TINTED VENUS: A SHORT STORY INSPIRED BY JOHN GIBSON'S STATUE IN THE WALKER ART GALLERY, LIVERPOOL

TINTED VENUS:

A SHORT STORY INSPIRED BY JOHN GIBSON’S STATUE IN THE WALKER ART GALLERY, LIVERPOOL

                                                    Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons

The heat in Rome was different to the heat in India; it was stickier, more cloying.  At this time of year Hestia and her husband would usually have stayed up in the hills, in the fresh breezes of Shimla; Rome, by contrast, felt like a vapour bath.  In the daytime she had already abandoned her whalebone corset and most of her petticoats, reverting to the simple muslin dresses that she used to wear back in India.  Some of the expatriate community in Rome, sweating under their heavy coats and dresses, might have looked down their noses at her, but she didn’t care; she was probably wealthier than most of them.  She knew that most of the English and Irish aristocrats she met out here, despite their grand titles, were only living in Rome because it was a damn sight cheaper than London, and a far easier city in which to keep up appearances.

            Hestia Antrobus, widow of Captain Richard Antrobus (killed in action at the battle of Gujrat), had come to Rome not for economy but for distraction, hoping to find a sense of purpose amid the city’s artistic treasures. At thirty she had found herself a childless widow; she doubted, after two miscarriages, whether she would ever be capable of carrying a child to full term.  It was her sister Flora who had suggested that a stay in Rome might be beneficial - Flora and her husband had spent a pleasant month there last year, doing the sights, so why didn’t Hestia consider spending a few months there too?  She had always enjoyed drawing as a girl - why not take up the hobby again, in stimulating surroundings? 

            So, only three months after her return to England, Hestia booked into a suite at the Hotel Bristol and enrolled herself in one of the city’s many drawing academies.  Her status as an unchaperoned woman traveller initially raised some eyebrows, but once it became known that she was an Army widow she began to receive invitations to make up a four at bridge, take afternoon tea or attend the salons of aspirational hostesses.  As a sign of her widow’s status, she usually wore a jet brooch or a black lace day-cap, or carried a fringed black parasol. 

            On her arrival in Rome she had hired a local maid, Maria.  In addition to her other duties, she asked Maria to walk with her around Rome, to help her become familiar with the city.  Initially Maria would have none of this - didn’t the English Signora know that all the foreign visitors always drove round in a carriage?  The atmosphere in Rome was known to be unhealthy for travellers from the North, especially at night.  And there were bad places, places where it was dangerous to go.  

            ‘So show me those places then, help me learn to avoid them.’

            When Maria realised that Hestia was serious in her intent, she agreed to escort her on walks through the city.  Although Hestia attended formal Italian language classes, she learned most of her Italian from Maria; her tutor threw up is hands every lesson, complaining that she was picking up the language and the accent of the slums. 

           

It was her French drawing teacher, Thibaut, who suggested that she might like to visit a sculptor’s studio.  He had noticed that she was at her most animated whenever they visited the Capitoline Museum to draw the sculptures.  She admitted that she had indeed found a new pleasure in looking at sculpture, an art form to which she had previously paid little attention.

            ‘If it would be of interest to you, I could arrange for you and some of the other English ladies to visit Mr Gibson’s studio.  You must have heard of him – he is a countryman of yours.  Between ourselves – and don’t tell our Roman hosts I said this – since Thorvaldsen returned to Copenhagen, Gibson is without doubt the finest sculptor in the city.’   The visit was fixed for the following Thursday afternoon.

            Two days before her appointed visit to Gibson’s studio, Hestia was invited for dinner at the palazzo rented by one of her new acquaintances, Lady Maynooth.  She decided to wear a green satin evening gown, worn off-the-shoulder in the latest fashion, which her sister had persuaded her to buy in London.  Hestia had feared it might be thought inappropriate for a woman so recently widowed, but Flora assured her that the green was so dark it could ‘almost pass for black’.  It would go well with her new silver earrings.  Richard forbade her to get her ears pierced in India, even though a lot of the other army wives followed the native fashion, but she had just had them pierced here, in Rome, in a small act of posthumous rebellion.  

The other guests, enjoying the novelty of a new dining companion, were fulsome in their compliments on her appearance, and fascinated by her eccentric habit of walking round Rome – didn’t she realise how unhealthy it was?  You mustn’t let the miasma get to your chest, you know.  Once she explained that she had come to Rome to study art, they were keen to recommend collections she could visit, or scenic views that might provide inspiration for watercolour sketches.  Had she been to the cast collection at the French Academy?  It was remarkable, all the finest sculptures gathered together in one place, and nothing like the crowds that spoiled one’s enjoyment of the Vatican or the Capitoline Museum.  She should visit the Villa de’Este, they said, up in the hills at Tivoli – but take a Claude glass, it would render the views so much more exquisite.   During the fish course, Lady Maynooth asked her if she had had the opportunity to visit any artists’ ateliers yet.

