She spent much time with Lord Edward and Pamela at Kildare Lodge, and her Journal, from which Mr. Campbell has published some extracts, gives us vivid glimpses of the habitués of that hospitable home. Among these, Arthur O’Connor figures prominently, and one cannot help feeling that Lady Lucy had a romantic interest in that most aristocratic of all “democrats.” The winter days were devoted to long walks on the Curragh, or if the weather prevented out-door excursions, to sticking pocket-books with emblems, or hearing Arthur O’Connor read “Julius Cæsar,” or Volney’s “Ruins”; the winter evenings were delightfully divided between dancing and singing patriotic songs. Once she records “a large patriotic dinner,” at which were present, “Dr. MacNevin, Connolly, Mr. Hughes (a Northern, and Edward says a very sensible man), a Mr. Jackson, an iron manufacturer, a Mr. Bond, a great merchant, one of the handsomest and most delightful men to all appearance that ever was, and a Presbyterian clergyman, called Barber, a venerable old man who had been forced by persecution to fly his Diocese where he had lived 30 years.”
Lady Lucy little suspected that the Northern Mr. Hughes, whom Edward considered so “sensible,” was a Government spy—any more than she suspected that all her own correspondence after her return to London was carefully watched by Government. The mysterious “friend” of her cousin, Lord Downshire (whom Fitzpatrick finally succeeded in identifying with Samuel Turner, of Lurgan), told his patron that the communications of the Irish in Hamburg (who were negotiating there for French aid), with their friends at home were established through the medium of Mme. Matthiesen (Pamela’s cousin, Henriette de Sercey), Lady Sarah and Pamela. The letters were sent by Madame Matthiesen from Hamburg, to Lady Lucy in London—and by Lady Lucy conveyed to Pamela. “All letters to or from Lady Lucy Fitzgerald,” wrote the spy to Lord Downshire, “ought to be inspected.” No doubt this advice was acted upon, and poor unsuspecting Lady Lucy’s correspondence received due attention.
One of the items of “Lucia’s” diary, quoted by Mr. Campbell, makes brief reference to “Two Northern gentlemen who dined with us.” One wonders if one of these could be Bartle Teeling. We know from his nephew’s memoir that in Lady Lucy that gallant and knightly heart had found its ideal. Once she gave him a ring with the words, “Erin go Bragh” inscribed on it, and this ring is still treasured in the Teeling family.
Some letters of Lady Lucy published by Mr. Campbell will give a more vivid idea of her ardent and impulsive nature than any elaborate description of her. The first is addressed to “The Irish Nation,” and the occasion seems to have been the threatening advent of the Union:
“Irishmen, Countrymen, it is Edward Fitzgerald’s sister who addresses you: it is a woman, but that woman is his sister: she would therefore die for you as he did. I don’t mean to remind you of what he did for you. ’Twas no more than his duty. Without ambition he resigned every blessing this world could afford, to be of use to you, his countrymen whom he loved better than himself, but in this he did no more than his duty; he was a Paddy and no more; he desired no other title than this. He never deserted you—will you desert yourselves? This was his only ambition, and will you ever forget yourselves? Will you forget this title, which it is still in your power to ennoble? Will you disgrace it? Will you make it the scoff of your triumphant Enemies, while ’tis in your power to raise it beyond all other glory to immortality? Yes, this is the moment, the precious moment which must either stamp with Infamy the name of Irishmen and denote you for ever wretched, enslaved to the power of England, or raise the Paddies to the consequence which they deserve and which England shall no longer withhold, to happiness, freedom, glory. These are but names as yet to you, my Countrymen. As yet you are strangers to the reality with the power in your hands to realise them. One noble struggle, and you will gain, you will enjoy them for ever.—Your devoted Country-woman—L. F.”
A second to Lady Bute, deals largely with Moore’s “Life of Lord Edward”:
“Did you read Mr. Moore’s Memoir of my loved Edward? If you did, you will have thought it strange perhaps to see it dedicated to Mrs. Beauclerck.[[92]] It was all her plan, arranged with Mr. Moore. They let me know of it when partly completed in case I had anything to communicate. Dear Lady Bute, you who know the depth of affection with which his memory is engraven on my heart! you can best judge how such a message must have struck me. I returned for answer I had nothing to say. A thousand motives made this intended publication by Mr. Moore appear to me utterly improper. I will own to you that the one which displeased me was the trifling ... with his memory, which so long has lain enshrined and sacred in the grateful breasts of the Irish people! to have it brought out from thence and his glorious name made the subject of English investigation—to serve Party purposes—for when were Englishmen ever just judges of Irish character?... Mr. Moore was in complete ignorance of my Brother’s views, and of his opinions, plans, and actions beyond what the newspapers of the day could furnish him with; and thus the delineation of his character as enlightened Statesman and Heroic Patriot is entirely missing in the publication....
[92]. Mrs. Beauclerck was Lord Edward’s half-sister, “Mimi” (Emily Charlotte) Ogilvie, daughter of the Duchess of Leinster and Mr. Ogilvie.
“There are men in Ireland, men only Irish, to whom it belonged to tell his story if ever Ireland should be what my Brother meant it to be.... At the time when he was self-elected to free his country or die for Her, he met a soul, ‘twin to his own,’ because each breathed and loved alike and their object Ireland! Ireland, where each had first drawn breath—Ireland more great in her misfortunes, in her wrongs than the most favoured Country of the Earth,—Ireland, so true to God, to the early unchanged faith of the Gospel,—Ireland whom neither falsehood could entice nor interest bribe to apostacy, suffering through successive ages from the oppression of a Nation inferior to Herself in all but in one of the adventitious circumstances of fortune. It was the heart that felt all this as he himself did, and would have preferred death with the chance of redeeming these wrongs to a life of ease and security without that hope—it was that person who could have told how Edward once loved.”