At the right moment, and when she was sure she was not overheard, Lady Firebrace played her trump card, the pack having been previously cut by Mr Tadpole.
“And who do you think Sir Robert would send to Ireland?” and she looked up in the face of the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine.
“I suppose the person he sent before,” said his grace.
“Lord Haddington will not go to Ireland again,” replied her ladyship, mysteriously; “mark me. And Lord De Grey does not like to go; and if he did, there are objections. And the Duke of Northumberland, he will not go. And who else is there? We must have a nobleman of the highest rank for Ireland; one who has not mixed himself up with Irish questions; who has always been in old days for emancipation; a conservative, not an orangeman. You understand. That is the person Sir Robert will send, and whom Sir Robert wants.”
“He will have some difficulty in finding such a person,” said the duke. “If, indeed, the blundering affair of 1834 had not occurred, and things had taken their legitimate course, and we had seen a man like Lord Stanley for instance at the head of affairs, or leading a great party, why then indeed your friends the conservatives,--for every sensible man must be a conservative, in the right sense of the word,--would have stood in a very different position; but now--,” and his grace shook his head.
“Sir Robert will never consent to form a government again without Lord Stanley,” said Lady Firebrace.
“Do you know whose name I have heard mentioned in a certain quarter as the person Sir Robert would wish to see in Ireland?” continued Lady Firebrace.
“The Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine,” said Lady Firebrace.
“Quite impossible,” said the duke. “I am no party man; if I be anything, I am a supporter of the government. True it is I do not like the way they are going on, and I disapprove of all their measures; but we must stand by our friends, Lady Firebrace. To be sure, if the country were in danger, and the Queen personally appealed to one, and the conservative party were really a conservative party, and not an old crazy faction vamped up and whitewashed into decency--one might pause and consider. But I am free to confess I must see things in a very different condition to what they are at present before I could be called upon to take that step. I must see men like Lord Stanley--”