            ‘Not yet, but I have a visit fixed for this week.  I’m to visit John Gibson’s studio.’

            The American woman opposite her, who had spent most of the evening fanning her ample cleavage, suddenly roared with laughter.

‘Oh, good luck with that!’ she said.  ‘I want to hear all about it afterwards.’

            ‘What do you mean?’ asked Hestia, fiddling with her ear; she was still unused to the tug of the earrings on her earlobes. ‘I understood that Mr Gibson was very highly-regarded in his field.’   

‘Well, let’s put it this way.  The man’s an absolute god in his studio – but God help him outside it!  I won’t spoil your fun, but I should warn you that he’s a little strange.’

            ‘He lives with his brother,’ added another guest. ‘Now he’s a queer cove as well - spends most of his time with his head in a book, drinking Marsala at the Caffé Inglese.’

            ‘Damn good sculptor, though, Gibson,’ said Lord Maynooth, clearly feeling that he should steer the conversation in a less contentious direction.  ‘I’ve a mind to commission a piece from him myself – Meleager hunting the Calydonian Boar, perhaps.   It would look a treat back home in the Great Hall.’

The American woman asked him when he had last been in Ireland; he began telling her how they had been forced to return home during the siege of Rome, two years ago, so the subject of Gibson was dropped. 

Monsieur Thibaut, who had volunteered to escort the ladies himself, collected Hestia from the Bristol on Thursday afternoon.  It was a sweltering day, so she had decided on her sprigged muslin dress.  Fearing that it might be too plain, at the last minute she added some earrings which hung in little gold droplets beneath her bonnet.

            When they arrived at the Via Fontanella, she assumed that the man who responded to Thibaut’s knock must be one of Gibson’s assistants.  He was wearing a faded blue turban and had a somewhat swarthy complexion; perhaps he was a Turk, she thought, as he definitely wasn’t Indian.   His beard was heavily threaded with grey, but his eyebrows were thick and black, shading dark, deep-set eyes.  He was wearing a filthy smock (its original colour appeared to be brown) over tightly-cut trousers.  

            ‘Thibaut, my dear fellow.  Come, come, this way please.’  He gave no specific welcome to the three women, merely motioning his guests to follow him up a spiral staircase within a cobbled courtyard.  The staircase led to a huge room with windows on both sides of its pitched roof.  The walls were covered in terracotta and marble plaques.  On the floor, marble statues and plaster maquettes stood three deep in some places, creating a petrified forest of nymphs and Amazons, shepherds and fauns.  A huge swag of purple cloth hung from a wire across the back wall, falling in catenary folds to create a backdrop to the statues.   The only free space was in the centre of the room.  As nobody else emerged to greet them, Hestia realised that this eccentric-looking man must be the eminent sculptor himself.  While Thibaut made the introductions, Gibson began to unravel his turban, but she got the impression that his mind was elsewhere.  His hair was surprisingly thick and black for a man with so much grey in his beard.  It was long, too; it would have come down to his collar, had he been wearing one. 

             Gibson began by showing them the different stages of his process – clay model, plaster maquette, the transfer to marble – then invited them to look round the room and ask questions, on condition that they did not touch anything.  Hestia couldn’t quite place his accent – there was a faint trace of his native Welsh (he told them he had been born in Conwy), but there was another, sharper edge to his voice.               The other two women, Mrs Appleton and Mrs Braintree, exclaimed their way round the room, competing in their enthusiasm and claiming to have seen Gibson’s work in several English country seats.   They enquired about his acquaintance with various aristocratic families, but he said that he hadn’t actually met most of the people who purchased his work.

            ‘So how much would one of your statues cost – this one, for example?’ asked Mrs Appleton, pointing towards a Bacchante being accosted by a Faun.

            ‘Oh, you would have to ask my brother Robert about that,’ replied Gibson.  ‘I’m just a craftsman.  He handles all the money and deals with buyers.’

            ‘But surely you must have many assistants, Mr Gibson, to help you produce all these wonderful pieces?’ said Mrs Braintree.

            ‘No, no, I don’t hold with using assistants.  If people are spending good money on your work, they deserve to have something you’ve made with your own hands.  Anything else is a form of cheating.  A lot of sculptors don’t carve any marble themselves: they just make up the plaster maquettes, then leave their apprentices to do all the work of pointing them up and transferring them to marble.  That’s the job I used to do for Thorvaldsen – it’s how I learned most of my trade.’ 

            Until now Hestia had remained silent, wordlessly admiring the silent marble figures, but now she broke her silence.  ‘You must be a Classical scholar of some repute, to bring these Greek myths to life so well.’

