1862: Lord Alban Fitzartur
Private papers
A quiet evening by the library fire, the sea murmuring beyond the casements like a conspirator reluctant to confess. The world beyond—with its dukes and debutantes, its dreary demands of dynasty—fades to a distant drone; here, in this sanctum of silk and solitude, the muse descends unbidden. Tonight she whispered a verse, born of that exquisite irony which attends our shadowed lives: a defiant little poem, disclaiming the sins society so conveniently catalogues, while veiling our own in layers of labyrinthine grace. I set quill to vellum and extended it to three stanzas, preserving the stately rhythm—iambic pentameter marching like a parade of paradoxes—and the couplet’s crisp closure. Veracity? Ah, therein lies the delicious deceit: true as gospel to the uninitiated eye, yet laced with our private hieroglyphics. Let it stand as testament to the art of saying everything by saying nothing.
Here it is, committed to these pages for posterity—or prosecution, should indiscretion ever pry:
No virgin I deflower, nor, lurking, creep,
With steps adult’rous, on a husband’s sleep.
I plough no field in other men’s domain;
And where I delve no seed shall spring again.
No wife I steal, nor cradle rob of heir,
No lawful bower profane with stolen air.
My furrow falls on fallow, barren ground,
Where harvest ne’er shall crown the fruitful mound.
Yet in my garden, blooms of rarer hue
Unfurl beneath the moon’s indulgent view;
No taint of lineage, no bond profane—
Pure pleasure’s path, untrod by law’s disdain.
The first stanza disowns the cardinal carnalities—no ravished innocence, no cuckold’s midnight trespass, no illicit impregnation—all sins neatly notched on society’s abacus. Veracious enough for the vicar; to him, a hymn of heterodox virtue. Yet “delve”—that spade-sharp word—hints at deeper diggings, seedless furrows where ploughshare meets not womb but willing counterpart, barren by nature’s design rather than denial.
The second extends the disclaimer: no poached spouse, no orphaned progeny, no desecration of connubial nest. Fallow ground indeed—our affections fall where fertility fears to flower, harvests reaped in ecstasy unencumbered by heirs or alarms. The syntax coils like smoke from a forbidden pipe, innocent tillage to the literal eye, resonant ravishment to the keyed ear.
The third unveils the garden’s secret splendour—rarer blooms under moonlit mercy, untarnished by lineage or law. Pure pleasure’s path: our velvet byways, where no bastard banners wave, no legal lances pierce. Veracity absolute, if one reads slant: society’s sins evaded, our own exalted. No poem so chaste has ever sung so lustily of the liberties we claim in shadow.
How it amuses, this verbal masquerade! Were these lines declaimed at Almack’s, dowagers would nod sagely over my “moral rectitude”; in the Albion’s alcoves, cognoscenti would clink glasses to the coded confession. Tonight’s composition follows a symposium of sorts—a fencing frolic with young Davenport from the Oxford eight, his lithe form foil to my finesse, shirts discarded amid claret cascades. No delving there save delight, no seed but satisfaction. The poem codifies it: we plough our private pastures, harrow-free, reaping rapture sans regret.
Father inquires tomorrow—vague murmurs of “matrimonial prospects”. I shall recite this verse, watch his ducal brow furrow in fond approval. Veracity’s veil is our victory; the muse, our most merciful masker. Another glass to the garden unseen—blooms eternal, under moon’s indulgent eye.
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