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Gwen Davenport
- The University Press of Kentucky
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Elizabeth Madox Roberts 311 Gwen Davenport from Belvedere Not many authors have the talent or luck to create a fictional character who leaves the pages of a novel and assumes an independent life outside the book. Huck Finn and Scarlett O’Hara come to mind. Among Kentucky creations, there are the Little Colonel and Mrs. Wiggs and maybe a few others. What about Lynn Belvedere? He’s the creation of Gwen Davenport, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1910 but had the good fortune to marry a Louisville stockbroker, John Davenport, in 1931 and live in Kentucky until her death in 2002. Shortly after World War II, when domestic help was scarce, Davenport wrote a novel entitled Belvedere (1947) about a writer named Lynn Belvedere who answers an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature and obtains a job with an upper-middle-class family in Louisville as a nurse–baby-sitter. Actually, the wife who places the ad thinks that she’s getting a female worker. A motion picture called Sitting Pretty based on the book came out in 1948 starring Clifton Webb and was followed by two more: Mr. Belvedere Goes to College in 1949 and Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell in 1951. The character was again revived from 1985 until 1990, when Mr. Belvedere became a popular comedy series on ABC television. Although Davenport wrote some ten books of fiction and nonfiction , it is Belvedere that people remember. We join the Louisville couple Tacey and Harry as they await the arrival of the new nurse. h On the evening of August 20, Tacey put the children to bed after dinner while Harry got out the car to go down to the station. “I don’t know how I’ll recognize her,” he said, “but if I just stand there and look respectable perhaps she’ll accost me. You should have told her to wear a red carnation.” “Just look for someone with a typewriter,” Tacey said. “Oh, Lord—I’d forgotten about typewriters. I thought you were getting someone with a quiet talent.” “A typewriter is less noisy than a harp.” “One broken leg isn’t so bad as two,” said Harry as he departed. Tacey waited in the living room. She picked up a book but was so nervous she could not settle down to read. Would Miss Belvedere like the maid’s room? Tacey had moved into it some of her nicest furniture and had picked zinnias in Mr. Appleton’s garden for the chest of drawers. There was a big table that would serve nicely as a writing desk, and a comfortable armchair. The room was not large, but it did have a private shower. 311 312 The Kentucky Anthology She went to the piano and opened a book of Beethoven sonatas that Harry amused himself with sometimes, turning the pages until she came to a passage that looked easy. It was not. Tacey stumbled along, making no effort to do more than pick out the melody, pausing frequently and going back over the more difficult places. Genius, she thought, could be defined as the ability to make impossible things look easy; that would apply equally to Beethoven and to those who knew how to play him. In one of her frequent pauses she heard from the garden a familiar forgotten sound. “Hoo-hoo!” Edna! Edna had sent a postcard saying she expected to get home today and Tacey had even called up her cleaning woman and milkman to apprise them of this, but in her own preoccupation with Miss Belvedere she had forgotten it herself. “Hoo-hoo!” “Edna! Come on in.” Edna rushed through the French door from the porch like a sudden squall. “Tace! How are you?” They embraced with fervor and both began talking at once. “Did you have a wonderful time?” “How are the kids?” “What’s the news from Bill?” “Tacey, I’m so thrilled to see you. How are you? How’ve you been? Where’s Harry! And the children?” “I’ve just got them down for the night. Don’t wake them, for heaven’s sweet sake! My, but I’m glad to see you, Edna. We missed you.” They sat on the sofa and Edna lighted a cigarette. “I shouldn’t stay,” she remarked. “There’s nobody with the kids. I came over the minute I got them settled. What’ve you been doing lately?” “Canning tomatoes, mostly.” “My family will just have...