            Gibson laughed.  ‘Again, I’m afraid my brother Robert deserves most of the credit for that.  I just sculpt the people I see around me – peasants, butchers, flower-sellers.  Then he decides which Classical figures they most resemble.’

            She remembered some of the talk at the dinner-table, about the horrors of the siege and all the disruption it had caused.

            ‘I hope your work was not too badly disrupted by Garibaldi’s war. What did you do during the siege?  Were you forced to seek safety elsewhere?’

            He looked at her with surprise, as if this was a curious question to ask.

‘As far as I recall, I spent the siege making a statue of Ariadne and Bacchus.  The question of Italian nationalism really has no bearing on my work.’

               Just as they were about to go, thanking Gibson profusely for his time, he said, ‘Mrs Antrobus, a quick word, if you would, before you leave?’ 

She was surprised he had even registered her name.  Her companions were already negotiating the narrow stairway.  

            ‘I am about to embark on a new commission this week.  I would like you to sit for me, in order that I might model your head.  I have been looking for a woman with just your colouring.  Could you come back here at the same time tomorrow afternoon?’

            His request was so direct that she said ‘Yes, I believe so’, in a rather flustered way.   As she was heading for the stairs, he came after her; he moved surprisingly lightly for a man of his age.  

            ‘Bring those earrings with you.  Don’t forget,’ he said, then turned and shut the door behind him. 

            It was only after she returned to her hotel that Hestia wondered why a sculptor who worked in marble would need to worry about his models’ complexion. 

*

Hestia almost decided not to return to Gibson’s atelier the following day.  Although she was flattered at the prospect of being immortalised in marble, she felt there was something slightly improper about being an artist’s model.  But she reminded herself that he had only wanted to model her head, after all – what could possibly be the harm in that?   While Rome dozed through the afternoon, she made her way back to Via Fontanella and tugged on the bell-pull.  Gibson, again wearing his blue turban, came to the door, holding a rough terracotta beaker. 

‘Mrs Antrobus, I nearly forgot you were coming today.  Excellent, excellent, follow me.  I was just having some dinner.’  He led her through an archway at the bottom of the stairs, which opened into a sunlit cobbled courtyard.  Some greens were left on his plate and he flung them down on the cobbles.  Registering Hestia’s evident confusion, he said, ‘Oh, they’re for Flaxman – he’s my tortoise.’  Her apprehension faded as she watched Flaxman lumber across the yard.  Surely a man who kept a tortoise as a pet could not be regarded as anything other than entirely reliable?   

When they reached the studio, Hestia rather self-consciously took off her bonnet.  Her blonde hair, with its natural wave, was tied up in a loose chignon, held in place by a couple of blue ribbons, showing off the earrings with their gold droplets.   She had assumed that Gibson would let her sit down while he sculpted her head, but there was no chair in the room.

‘I want you to stand in a relaxed way, as if you were standing looking at a view, or looking at a painting.  Yes, like that, but put your weight on your left leg.’ From the tray which held the remains of his lunch he picked up a red apple and polished it on a rather grimy cloth. 

            ‘I’d like you to hold this apple – no, not in your right hand, in your left hand, just in front of your body … yes, like that.  Now I want you to tilt your head slightly and look over there, to your right … yes, that’s right, keep looking at that plaque of Apollo on the wall over there.’

‘The one with the laurel wreath?’

‘That’s right … now hold that pose.’

            Once she was in position, Gibson put his hands together and made a bow to each of the four walls, then lifted his hands skywards, muttering something she could not catch.  Then he set to work with a palette knife and a large block of clay.  The strangeness – the potential danger, even – of her situation suddenly struck her.   She was alone with a man she had only met once, and of whose character she knew very little, in a room on the upper floor of a Roman palazzo.  What had possessed her to do this?  What would Flora say, if she could see this scene from Dorset? What would Richard say, if he were still alive?  She scolded herself for not feeling guilty enough, when in truth she felt like Eve, holding her apple on the threshold of knowledge.  What would Gibson do if she ate the apple?  Would he even notice?  Would it be permissible for her to speak?  Would he get angry?

            After what felt like a long time, although it could only have been five minutes, Gibson himself spoke.

            ‘So, Mrs Antrobus, our mutual friend Thibaut tells me you are a great admirer of the Dying Gladiator.  Tell me, what is it about it you like so much?’

            She didn’t want to admit that the masculinity of the Dying Gladiator reminded her of Richard’s body: his moustache, the set of his shoulders, the curve of his back - especially the dimple at the base of his spine that she used to stroke when they lay together on their bed, under a tent of mosquito nets.  Nor did she want to admit that when she imagined him falling in battle, it comforted her to imagine him like this: calm and stoical, nobly accepting his death, rather than dazed and begrimed with mud and blood.

So she simply said, ‘I like its purity: I like its perfect whiteness, and its smoothness.’

