Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [156]
She had changed, and yet she was everything he had expected, all that he had ever imagined she would become.
The child’s face and body had lost their last traces of puppy fat, and their softness had been replaced by the firm, full lines of an elegant Roman woman. As she stepped down, he was aware of her cool, strong, rounded form – the almost athletic body that he had caught a glimpse of in her father’s garden by the fountain; and he was also aware that the simple grace of the girl with her classically perfect body had now acquired a subtle poise, a way of holding herself that was both alluring and yet untouchable, and which belonged only to the most elegant circles in the imperial city. Her hair was swept up lightly and piled on her head in the manner then fashionable in Rome. As she came towards him, he smelt the subtle scents with which the Roman women perfumed themselves, and realised that he had even forgotten what those scents were like. Her olive skin was flawless, and seemed to glow: obviously life with Marcus agreed with her. The senator’s childish daughter who had laughed at his adolescent jokes and admired his student epigrams had turned, in the space of a few years, into a sophisticated Roman woman. It was to be expected: but it still left him speechless for a moment.
She stood in front of him, smiled gently to see that she was still attractive to him, and said softly:
“Greetings, my Porteus.”
Maeve watched her with fascination. She saw at once that this girl came from another world: a world she could never enter, never even understand. So this was the Rome her husband hankered after. As they led the carriage towards the little villa, she whispered to Porteus:
“Are there many women like that in Rome?”
And Porteus, not wanting her to think he considered Lydia too highly replied:
“Yes, many.”
Maeve nodded thoughtfully, and from that moment decided that they should never, if she could prevent it, go there. She had also noticed the delicate and careful way in which the Roman girl held herself.
“Can she ride?”
Porteus grinned.
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“I ride,” Maeve said firmly, and she tossed her magnificent hair.
It was as the party came down the lane towards the villa that they hurt him. They did not mean to. He had pulled his horse over to the carriage and was bending down to pull aside the curtain so that he could speak to them, when he heard Lydia, who could not see him, exclaim softly:
“Look – oh Marcus look. That hovel: it’s where he lives!”
And he heard Marcus whisper:
“We shouldn’t have come. Praise everything and keep smiling.”
Slowly he straightened up in the saddle. They had no idea he had heard them. As he gazed down at the little villa he had built he saw it, for the first time in years, for exactly what it was: a poor, pathetic little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, and for a moment, all his conflicting emotions in seeing these friends from his past seemed to dissolve into embarrassment and shame.
At the house the children were brought forward to meet them, and the two boys said a few words of greeting in Latin that did them credit.
“We have two sons back in Rome,” Marcus said. “But I haven’t managed to teach them to speak as prettily as yours, Porteus.”
Then that afternoon Porteus showed them round the place; and if he did so without enthusiasm, it was more than made up for by the voluble commentary of Tosutigus, who was anxious to show them his son-in-law’s brilliant improvements even to the plaster on the walls. Marcus at once spotted the white sheep and asked him intelligent questions about how he had crossed them, as well as providing up to date information on the most recent innovations in land drainage. His enthusiasm seemed to be genuine, and Porteus was grateful for it. But he could not help noticing that when Marcus grinned, it was for just a little too long, and when he exclaimed: “Why, young Porteus, you’ve landed on your feet after all and got yourself a fine estate!” he could only feel that the Roman was looking for a compliment to