While the two old friends were in deep converse the young Duke d'Aremberg entered the apartment, and was formally introduced by his amiable mother to the Duchess of Tyrconnel and to Lady Adelaide.
The Duke d'Aremberg was a few years elder than our heroine. He was remarkably handsome, tall in person, and martial in appearance, well made, and much admired for the symmetry of his form. His deportment was dignified and graceful, as free from hauteur as it was devoid of conceit and affectation. His eye-brows were dark, his eyes hazel, which sparkled with intelligence. His complexion was, however, rather saturnine; and in person as well as in visage, he much resembled the portrait of his illustrious grandfather, which hung in the d'Aremberg palace, as drawn by the inimitable hand of Vandyke, of which a fine engraving by Earlom has been handed down to posterity. The same characteristic melancholy too which had predominated in the expression of countenance in his grandsire prevailed likewise in the lineaments of the grandson; but withal mildness and intelligence of expression gave an intense tone of interest to the manly and open expression of his visage, which was in sooth the index of his truly noble heart. He was generous, he was brave, and accomplished as he was learned: hence it is unnecessary to say that he was most agreeable and affable in his manners. He was truly beloved by all his dependants, as he was courted by his associates, and respected and adored by his friends.
The duchess and Lady Adelaide remained about two hours at the palace d'Aremberg, and then returned to their house in the Rue Ducale to attire for dinner. At a few moments before three o'clock punctually they returned to the palace. Two, or even so early as one o'clock, was then the usual hour of dinner upon the continent; but in compliment to her friends it was postponed until the third hour. The Earl of Aylesbury and his countess, who was his second wife, and his son, Lord Eyrecourt, were the only guests invited, and they had first arrived.
We must here trespass a few words on our reader, briefly to say what he may perchance not be already acquainted with. The noble peer here noticed was Thomas, the second Earl of Aylesbury. He had rallied around King James upon the event of the Prince of Orange having embarked troops for England. But when King James withdrew himself from Whitehall, in order to embark for France, Lord Aylesbury was one of the twenty-five peers who signed the declaration applying to the Prince of Orange to rescue the country from "popery and slavery." He subsequently, however, took a different part, having been implicated or accused in an attempt to restore the abdicated monarch to his throne and realm, in consequence of which accusation his Lordship was committed a prisoner to the tower of London by order of Queen Mary, the consort of William III., at the time that William was in Ireland. The charge or accusation was for having consulted and conspired how to restore King James. His countess, the Lady Elizabeth, was so afflicted at her lord's confinement, that she died in childbirth, when the month following her husband, the Earl, was admitted to bail.
His Lordship afterwards obtained leave of King William to reside at Brussels; and a year or two previous to this period he secondly married Charlotte, Countess of Sannü, of the ancient and noble house of Argenteau, in the Duchy of Brabant, by whom he had a daughter, Charlotte Maria,[32] an infant at this time of about twelve months old.
The Earl of Aylesbury[33] was a nobleman de La Vieille cour of the most polished manners. Every thing he said or did was done with a peculiar grace and ease. He had read much, and remembered with judicious advantage what he had read. He abounded in amusing anecdotes, had seen much of the world, and had read men as well as books.
However, it cannot be denied that he was at times stately in his deportment; and he never appeared at his own dinner-table, even when none were present but his own family, unless in a full court-dress costume, with the appendices of star and ribbon, which made many to suspect that a deep affection for aristocracy was rooted in his breast.
The countess was low in stature as she was in mind. Her figure, however, though small, was passing well; her complexion sallow; her eyes dark and lively. She possessed more envy than good-nature, more passion than sense, and more pertness than pride. Her chief, and probably only recommendations, were the ancient nobility of her family and the largeness of her fortune, two qualifications that rarely, if ever, bestow happiness upon the marriage state.
Lord Eyrecourt was the only surviving offspring of the deceased countess, and heir apparent to the earldom of Aylesbury. He was confessedly a finished petite maitrè—the daily slave of his barber, perfumer, tailor, and looking-glass. To Monsieur Jasmin, his perfumer, in the Rue Madelaine, he had lately paid the enormous sum of six hundred ducats, being his bill for the last year for lotions, perfumes, cosmetics, &c.
His Lordship never appeared abroad until close upon the hour of dinner, "for," he averred, "it would be vastly supersingular, and besides extremely vulgar in him, to be seen abroad before the sun had fully mounted the meridian, and the world had become well warmed!"