‘So, Miss Purity, what would you say if I were to tell you that Winckelmann was wrong, that those sculptures were never intended to be white?  That they were all originally painted, bright with the glorious colours of the earth?’

            ‘I never knew that,’ she said.  ‘I must confess that I cannot imagine the Apollo Belvedere with blond hair and a purple cloak.  Why do you believe that these statues were coloured?  There is no trace of colour on any Grecian statue I have ever seen.’

            ‘Well, all the statues you have seen, Mrs Antrobus, unless you are fortunate enough to have travelled in Greece, are actually Roman copies of Greek works – and the Romans did not paint their marbles.  But in answer to your question, have you heard of Charles Cockerell?’

            ‘The architect?’ 

            ‘Yes, the architect.   As a young man he travelled in Greece and made some excellent drawings of the buildings there, many of which still bore the traces of their original paint.  I have seen his drawings, back in London.’

            She noticed he did not say ‘back home in London.’

*

That first modelling session lasted about ninety minutes.  The time passed pleasantly enough, as Gibson was very knowledgeable about the ancient sculptures she had been admiring, and it was a pleasure to listen to his animated discussion of their merits.  But she noticed that his knowledge of the modern world seemed far less secure – he had not heard of the conflict in which her husband had died and he seemed surprised that Lord Russell was the current Prime Minister.  He seemed to have as little interest in the politics of his homeland as he did in the politics of his adopted home.  He was far more fascinated by oddities such as her description of the hippopotamus, a gift from Egypt, which had arrived at London Zoo just before she left for Rome.

Before she left, he asked her where she had obtained her earrings, as he had decided they would be perfect for his statue.  She told him that she’d bought them at a tiny goldsmith’s shop her maid had taken her to, in a backstreet near the Cattle Market.  Hardly aware of what she was doing, she unhooked them from her ears and held them out on the palm of her hand.

‘I should like you to keep them’, she said.  ‘It is no trouble - I have several other similar pairs.’  She did not tell him how much they had cost. 

When he asked her if she would come again, she readily agreed; she still had few real friends in Rome, and she found him to be gentlemanly and affable, despite his external resemblance to an Ottoman brigand.

*

On the second visit he asked her to remove her shoes and stockings, so that he could model her feet and ankles.

‘No Grecian goddess ever wore elastic-sided boots or knitted stockings,’ he said.  His tone was so matter of fact that she felt it would be churlish to refuse.  After all, it was only her feet; back in India she had often gone barefoot around their quarters.  A screen had been erected in one corner, pasted with prints of Roman views; he gestured towards it, suggesting that she could go behind there to preserve her modesty.   There was a padded stool behind the screen; it looked new.  She gratefully removed her boots, for her feet had swollen in the heat, then lifted her petticoat and untied the ribbons which held up her silk stockings.  She peeled her stockings off, looking at her legs as if for the first time, as if she were appraising the legs on a statue.  Her calves were shapelier than she expected; perhaps it was all the walking she had been doing since she arrived in Rome. 

She emerged barefoot from behind the screen. 

‘Now take up the same pose you were in before, weight on the left leg, looking up to the right – that’s it!  Could you hold the hem of your dress up slightly … yes, that’s perfect.’

‘I need my apple,’ she said. ‘For I suspect I am to be Atalanta the runner?  Or perhaps Venus, rewarded at the Judgement of Paris?’ 

‘You’re right,’ he said.  ‘You are to be Venus, but I’m afraid I cannot offer you a golden apple of the Hesperides, merely an earthly one.’

After he had performed his usual ritual – she did not yet like to ask him its purpose – he began to talk to her perfectly naturally, as if she were not standing barefoot in front of him. 

‘So tell me, what have you seen this week, that has interested you?’

‘I went to see the Farnese Hercules, on Monsieur Thibaut’s recommendation.’

 ‘And what did you think of it?’

 ‘The guidebooks all say that it captures the perfect essence of masculinity, but I must admit that I found it rather repellent.’ 

‘Now, that is an interesting reaction.  Why did you find it so?’

‘Hercules has the face of a brute, like a man who would beat his own wife.   His muscles are so exaggerated, that to me he looks positively deformed.  There is no nobility in him … but I am sure you will tell me that I am just an ignorant woman who does not understand sculpture.’

Gibson laughed as he smoothed off the contours of her clay ankles. 

‘Not at all.  I find that statue as repellent as you do.  It is a misguided piece – there are many other ways of depicting strength, than simply adding extra muscles to a figure.  I admire you, Mrs Antrobus, for having the courage and the intellect to form your own opinion, rather than parroting the words of the cicerones or the hack writers who scribble down their words.  Most of the guidebooks are written by Philistines - perhaps you should consider writing your own?’

Hestia felt herself flush with pleasure at being praised in this way, but Gibson was intent on getting the curve of her instep right, and did not see his Venus blush.   

