He let it be known now that he was going to stablish some of his plant on the Waste. Rolly’s drawings had been shown and applauded. The members of the Hunt wailed and swore that this damned crank and madman was going to ruin the whole countryside. However, he knew by this time that they were not a very efficient body. Long before their agitation had got beyond savage scowls at railway stations, and words flung at him in the market-place, he had something of the settlement in the course of building; but the building was preluded by such a fencing of the property, that the Hunt was barred from one great area over which it had roved at will for six generations of sportsmen.
Late one night, at the winter’s end, just as he reached his bedroom, the telephone rang. He heard the voice of Miss Pilbrow, his excellent, steely, glittering secretary in London, with her carefully-picked, deliberate speech, which he had never known ruffled.
“Yes,” he said, “is that you, Miss Pilbrow? What is it?”
“It’s about King Faringdon, the sculptor. He’s just been here, asking to see you.”
“Rather late at night to visit a spinster,” he said. “What does he want?”
“He’s in great distress. His bronzes have been turned down.”
“What? The two he was doing for Snipton Town Hall?”
“Yes.”
“Turned down? What d’ye mean? That the Town Council won’t have them?”
“Yes. They refuse them. They say they aren’t the things they expected, and they want something more cheerful”
“I say, say that again.”
“They want something more cheerful.”
Frampton put down the receiver, so that he might swear away from the lady’s delicate, but by now accustomed ear.
“And Faringdon’t off his head?” he said.
“Well: yes. He’s nearly frantic, really. He came to you to ask if you could buy the drawings or something. He’s been counting on the payment for the bronzes and is absolutely broke, he says, without it.”
Frampton knew pretty well what kind of mood Faringdon would be in, and the state of his finances.
“Are you in touch with him?” he asked. “Is he there still?’”
“No, he’s gone now. I’ve been trying at intervals to get you for the last two hours. He’s gone to his studio, or at least he said he was going.”
“Damn,” Frampton said. Then he called to Miss Pilbrow: “Is Joe up, or has he gone to bed?”
“Gone to bed.”
“Tell Joe to get up, and go round to Faringdon’s studio at once. He can get a taxi. Give him some money. But he’s to go at once, the sooner the quicker,
Miss Pilbrow got Joe off at once. Frampton remained at his lamp, reading ghost stories, for another hour, when Miss Pilbrow rang up again, to say that Joe had found King Faringdon at Julian’s, and that he sent his best thanks.
“Glad you got me at last,” Frampton said, “and I’m glad Joe got him. I’ll see King in a day or two, tell him. Good night.”
As he turned over in bed, at about four the next morning, it occurred to him that the two bronze figures, the Female Griefs, as Faringdon called them, would be the very things for the ends of the parapets of Stubbington Bridge. Why not offer them to Stubbington? They had been designed, at an enlightened man’s suggestion, for the Snipton Town Hall. The enlightened man had been turned out of office, and his plans killed. They were not cheerful things. One represented bereaved wifehood, the other bereaved virginity. These two heroic figures, the Andromache and Polyxena of the Great War, would move men for generations to come. To be sure, there might be better sites for them than Stubbington bridge, but none so near his home, and none, in London, so beautiful. Half asleep as he was, he muttered:
“I’ll get at the clerk of the Council here to-morrow, and make the offer. It’ll probably make me a few more enemies, but the bridge-end will be a fine place for the two figures, and Faringdon ought to be pleased.”
He went into Stubbington to see the Clerk of the Town Council about the Bronzes. The clerk was an active and pleasant man, a good golfer and amateur actor, but not very sure what Bronzes might be. He gave Frampton the impression of believing them to be basins. However, the course of action was plain: if Frampton would write a brief description of the (“what was it you said the things were to be?”), and make a formal offer to the Council, why, then, it would go before the Council on Monday, and he would most probably be asked to come to see them on the following Monday.
As he foretold, so it was; Frampton was bidden to the Council.