We had our lessons indoors. Not to annoy the neighbours. (They never paid for tickets. Why give them a free treat?) A lady's maid sat in with us, for propriety, which at least allowed me to eye up the maid improperly during boring passages.
'You seem to have cracked this one, madam. Try it again, leaving out the repeats…'
At that point the maid, who was sewing the sides of a tunic, gave a cry as she upset her pot of pins. She went down on her knees to pick them up so I scrambled round on the floor to help. People who go to the theatre may suppose the maid would take this chance to slip me a note. She wasn't in a comedy, so she didn't; and I was not surprised. I live in the real world. Where, believe me ladies' maids very rarely hand private informers secret notes.
Still, the knees she was down on were lusciously dimpled, she had fluttery black eyelashes and slender little hands-so I had no objection to spending a few moments with her on the floor. Aemilia Fausta played her harp more vigorously. The maid and I managed to find most of her pins.
When I got up, the noble lady dismissed her maid.
'Alone at last!' I cried gaily. Fausta humphed. I stopped her in mid chord and lifted the harp away with an air of suggestive, tender concern which was part of my stock in trade. She looked alarmed. I gazed deliberately into her eyes (which were, to be frank, not the best eyes I ever gazed into in the line of work). 'Aemilia Fausta, I must ask, why do you always look so sad?'
I knew perfectly well. The magistrate's sister spent too much time dreaming bitterly of lost opportunities. She lacked confidence, probably always had. What really annoyed me was the way she let her dressers paint her twenty-year-old features with a forty-year-old face. For all the silver hand mirrors in her well-stocked bower, she could never have looked at herself properly.
'I'm happy to listen,' I encouraged smoothly. My pupil allowed herself a poignant sigh which was more promising. 'The fellow is not worth it if he brings you such unhappiness… Will you talk about it?'
'No,' she said. My usual measure of success.
I sat quietly, looking snubbed, then pointedly offered the harp again. She took it, but made no move to play. 'Happens to everyone,' I assured her. 'The ones who hang around are deplorable dogs, while those you want won't look at you!'
'That's what my brother says.'
'So what's our hero's name?'
'Lucius.' Keeping me in suspense while she pretended to misunderstand my question almost made her smile. I braced myself for those heavy layers of red ochre to crack, but her normal spiky melancholia took charge. 'It is Aufidius Crispus. As you well know!'
I ignored the indignation, and let her settle down. 'So what went wrong?' I asked.
'We were to be married. He seemed to be delaying for a long time. Even I had to accept the delay would be permanent.'
'These things happen. If he was unsure-'
'I do understand all the arguments!' she declared in a light, too rapid voice.
'I'm sure you do! But life's too short for suffering-'
Aemilia Fausta gazed at me, with the dark, tired eyes of a woman who had been unnecessarily miserable most of her life. I really do hate to see a woman as sad as that.
'Let me help ease your troubles, madam.' I gave her a long, sad, significant look. She scoffed wryly, under no misapprehensions about her own allure.
Then I dropped into the silence, 'Do you know where Crispus is?'
Any sensible woman would have brained me with the harp.