*

For her third visit, Gibson had asked her if she owned an evening gown which would expose her shoulders, as he wished to model her shoulders and arms.  Although she owned several gowns in this style – the hostesses at the dinner-parties she attended, no matter how straitened their own circumstances, would snipe behind her back if she constantly wore the same dress – she decided to wear the green satin dress she had worn at Lady Maynooth’s, wrapping herself in a black woollen shawl for the short walk to Gibson’s studio.  Maria clearly found it strange that she should require help with her evening-wear, so early in the afternoon.  She also thought it odd that Hestia asked her to procure a small bag of salad vegetables.  These were intended, of course, for Flaxman the tortoise.  Hestia always brought him a treat now, each time she visited.  She liked watching his slow progress across the cobbles, towards his object of desire.

On arrival, she removed her black wrap and hung it over the screen.  Gibson looked her up and down, appraising her dress.

            ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is lovely.  That green could have come straight off a mallard’s wing – no, no it’s darker than that, more like the cormorants on the docks back home.  You almost make me wish I had decided to sculpt my Venus clothed.  But the clothed human figure is no fit subject for sculpture.  Imagine your Dying Gladiator in a frock-coat and trousers.’

            Once she had assumed her customary pose, with a fresh apple, she asked him where home was, where he used to watch the cormorants.

            ‘Liverpool, of course,’ he said, to her surprise.  She had never been to Liverpool; her voyages out to India and back had been from Southampton.  It struck her that she knew the Punjab better than she knew the North of England.  

            ‘I thought you were from Wales,’ she said.  ‘Everyone always talks of you as “the Welsh sculptor” – and I’m sure I can still hear a Welsh lilt in your voice.’

            ‘I am from Wales,’ he said.  ‘That is, I was born in Wales – Conwy, to be precise – and I still speak a little Welsh with my friend Penry Williams.  Have you met him yet?  He’s an artist too, a painter.  I could arrange for you to visit his studio if you like, it’s only a few streets away from here.  I was only nine when we left Wales – Robert is a little older than me, I suppose he would have been about thirteen then.  My father had some idea of emigrating to the New World, long before there were any regular sailings to America.   He sold his smallholding - he was a market gardener – and we took the boat across to Liverpool.   Robert and I each had a kitbag, like a sailor’s, with all our possessions in; I remember feeling very grown-up.  But when we got to Liverpool my mother refused to get on the ship.  I had ever seen my father so angry: we had sold our farm, he said, we had no livelihood left.  How could we ever go back to Conwy, with everyone laughing at us?  But she was adamant that she wasn’t going, so we just stayed where we were.  My parents became market-traders: my father sold vegetables, as he already knew the trade, and my mother sold seafood - whelks and cockles and the like.’

            ‘And what about you?  How did you become an artist?’

            ‘My father was anxious that I should continue my education, in order to have opportunities which had been denied to him.  On my way home from school I used to walk along a street where there was a cluster of shops selling engravings: prints of game-birds, copies of famous paintings and so on.  I loved looking in the windows, but I could never afford to buy anything, though now I realise they were just cheap prints.  So, I used to draw the pictures from memory, when I got home. Everything starts with drawing, you know, it’s the foundation of all art.  I’ve noticed you are always very dismissive about your own drawings, but believe me, drawing is the purest form of art there is.’

*

On her fourth visit, Gibson said that he wished to model her legs.  When she undressed behind the screen she only kept on her laced bodice and her short drawers; she emerged tentatively draped in a large piece of cream-coloured silk which he had given her.    He looked at her approvingly and went through his brief ritual, before continuing to create his goddess from his lump of clay. 

‘I understand you have been here in Rome for many years, Mr Gibson.  Have you never considered setting up a studio in London, or even going back to Liverpool? 

‘I prefer it here.  Let’s just say that society has fewer expectations of how one should behave.  Here I feel closer to the spirit of Classical antiquity; it is easier to imagine the ancient heroes amid the columns of the Forum than the Liverpool quays.  There is a quality of the light here which makes the marble look warmer and more translucent.   And British patrons prefer to commission sculptures in Rome, even from one of their compatriots.  There is something about travel which loosens the pocket-book.  Buying a statue in Rome feels a more appropriate transaction than buying one in Liverpool or Bristol, where you might as well be paying for a cargo of tobacco or sugar.  This very statue I’m creating now, this is a commission for a man called Preston, from Liverpool.’  

*

Some days after her latest visit to Gibson, Hestia was in her suite at the Bristol, writing a letter to her sister.  She included some amusing comments which Monsieur Thibaut had made during her classes, and described her initial visit to Gibson’s studio, with the two other ladies.   She asked Flora if she had seen any of Gibson’s work in England, but gave no hint of their subsequent arrangement, realising that what seemed so natural and harmless in Gibson’s studio would not stand being inscribed in permanent black ink on finely-laid cream paper.  Their conversations had become so precious to her that she was reluctant to share them with the outside world.  While she was considering what else to include in her letter, there was a knock at the door.  It was Maria. 

