He had no intention of paying one penny more for that derelict property than the lowest price he could screw them down to. As he explained to the agents in Stubbington ninety minutes later, the house was rotten, there was dry rot in the roof and wet rot in the wainscots. The handles and hinges were worth half a quid, the marble mantelpiece in the drawing-room might fetch a quid; and he would give them a bob a ton for the bricks. As for the Wood, well, he only asked them to look at it. No one could use the house in its present state. It wasn’t a dwelling-place. It couldn’t be made into a school, nor a nursing-home, nor a mad house. The Wood was one long disease. He would offer them, and here he named his price, and they could take it or leave it.
They left it, with indignation, that night, but within the week they thought better of it. They had missed their chance, however, and had to take much less. Ten days later, the property was his. He owned the Tittups property. This was a matter of great cheer to him.
“See, my little Fram,” he said, “you own
He caused his lawyers to write a warning to the neighbouring Hunts, that they were to keep out of Stubbington as out of Spirr. He hired a firm of house-breakers to put the derelict house out of the way. He caused an enterprising firm to wire the fences of the estate.
“I’ll keep them out, the swine,” he muttered.
There were four melancholy cottages on the Tittups Estate; he put these under a deferred sentence of death. The people who lived in them had nowhere else to go.
“And now,” he said, “I’ll really do what I only suggested to the angry ham. I’ll make this a model community.”
He had thought of it a good deal since he had seen how bitterly it had been resented. It was a maxim of his: “When you see these duds writhing, be sure that what you’re doing is right; go on at it.” He had thought of a lot of schemes, had drawn up several plans with estimates vouched for by Rolly, and was tempted to begin upon it at once.
Rolly came down, to go over the ground with him. He began to be excited about this child of his invention. A community of fifty homes, two recreation centres and a school seemed to him to be a great return to be had for money. He was not sure how far he could insist on the school being run on his own lines, but he thought of the children who might graduate from that school, all lovely athletes, all able to sing and to play instruments, all able to draw, to speak and to act. He read eagerly the many books describing the many ideal settlements founded since the industrial age began to rouse protesters. He thought that he saw the causes of the failures of most of these. They had attracted usually the wrong kind of artist and the deadly kind of prig. Well, he would make this place the home of his very best workers, and make his new gun here.
Rolly was eager about the scheme; he gave of his very best thought to the planning and prepared those drawings which made such a sensation when exhibited. For a few days, just after the purchase of
He thought that it would annoy the local sportsmen if he advertised the forthcoming building in the Tittups estate. He, therefore, put up large posters in prominent places, to say that this was the site of the St. Margaret’s Model Village or Garden Suburb. A part of the Waste at the top of the hill seemed to him to be necessary to the completion of his plan. By great good fortune, it was possible for him to buy this, too. He had a diviner down, to run out the springs. There was abundant water on the estate. He began to figure out the question: Could his new gun be made there? He had received a specimen or trial piece showing something of the new gun. He was eager to have it made close to where it had been devised.
“It’ll make ’em squirm,” he thought.
Even so, he hesitated; it was too big a plunge to take for fun.