Sybil, Or, The Two Nations by Earl of Beaconsfield Benjamin Disraeli (best romantic novels to read .TXT) 📗

indeed were of other things and persons than those around him. Lady Joan however only required a listener. She did not make enquiries like Lady Maud, or impart her own impressions by suggesting them as your own. Lady Joan gave Egremont an account of the Aztec cities, of which she had been reading that morning, and of the several historical theories which their discovery had suggested; then she imparted her own, which differed from all, but which seemed clearly the right one. Mexico led to Egypt. Lady Joan was as familiar with the Pharaohs as with the Caciques of the new world. The phonetic system was despatched by the way. Then came Champollion; then Paris; then all its celebrities, literary and especially scientific; then came the letter from Arago received that morning; and the letter from Dr Buckland expected to-morrow. She was delighted that one had written; wondered why the other had not. Finally before the ladies had retired, she had invited Egremont to join Lady Marney in a visit to her observatory, where they were to behold a comet which she had been the first to detect.

Lady Firebrace next to the duke indulged in mysterious fiddle-fadde as to the state of parties. She too had her correspondents, and her letters received or awaited. Tadpole said this; Lord Masque, on the contrary, said that: the truth lay perhaps between them; some result developed by the clear intelligence of Lady Firebrace acting on the data with which they supplied her. The duke listened with calm excitement to the transcendental revelations of his Egeria. Nothing appeared to be concealed from her; the inmost mind of the sovereign: there was not a royal prejudice that was not mapped in her secret inventory; the cabinets of the whigs and the clubs of the tories, she had the “open sesame” to all of them. Sir Somebody did not want office, though he pretended to; and Lord Nobody did want office, though he pretended he did not. One great man thought the pear was not ripe; another that it was quite rotten; but then the first was coming on the stage, and the other was going off. In estimating the accuracy of a political opinion, one should take into consideration the standing of the opinionist.

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.

Lady Firebrace shook her head.

“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.

“Perhaps not,” said the duke.

“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.

His grace leant his ear.

“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—”

“I know what you are going to say, my dear Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine. I tell you again Lord Stanley is with us, heart and soul; and before long I feel persuaded I shall see your grace in the Castle of Dublin.”

“I am too old; at least, I am afraid so,” said the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine, with a relenting smile.