            ‘Signora Antrobus, there is an English gentleman downstairs who says he wishes to see you.  He has sent up his card.’

              She handed Hestia a card which carried the names of John and Robert Gibson, giving an address which she assumed must be their shared home.  She felt a flutter of excitement, but also surprise – what could have enticed Gibson out of his studio?  What urgent business could he possibly have with her?

            ‘Very well, Maria.  Tell him to wait in the reception room.  I shall come down shortly.’

            Alone in her suite, she had been wearing only a plain muslin dress, barefoot, with her hair loose.  She hastily pinned up her hair and put on a white lace day-cap.  She put on her cream kidskin boots, before choosing a brightly-patterned shawl she had brought from India, to counter the plainness of her dress.  As she walked down the stairs, her hand trailing on a banister worn smooth by a century of guests, she imagined how her conversation with Gibson might unfold.  He would be on her home territory now, amid the velvet drapes and mosaic floors of the hotel’s reception-room.  

            Shafts of afternoon sunshine, falling through the gaps between the green drapes, illuminated an elderly man who was sitting bolt upright, looking grimly ahead like an Egyptian statue of some court functionary.  She wondered if Maria had shown Gibson to the wrong room.  She was about to go and find her when the elderly man eased himself to his feet, leaning precariously on an eagle-headed cane.

            ‘Mrs Antrobus, I presume?  How kind of you to see me.  I am Robert Gibson.   I understand you are already acquainted with my brother John.’

            ‘Why, yes, I have visited his studio.  But why has he sent you here?  He is not ill, is he?’   

            ‘No, no, there is no cause to concern yourself on that score.  John is quite well, and he is also unaware that I am here.  There is a rather … delicate matter I wish to discuss with you.  Would you object if we were to sit down?  I am afraid I am not as steady on my feet as I used to be.’

            ‘Why, yes, of course Mr Gibson, please sit down.  You must think me terribly rude.  Would you like me to ask Maria to fetch you some refreshment?  Perhaps some tea, or a glass of Marsala?’

            He flicked his hand.  ‘No, there is no need for that.  I shall not detain you long.     Might I ask how long you are planning to stay in Rome?’

‘I have not decided as yet.  I find Rome very stimulating, and I have no immediate need to return to England.’

‘In that case, I shall come straight to the point.  Over these last few weeks I have become increasingly concerned regarding my brother’s welfare.  I am his elder by some years, and he has always relied on me for practical support.  He is not the most worldly of men, shall we say, and I fear his association with you has – how shall I put it - disturbed his equilibrium.’

            Hestia pulled her shawl tighter across her chest. 

‘I fear you are labouring under some misapprehension, sir.  Your brother asked me if I would sit as a model for a new commission he had undertaken.  I would hardly describe it as an “association”.’

            ‘I am afraid, Mrs Antrobus, that there is much about my brother that you do not understand.  As a Classical scholar, I have a purely antiquarian interest in Greco-Roman religion.  However John, over the years, has developed a strange fancy whereby he imagines himself to be an active worshipper of the pagan pantheon.  He has convinced himself that you are the living embodiment of the goddess Aphrodite – or perhaps I should say Venus, as we are in Rome.’

            Hestia was astonished.  ‘But Mr Gibson – your brother, I mean – has never intimated anything of this kind to me.  He has always conducted himself in an entirely professional manner.  He regards me merely as an artist might look upon materials for a still life.  I might as well be a bowl of fruit, or a brace of pheasants.  I cannot believe he could present any danger to me - he is always so gentlemanly.’

            It was Robert Gibson’s turn to look surprised.  ‘I am not suggesting that you are in any danger from my brother – quite the reverse.  John is a fragile soul; for nearly fifty years it has been my task to keep him on an even keel, to enable him to concentrate on his work.  But this statue of you has gripped him with such an obsession that he is saying it will be his last work.  For John’s sake, it would be best if you were to cut short your stay in Rome and make arrangements to return home to England - or indeed, anywhere else in Europe that you would like to visit. 

I understand that Bavaria, for example, is very pleasant at this time of year. 

I should assure you that I am not without means.  As John’s commercial agent, I have become a wealthy man.  I would be prepared to pay you a considerable sum to leave Rome and to leave John in peace.’

            Hestia put her hand to her cheek; she could feel it burning.  

            ‘Mr Gibson, I have no need of money.   I have considerable means of my own But even if I were in the most straitened of circumstances I would not take your money under those conditions you have imposed.’

He leaned towards her.  ‘Mrs Antrobus, I assume that your acquaintances here in Rome are unaware of your visits to my brother’s studio?  I am sure you would not wish them to know that you had acted so wantonly.’

