Portrait to Story

The wind swept cold across the damp cheek of Mrs Davenport. Her fingers trembled over the hastily-opened missive from her lover. How dare he! The nerve of him! Lord Milbanke’s bold, lazy scrawl of regret mocked her where she paused in the act of crossing the leaf-strewn garden at the rear of the earl’s Thames-side bungalow. The sound of the luncheon table being cleared by the butler further enraged her, and Mrs Davenport quickly, deliberately tore the note into a dozen tiny pieces and scattered them to the four winds. A sob tore at her throat and she bit the knuckle of her left hand to dampen the sound, which emerged unbidden as a low whimper, a keen actually.

She could just feel the eyes of the servants on her back, their pointed fingers, their whispered confidences. Lord Milbank’s engagement to the very fair and very young Miss Edwina de Choate of Manchester had been announced in The Times just yesterday, promptly demoting Mrs Davenport from her status as the Earl of Milbank’s trusted confidante and unofficial hostess to that of a discarded coat. And worse, a discarded old coat. At forty-nine, Mrs Davenport was not vain, as she had never been considered pretty or attractive: her skin was too sallow, her expression too forbidding, her manner direct and unresponsive to frivolous lovemaking. But she was intelligent and shrewd, with hidden, passionate depths deserving men had been pleased to discover. It had been this, coupled with their shared interest in rare books, that formed her five year attachment to the widowed Earl of Milbank. Now it ended–and because of a mere chit of a girl!

Mrs Davenport squared her shoulders, having no recourse but to regroup and retreat. She had her books, her own home, and an ample security against financial hardships from her third husband’s will. She more importantly had her unassailable political position and salon through which the statesmen of the age tread carefully lest they offend her lese majeste. What need had she of a man who deceived himself into youth by taking a young girl to wife? Yes, she had no need of him. Mrs. Davenport turned and to the astonishment of the servants (who would later gossip that in her departure, the stately widow looked quite alluring) she called for the butler to summon her carriage. In her reticule lay dozens of invitations to country house parties and letters from dear friends and even dearer enemies. Fie on Lord Milbank, and may heaven preserve Miss de Choate!

(Short One of “Portrait to Story” my little impromptu exercise in the adage “a picture says a thousand words.”)