons or
bugbears, rioted in that sweetest month of the whole year. Then they
obtained opportunities among the incautious to slip into their bodies, and
possess them with madness, or to take up their abodes in dwelling-houses
and disturb the living occupants by phantom appearances and mysterious
sounds.
On three days in the month of May special means were adopted to propitiate
or scare away these spectres. On the 9th, 11th, and 13th, at midnight, the
master of a house, or, in the event of his death or absence, his widow or
wife, walked barefoot before the door to a flowing fountain, where the
hands were thrice washed, and then the propitiator of the ghosts returned
home, and threw black beans over the shoulder, saying: “These I give to
you, and with these beans I ransom myself and mine.”
It was supposed that the ghost scrambled for the beans, and so enabled the
owner of the house to reach the door before them. There stood the servants
beating brazen vessels, pots and pans, shouting, “Out with you! Out with
you, ye ghosts!”
At the beginning of June was the cleansing of the Temple of Vesta, and
till that was completed, on the 15th, marriages were forbidden.
Consequently the wedding could not take place much before midsummer, and
to this Longa Duilia had to submit.
Domitia was content and happy. She had not been so happy since her
father’s death. Indeed till now she had not been able to shake off the
pain she had felt at his loss. For to her, that father was the model of
noble manhood, high-minded, full of integrity, strong yet gentle. She had
often marvelled at the manner in which he had dealt with her mother, whom
she indeed loved but who somewhat rasped her. With his wife he had ever
been firm yet forbearing. He allowed her to form her little schemes, but
always managed to thwart them when foolish or mischievous, without her
perceiving who had put a spoke in the wheel.
Lucius Ælius Lamia she looked upon as formed in her father’s school, upon
his model. He was modest, honorable, true; a good man to whom she could
give her whole heart with full assurance that he would treasure the gift,
and that she could trust him to be as true to her as she would be true to
him.
Since her father’s death, Domitia had felt more than previously the
incompatibility of her mind with that of her mother. They had no thoughts,
no wishes, no feelings in common. Domitia was a dreamer, speculative, ever
with eager mind seeking the things beyond what was known, whereas Duilia
had not a thought, a care that were not material. The lady Duilia cared
not a rush about philosophy or the theory of emanations. It was to her a
matter of complete indifference whether the established paganism was true
or false. For she had no apprehension of the importance of Truth. And she
had no wish that could not be gratified by money or the acquisition of
position.
Now also the haunting horror of those waking dreams that she had seen in
the Temple of Isis passed from the heart of the young girl, like the
vapors that roll away and disclose the blue heavens and the glorious sun.
She had been drifting purposeless; now she saw that she was about to enter
on a condition of life in which she would have an object, and would find
complete happiness in the pursuit of that object,—in the fulfilment of her
duties as housewife to a loved husband, in whom she would find strength,
sympathy and love.
And now also, for the first time since the death of Corbulo, she sang as
she went about the house, or worked at her bridal dress.
Lamia, on his return from Sicily was surprised to note the change in her
appearance. She had been as a beautiful flower bowed by rain and pinched
with cold, and now, as in renewed sunshine, she bloomed with expanded
petals. Light danced in her blue eyes, and a delicate rose suffused her
smooth cheeks. She had stepped back into the childhood out of which she
had passed on that terrible day at Cenchræa.
And as he looked at her, her eyes sparkling with love and tears of joy, he
thought he had never seen one sweeter and to whom he could so wholly
devote himself as to his dear Domitia.
Then arrived the eve of the marriage.
The young girl was in the garden, stooping, picking the flowers of which
her virginal crown was to be woven, and singing as she plucked.
Then she came with her lap full of herbs and blossoms to her mother, who
said:—
“That is right. None may gather the flowers but the bride. By the way,
have you heard? Domitian is back from Gaul. I was rejoiced at the news,
and have despatched an invitation to him to attend the wedding.”
“Oh, mother! it is a bad omen.”
At the mention of the name, the vision of the red face, seen at Gabii
between her own and that of Lamia, started up before her, and she let drop
the lap of flowers, and they fell at her feet.
“By the Gods! what a silly thing thou art! Quick, gather up the herbs and
then go fetch thy dolls and toys of childhood, they must all this evening
be offered on the altar of the household gods.”
“I have them not, mother.”
“Not your dolls!”
“Not one.”
“But what have you done with them? I know they were all brought from
Antioch.”
“Mother, they have been given away.”
“Given away! to whom?”
“To Glyceria, the sister of Euphrosyne.”
“But what can have induced you to do this?”
“She is paralyzed, and served by little children in the story of the
_Insula_ where she lives. I considered that it would amuse her to dress
the dolls afresh, and perhaps mend broken limbs, and after that she will
distribute them among the little willing children that help her in her
infirmity.”
“As the Gods love me!” exclaimed Duilia, “Whoever heard before of such
madness. Hellebore would not cure it. Verily the more you labor at a hole
the greater the hollow. You are a fool, and your folly grows daily
greater. You _must_ present your toys of childhood to the _Lares_, they
expect it—it is the custom, it is right.”
“But I have none left.”
“Mother Ops! what is to be done? Run, Eboracus,—run and buy me half a
dozen dolls—dressed if possible. Domitia, you are determined to bring
ill-luck on yourself. There is nothing else to be done but for you to
spend an hour in playing with the dolls, and then you can present them at
the altar, and the Gods will be none the wiser. Between me and you and the
pillars of the peristyle, they are bigger fools than us mortals, and
easier gulled.”
Domitia stooped to collect the fallen flowers.
“What is that?” asked her mother—“Oh! right enough, _natrix_,(5) that
drives away ghosts and nightmare. And that of course is in the virginal
wreath, _myosotis_ (Forget-me-not) it dries tears. An Egyptian slave I
had—he fell ill, so I exposed him on the isle between the two Bridges—he
told me that if one ate the root in the month of Thoth—that is August, one
escaped sore eyes for a twelvemonth. That is right also, the scarlet
anemone, it betokens the flame of love—and that evergreen its continuance.
The centaury—that is the herb of union, it will close a wound so as not to
show even a scar—and in marriage, no better symbol than that. What have
you here? The _lysimachia_, that gives harmony and agreement of mind. They
say that a plant of it fastened to the pole of a chariot will make the
wildest and most impatient horses pull together. And the herb of the
Twelve Gods! quite right, always remember the gods, they come in useful.
The vervain—of course, it will give you all you will. But, ye Gods of
Olympus! What have you done to pluck cypress! My dear Domitia, are you
mad? Thyme, mint, if you will—but cypress! the tree of the infernal gods,
and—as the Gods love me! let me look at your hands! They are red—what have
you plucked—plucked till your hands are dyed—the _androsœmum!_ Oh!
Domitia! ill-fated child—look, look at your hands, the juice has stained
them, they are dipped in blood.”
[Illustration: “ILL-FATED CHILD, LOOK AT YOUR HANDS.” _Page 176._]