‘How do you know how I have acted?  There has never been anyone else present in the studio.’ 

‘Do you seriously believe that John manages without servants - servants whom I have chosen and hired myself?  Your comings and goings have not gone unobserved – comings and goings that you would perhaps prefer not to be discussed in London’s polite society?   Perhaps we might agree that if you leave Rome within the week, this will go no further, but if you persist in deranging my brother’s mind then you may find, when you do eventually return to London, that your reputation has preceded you.’

 The dust-motes in the sunlight seemed to grow in size.  Hestia was suddenly more aware of the geometric patterns on the mosaic floor, patterns she had never paid attention to before.  She knew she would remember this room, this afternoon, for the rest of her life. 

 ‘I had originally considered leaving Rome at the start of November.  I will agree to leave several weeks earlier, provided that you harass me no further and provided that you do not visit me here again under any circumstances.’

‘In that case, I think our business here is concluded, Mrs Antrobus,’ he said, rising from his chair with considerably more vigour than he had previously shown, and twirling his cane in the air.

  ‘Good day to you; I trust you will enjoy your remaining time in Rome.’  

*

Hestia tried to settle back into her London townhouse, but after Rome there seemed something false about it, a certain want of taste.  She started spending most of her time with her sister, at her family’s country seat in Dorset.  Charles, Flora’s husband, often had to go up to town for business, so Flora and the two boys were glad of Hestia’s company.  Hestia had no plans to remarry, although as a handsome widow in her thirties she did not want for suitors in the neighbourhood.  She was sufficiently content to help run the estate and supervise her nephews’ education.  She maintained her artistic interests, painting watercolours and subscribing to the London magazines which carried reviews of exhibitions.  

In the years when there was a run of poor harvests, in the mid-1850s, she created work for her tenants by landscaping the park, damming the stream to create an artificial lake with Palladian bridges at each end.  She commissioned a local architect to build her a round temple beside the lake, a small-scale replica of the Temple of Vesta in Rome; her family appreciated the pun on her name.  Charles, having found a notice in the Sunday Times that the Earl of Dorchester’s collection was to be auctioned, offered to take her to the sale; the Earl had been a renowned patron of the arts and there might be some lots to catch her fancy.   The paintings, mostly Dutch Masters, were not to her taste, but she successfully bid for a statue to place in her new temple, a solemn Pandora opening her box.  Although the fateful box looked more like a Fortnum and Mason’s tea-caddy than an instrument of the gods’ malice, she knew she had to have the statue as soon as she saw the name of the sculptor in the catalogue: John Gibson.

  She had to admit that Robert Gibson had been true to his word.  Ten years passed with no hint of her Roman indiscretion, as she felt she must now regard it.  As far as she could ascertain, from her perusal of the London art magazines, the statue had never been completed – she could only assume that Robert had persuaded his brother to destroy the clay models of her body.  If John were still alive (his obituary had never appeared in the newspapers) he must now be quite an elderly man.   

Over breakfast one morning, Hestia read out an article about the Great London Exposition which had recently opened in South Kensington.  The article said there were thirty thousand exhibitors, from thirty-six countries.  All the latest inventions would be on show, as well as stuffed animals, tribal art and other curiosities from the colonies.  Her nephews pleaded to be allowed to go, as much for the thrill of the train journey to London as the excitement of visiting the exhibition itself.

*

Considering how rapidly the pavilion had been erected, it looked far more solid and impressive than Hestia had expected.  Charles explained to the boys that it utilised a new method of building – the bricks were just a façade, covering a cast-iron frame.  The building was symmetrical, with a huge glass dome sticking up from the roof at each end.  Hestia wondered what objects were considered special enough to be under those domes.

Once they were inside, dazzled by the sheer range of exhibits, it was all she could do to keep track of the boys as they darted from one marvel to the next, circling back to grab her arm and lead her to some fresh discovery.  Under the western dome there was a replica of an African jungle, with stuffed gorillas and leopards, but real monkeys and parrots flitting through the foliage.  Hestia had never seen such huge leaves, not even in the jungles of India. 

            As they moved eastwards through the main pavilion, Hestia became separated from her family.  Flora had gone to look at the furniture on the Morris, Marshall & Faulkner stand.  Charles and the boys were heading to the Great Eastern Railway display, to see the company’s brand-new locomotives.  Hestia slowly drifted towards the far dome, allowing herself to be carried by the crowd.  But she had the strangest sense that everyone was looking at her, as if she were as great a marvel as the industrial behemoths and exotic creatures leaping under the glass skies. 

