Beauty Is In The MagpEYE Of The Beholder

The Mona Lisa portrait was Tess Kincaid's Magpie#59 prompt this week. My friend Caddoc Trellis decided he would not be upstaged by a mere Leonardo . . .

Trell:     Here's Caddoc home from Abergele. Now I wonder what the hell he's hauling to the Trellis door? Whatever, folks, I guess there's more in this than ever meets the eye. I'll crouch behind the hedge and spy. Already shrill-tongued Ada's speaking. Perhaps a better word is "shrieking"

   "Cad! What's that parcel you're undoing? I think this means there's trouble brewing."
   "See, my love! I've bought this easel..."
   "Why! You gormless little weasel! And what's all this? It looks like toothpaste!"
   "This oil paint's nothing but a foretaste of my latest Arty Project.  Will you sit and be my subject? I'd paint you like Da Vinci's lady. I promise you, it won't be shady."
   "What? Sit for you? A silly plan, you crass, deluded little man! You'd have me smile like Mona Lisa? Why don't you paint that tower in Pisa?"

And Ada stomped of in a huff, she honestly had heard enough.

   "He'll find my smile is bullet-proof against his lusts. He'll hit the roof when once again I thwart his schemes, yielding only in his dreams. I'll show him I'm a Moaning Lisa. I keep my urges in the freezer - and Caddoc's share of married bliss ? A very brief, fresh-frozen kiss, his send-off to the garden shed, though he was hoping for my bed."

Poor Caddoc painted, and his mind supplied the face, for love was blind to all but she who filled his dreams, and so, unlikely as it seems, soon the picture was complete. 

   "Ada, Ada ! Come, my sweet. See if this will win your favour, the product of devoted labour!"

Now Ada had calmed down somewhat. The picture that she saw was not the dreadful daub she had expected. Her Caddoc's talent, unsuspected, had stripped away her years and bitching and for a moment she was itching to swoon into his waiting arms and thank him for revealing charms she had so long kept under wraps. She got no further than . .

  "Perhaps . . "

when, sensing this one word showed weakness, refuelled her Caddoc's care-worn meekness . .

  "Put all such thoughts out of your head!  Be off with you and paint the shed!"