Kikuchi Experimental

Kikuchi Experimental

Georgiana Cavendish

Fall 2017

Maya Kikuchi

The Duchess of Devonshire

Dear Mama,
I am seventeen today.
You always loved me best:
Love, your Dear little Gee
but today, Mama
I am your birthday girl
and his blushing bride,
he my duke and I his duchess.

Dear Father,
I am today wed to wealth,
power my procession
and veiled is his love.
You must be happy, Father:
Happily, your Dearest Georgiana
You mustn’t miss me all your days.

My darling husband,
You never show me your inner workings
or tend to mine. This heart cries out for touch.
You remain in mystery, my love, so
I’m writing to tell you I’ve written you
in my newest book, your novel debut
a character of similar intents and manners to your own.
The object of my heroine’s suffering.
She herself longs for someone,
a sylph only known in masquerade
and yet more known than you have ever been to me.
Yours newly drafted, Mrs. Cavendish

My darling libertine,
I long for someone anyone loving,
but the boy is unconceived
and I will not be freed from wedlock
while you roam free among a world of women,
but this is nothing new.
You chose mistresses and cards.
Here are mine laid on the table:
This miscarriage of my love is too much to bear
and I’ve tried for your child, your heir, to no release.
You hold me your hostage to his birth,
though I’ve mothered your flesh,
your blood, your illegitimacy,
and I’ve loved her as my own.
Sincerely, your most devoted Duchess

Dear Mama,
God save me from this man;
but this is not what I mean to write.
I need help, Mother dearest.
I think myself ill, yellowing,
dying in my debts
and on my knees before you.
But you don’t believe me; I have written you before.
You think me ill of excess,
symptomatic of money squandered.
If only I were saved by my dear, rich Duke!
But he must never know, Mother,
so here I ask you now for your grace
and a hundred pounds.
In prayers, your Dear little Gee

My Duke,
I’ve killed you with my words, or rather
I’ve written you to kill yourself.
I have finally chosen a title.
Who is The Sylph, you might ask?
He is everything unknown to me in you
and everything I know you are not.
He is my hope in a future
free from the bonds of a male birth,
from my debts,
from you.
And yet, here I remain
writing books of Julia’s, not Georgiana’s,
and letters which will never be sent,
my only consolation that you will never read these words.

-Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire