Page 57 of Everything But the Earl
Fletcher rolled his eyes. “As I was explaining to Owen, she is the sort of woman whom I should like, all things being equal, but I just don’t feel a pull toward her, for unfathomable reasons.”
Hugh nodded. “Several of the women my mother threw at me before my nuptials were like that. The heart wants what it wants.”
“All of you are cliched sops,” Lark said.
“Surely you have someone youshouldhave been attracted to but weren’t,” Fletcher said to Lark.
Lark blew air through his teeth. “Well, all right. You won’t like this example, though.”
“Tell us,” said Owen.
“Lady Wolverhampton had a tea party last Season in which she displayed some of her new art acquisitions, which included a painting of a young man from some young French artist I’ve never heard of. The artistandhis model, with whom I’m fairly certain the painter was having an affair, were both at the party. Lady Wolverhampton gestured at the portrait of the young model and went on and on about his ethereal beauty, and it was true, he was something of an Adonis. He looked like… Who is that fellow who is obsessed with collecting marbles?”
Owen had no idea where this was going. “Lord Elgin?”
“Yes! Elgin. Elgin has, in his collection, a replica of a sculpture from Italy. Michelangelo’s David. That was who this young man looked like. Improbably muscled, curly blond hair, the most perfect face I ever saw. It was like he existed to attract me specifically.”
Owen decided to slide past the inappropriateness of the attraction and said instead, “This was last Season? You were with Beresford at the time, though, yes?”
“Yes, that’s true.”
Owen looked at Fletcher. “More evidence to support my hypothesis.”
“What is your hypothesis?” asked Lark.
“Owen thinks I’m not attracted to Miss Rathbone because I am attracted to someone else. But it’s not true. It’s just one of those things.” Fletcher’s voice rose in pitch as he spoke, clearly irritated now.
“He stole those marbles, you know,” Hugh said.
“What are you talking about?” said Fletcher.
“Elgin. He stole the marbles from the Parthenon. He claimed he was going to preserve them because the weather was eroding the original structure, but I don’t believe he paid Greece anything, andmost of what arrived in England was just…pieces. Very few complete statues. I went to see them and he told me the whole saga. I don’t remember the details, but the marble itself is brittle, and then the boat he was shipping them on sank, and it sounds like not everything made it to England in the condition Elgin found it in Greece.”
“What do you think the purpose of bringing the marbles to England would be?” Owen asked.
Hugh shrugged. “So Elgin can say he has a bit of the Parthenon in his ballroom? I know not.”
“I’m just saying, he would have done less damage if he’d decided to do the preservation work in Greece.”
“He wrote a whole pamphlet defending his actions,” Lark said. “And then the British government purchased them last year for an astonishing sum.”
“What is the British government doing with them?” asked Fletcher.
“They’re putting them in the British Museum,” said Owen. “I voted in favor of buying them in Parliament.”
Everyone turned to look at Owen.
“What? I don’t disagree that Elgin probably stole the marbles, but they’re here. Might as well put them in a place where people can see and learn from them. And given all the turmoil in Greece right now, they are probably safer here for now anyway.”
“I’ve never been to the museum,” Fletcher said.
Owen laughed. “Really? Aren’t you a patron of the arts?”
“Contemporary arts, certainly. The British Museum is all stuffy old Greek marbles and artifacts from long dead Saxon kings, no?”
“Philistine,” said Lark. “It’s worth going. I know it is forever under construction, but there is some valuable art there.”
“And the Rosetta Stone,” said Owen. “It’s the stone they used to finally translate Egyptian hieroglyphics.”
