A Friend of Caesar | Page 6

Drusus. "Well, I don't think I call him a very dear friend. But why should he trouble you?"
"It was ever since last spring, when I was in the new theatre[19] seeing the play, that he came around, thrust himself upon me, and tried to pay attentions. Then he has kept them up ever since; he followed us to Bai?; and the worst of it is, my mother and uncle rather favour him. So I had Stephanus, my friend the physician, say that sea air was not good for me, and I was sent here. My mother and uncle will come in a few days, but not that fellow Lucius, I hope. I was so tired trying to keep him off."
[19] Built by Pompeius the Great, in 55-54 B.C.
"I will take care of the knave," said Drusus, smiling. "So this is the trouble? I wonder that your mother should have anything to do with such a fellow. I hear in letters that he goes with a disreputable gang. He is a boon companion with Marcus L?ca, the old Catilinian,[20] who is a smooth-headed villain, and to use a phrase of my father's good friend Cicero--'has his head and eyebrows always shaved, that he may not be said to have one hair of an honest man about him.' But he will have to reckon with me now. Now it is my turn to talk. Your long story has been very short. Nor is mine long. My old uncle Publius Vibulanus is dead. I never knew him well enough to be able to mourn him bitterly. Enough, he died at ninety; and just as I arrive at Puteoli comes a message that I am his sole heir. His freedmen knew I was coming, embalmed the body, and wait for me to go to Rome to-morrow to give the funeral oration and light the pyre. He has left a fortune fit to compare with that of Crassus[21]--real estate, investments, a lovely villa at Tusculum. And now I--no, we--are wealthy beyond avarice. Shall we not thank the Gods?"
[20] A member of the band who with Catiline conspired in 63 B.C. to overthrow the Roman government.
[21] The Roman millionaire who had just been slain in Parthia.
"I thank them for nothing," was her answer; then more shyly, "except for your own coming; for, Quintus, you--you--will marry me before very long?"
"What hinders?" cried the other, in the best of spirits. "To-morrow I go to Rome; then back again! And then all Pr?neste will flock to our marriage train. No, pout no more over Lucius Ahenobarbus. He shan't pay disagreeable attentions. And now over to the old villa; for Mamercus is eating his heart out to see me!"
And away they went arm in arm.
Drusus's head was in the air. He had resolved to marry Cornelia, cost what it might to his desires. He knew now that he was affianced to the one maiden in the world quite after his own heart.
III
The paternal villa of Drusus lay on the lower part of the slope of the Pr?neste citadel, facing the east. It was a genuine country and farming estate--not a mere refuge from the city heat and hubbub. The Drusi had dwelt on it for generations, and Quintus had spent his boyhood upon it. The whole mass of farm land was in the very pink of cultivation. There were lines of stately old elms enclosing the estate; and within, in regular sequence, lay vineyards producing the rather poor Pr?neste wine, olive orchards, groves of walnut trees, and many other fruits. Returning to the point where he had left the carriage, Drusus led Cornelia up a broad avenue flanked by noble planes and cypresses. Before them soon stood, or rather stretched, the country house. It was a large grey stone building, added to, from time to time, by successive owners. Only in front did it show signs of modern taste and elegance. Here ran a colonnade of twelve red porphyry pillars, with Corinthian capitals. The part of the house reserved for the master lay behind this entrance way. Back of it rambled the structure used by the farm steward, and the slaves and cattle. The whole house was low--in fact practically one-storied; and the effect produced was perhaps substantial, but hardly imposing.
Up the broad avenue went the two young people; too busy with their own gay chatter to notice at a distance how figures were running in and out amid the colonnade, and how the pillars were festooned with flowers. But as they drew nearer a throng was evident. The whole farm establishment--men, women, and children--had assembled, garlanded and gayly dressed, to greet the young master. Perhaps five hundred persons--nearly all slaves--had been employed on the huge estate, and they were all at hand. As Drusus came up the avenue, a