Court Royal/Chapter LX
CHAPTER LX.
TWO PICTURES.
Every window of Court Royal is lighted up, and the terrace is hung with coloured lamps. Carriage after carriage drives up and deposits members of every knowable family for many miles round Kingsbridge, for the Cheek-Roseveres are settled in, and are giving their first soirée of dancing and music.
The footmen in scarlet and buff are in the hall and on the grand staircase—scarlet and buff are the Cheek-Rosevere livery, because no more showy livery could be thought of. That of the Eveleighs was only buff and scarlet. The house had gone through a reformation under the hands of an art adviser and Oxford Street furniture dealers. Much of the old decoration was preserved but renovated; most of the good Chippendale furniture, and Florentine inlaid cabinets, and Sèvres and Dresden china, and the pictures of Morland, and Gainsborough, and Gerard Dow were still there. But everything was freshened up, the gilding regilt and burnished, the colours brightened, the polished wood re-polished. The curtains, the coverings, were all of silk or satin, and were new.
The state drawing-room was lighted by electric burners, the chandeliers had been banished from the ball-room. The old motto of the Eveleighs, ‘Quod antiquatur et sencscit prope interitum est,’ was everywhere effaced and supplanted by ‘Nil præstat buccæ,’ which may be interpreted ‘Nothing like Cheek.’ In the dining-room, over the chimney-piece, the Ducal arms had made way for the cognizance of the Cheeks, an unicorn, beneath which was inscribed ‘Plentie of Pushe’ as well as ‘Nil præstat buccæ,’ for the old scroll of the legend had been utilised, and two mottoes were needed to fill the scroll from which the lengthy inscription had been erased. Besides, as the family name was double, and the arms were double, why not duplicate the motto?
Some time has elapsed since the event described in the last chapter, and in that time great changes have taken place. The affairs of the Duke reached a climax; Court Royal was lost, and passed to Cheek of the Monokeratic system. But the Monokeros was too pushing and prosperous a beast to be resigned, and the old man remained at the head of the establishment in town, gathering in money as fast as he could, with both hands.
The old man’s objections to his son’s marriage with Joanna gave way when he found she was entitled to the whole of the Jew’s fortune, amounting to seventy thousand pounds. ‘A clever girl—a girl of the period,’ he said; ‘knows how to work her way to the fore. She would have been invaluable to me in my shop.’
Never had the state rooms of Court Royal looked so brilliant and beautiful as this night. Charles Cheek stood in the drawing-room receiving his guests. But we beg his pardon, he is no longer Mr. C. Cheek, but Mr. Cheek-Rosevere—he has assumed his wife’s name in addition to his own. Every now and then Charles looked round in expectation and uneasiness for Joanna, who was not present. Prepossessing and handsome, with his fair hair, light moustache, and pleasant blue eyes, he had a cheerful greeting for everyone. ‘But where is Joanna?’ he thought, and the guests looked round also, and wandered through the rooms in quest of their hostess. ‘How very odd! Why is not Mrs. Cheek-Rosevere here to receive us?’
Presently, when all had arrived, a couple of scarlet and buff footmen threw open a door to an inner room and boudoir, and in loud voices announced
'Mrs. Cheek-Rosevere!!!'
Whereupon Joanna appeared, charmingly dressed in the richest pearl silk, and wearing abundance of diamonds, holding a bouquet of hothouse flowers in each hand; she sailed, smilingly, looking very lovely, down the room, bowing to the right and to the left, giving a hand to none—how could she, holding flowers in each hand?
‘My dear Joe!’ said Charles to her after everyone was gone, ‘how could you behave as you did? It was rude—it was grossly impertinent, and we are such new comers.’
‘My dear Charlie,’ answered Joanna, with perfect self-satisfaction, ‘I know what I am about. Lady Grace could not have done it, and would not; she could afford to be condescending and sweet; her position was unassailable. On the other hand, we are nobodies, who have risen to the surface through trade. We cannot afford to be gracious, or folks will say we are pleading to be received into society. We must be insolent, and take our place by storm.’
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On the road from Teignmouth to Dawlish, a little out of the town, stand two houses in their grounds. The road is somewhat steep, ascending through red banks of sandstone. Presently a little garden door is reached, where there is a fork in the road, and over the wall of red stone can be seen a luxurious growth of arbutus, guelder rose, and acacia, and above the flowering bushes the brown thatch of a cottage, with bedroom windows peeping out through the thatch. By standing on tiptoe one can even look into the garden and see that the cottage has a verandah covered with creeping roses, and that French windows open into this verandah.
A little way higher up the hill is a more pretentious house in what may be called the Italian villa style; but the house is more than a villa, it is almost a mansion. The grounds are fairly extensive, the pines are luxuriant and of choice kinds. The insignis is grown there to a stately tree. There are glass conservatories. At the door stands a footman in buff and scarlet. The windows are of plate glass.
Presently an old gentleman, with hair white as snow, and an almost transparent, wax-like complexion, is wheeled into the garden in a chair, attended by an old bent man, leaning on a stick, and a lady, gentle and smiling.
We recognise our old friends, the Duke of Kingsbridge, Lord Ronald, and Lady Grace. Shortly after the Marquess comes forth, and the party descend the hill.
As they pass the little green door of the cottage, which sits, as it were, at the feet of the other, it is opened, and from it issue Mr. Worthivale and his daughter Lucy.
The united party proceeds to the walk along the sea-wall, extending for a mile, above the sands at low water and the sea when the tide is full. There they will be joined after a while by Beavis, who is in a solicitor’s office in the town, and likely eventually to be taken into partnership.
Not all the estates of the Duke have been sold. Court Royal—dear Court Royal—is lost for ever. The manor of Kingsbridge is gone. Alvington, Loddiswell, Charlton, are all gone, but Fowelscombe remains—ruinous, indeed, but not lost—and Bigbury.
‘You may depend upon it,’ says Mr. Worthivale, ‘all we want is time. Penzance is used up. Torquay is done for. The aspect of Paington is against it. The time must come when Bigbury Bay will form a crescent of glittering white houses, tier on tier—when the express from town will fly past Torquay, leap the Dart on a tubular bridge at Dartmouth, and rush past Kingsbridge to find a terminus at Bigbury, the climatic resort of the future. Then, your Grace'
‘My dear Worthivale, I shall not live to see the first stone of the new town laid, nor the first sod of the new line turned.’
‘But, your Grace, what a comfort to think of the future, the reflorescence of this splendid house! I, also, may not see it, but I live in faith. Your grandchildren
‘Dear Worthivale,’ said the Marquess, ‘I am sorry to dash your dream, but I shall never marry.’
‘Nor I,’ said Lady Grace, in a low tone.
‘So the race will die with us. Quod antiquatur et senescit—prope interitum est.’