Passing under an archway, she found herself in a vast circular room, filled with light, under the eastern dome.  A huge panorama of the South Seas took up half the curving wall; the rest of the wall was covered in paintings, hung three deep.  Most of the visitors, however, weren’t looking at the paintings, but were clustered in the central area, right under the apex of the dome, examining some sculptures.   There were copies of some of her favourite pieces, including a bronze of the Dying Gladiator.   Directly beneath the dome, however, stood a round marble temple, not dissimilar to the one that Gibson’s Pandora now inhabited in Dorset.  It was difficult to squeeze through the press of visitors round the temple; ladies’ skirts seemed to have become even wider this year.  A man in front of her was shouting into his friend’s ear:

            ‘Have you heard the story about this statue?  The sculptor finished it years ago, but he couldn’t bear to part with it – fell in love with it, like Pygmalion. Absolutely obsessed, apparently.  This is the first time he’s ever allowed it to leave his studio.’

            ‘I can’t say I blame him.  She’s a tasty piece.’

            When the men turned to leave, Hestia managed to ease herself into the space they had vacated.  She was confronted by a version of her own face, but her eyes were grey, not blue, and her hair was a duller gold than the statue’s hair.  Perhaps he could not remember; perhaps he chose not to.  The marble ears were pierced to take a pair of golden earrings – her earrings, the ones that Gibson had requested as a gift in another lifetime in Rome.  She scanned the statue: were those her feet, her legs, her flanks, her arms?  Was that the same body that felt so lumpen and sweaty under the weight of her London clothes?   Those breasts were not hers – they were too small, and were placed too high on the chest.   Gibson had never asked her to bare her breasts.  Would she have done so, if he had asked, if he had made it sound like the most normal thing in the world?   One of the smooth marble hands, the left hand, was clutching a golden apple.  The Greek inscription said H KALH ΛΑΒΕΤΩ:  ‘To be taken by the fairest.’  Was she the fairest?  Did she deserve the apple?

            Her gaze travelled down the statue’s legs, down to its feet.  And there he was, removing her last doubts.  There was Flaxman the tortoise, trapped in marble as he continued on his slow and stately course.  Suddenly she was back in the sunlit courtyard in Rome, holding out a lettuce-leaf.  Across the tortoise’s back was another inscription, in Greek.  It said ‘Gibson made me at Rome.’

People around her were passing judgement on her statue.  Most were enthusiastic in their praise, feeling that the colour brought a pleasing warmth to the cold marble, but some found it tawdry, garish even.   One woman complained that the apple was too small; she’d be disappointed if the trees back in the orchard at home produced such small fruit.  Someone else complained about the tortoise - wasn’t it Hermes who had a tortoise?  There was nothing in the Greek myths about Aphrodite having a tortoise.  A woman in an egret-feather hat said that Venus looked like a common drab; she was astonished that the organisers of the exhibition had allowed such a morally dubious piece to be put on show, especially in front of innocent children.  A man with a military bearing studied the statue through his monocle very closely, before declaring:

‘You know what’s wrong with this statue?  She looks too far too English.  She’s a naked, impudent Englishwoman, pure and simple.  There’s nothing of the goddess about her, more the fish-market.’ 

As he turned away in disgust, he knocked into Hestia.  As he apologised he looked straight into her face – was there perhaps a brief flicker of confusion?   But the moment passed, and he did not recognise her.  She began to enjoy the feeling that she possessed a secret.  All these people staring at her marble body, unaware that Venus had become flesh and moved among them. 

She was smiling to herself, under the warmth of the sunlit dome, when a voice beside her said, ‘Do you recognise your earrings?’

She had not heard that voice for ten years.  She turned to look at its owner: he was wearing a black cape, holding a large-brimmed hat.  Gibson’s beard was completely white now, and his face a little gaunter, but his hair was still dark and his eyes were still bright. 

He asked anxiously, ‘Do you like her?  I prayed you would like her.’

‘I do like her, especially her tortoise.  But how could you possibly have known I would be here today?’

‘Because I have been here every day,’ he replied.  ‘I have come each day, since the exhibition opened, hoping that the gods might draw you here.  But now they’ve granted my wish, might we possibly venture outside?  I cannot abide all these gawping crowds.  Unless, of course, you are here with your husband?  I assume you must have married again.’

‘No, I am still unmarried.  But let me find my sister first - she may be flustered it she thinks she has lost me.’  

As they walked back through the glittering pavilion, she asked if the rumours were true.  Had he really kept the statue in his studio all this time?

‘Yes,’ he said.  ‘I finished the statue, but Robert made me promise I would never exhibit it while he was alive.  I’m afraid his heart finally gave out last year.

I hoped that if I let the statue go out into the world, it might somehow act as my messenger to bring you back – and it has.   But tell me - for I have wondered this for many years – did Robert pressurise you to leave Rome?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘he did.  ‘He told me I must leave for your sake, so I did. 

I had no wish to leave.  I was happy in Rome, happier than I have been before or since.’

‘Then come back to Rome,’ he said.  ‘Flaxman, for one, will be glad to see you.’