“Tell me, Rector,” Frampton asked, “are you related to the painter that was?”
“Yes, the painter was my uncle, though I never met him,” the Rector said. “He was dead before I was born.”
“Have you any of his work?” Frampton asked.
“I? No,” the Rector said. “I’m one of those brought up to regard my uncle as not quite the sort of uncle that a nephew should be proud of. He may have been a genius, but he was a man of no principle and of unfortunate excess.”
“Well, but Rector,” Frampton said, “I think I must stand up for your uncle. You say he’d no principle. How about the principle of Beauty?”
“What d’you mean by Beauty, Mr. Mansell?” the Rector asked.
“I’m not good at definitions,” Frampton said, “but might we call it, the quality which heightens our sense of life, when perceived in anything?”
“I must say that I am quite unable to find anything of that sort in the work of that dreadful man,” the Rector answered, “I admit that he had talents; the world has decided that; of course, the question whether a man has talent is something which the world decides; the world judges the point and none may appeal. But whatever his talents may have been, they were blinded and nullified by habits of excess.”
“But artists are men of excess,” Mansell said. “They live in overwhelming excitement, and when the world doesn’t give them commissions to keep that excess boiling out into their work all the time, they seek equivalent wherever they can get it. They drink and they fly over the traces, because they are men of excess. Thank heaven they are, I say. I’ve got a little portrait by your uncle. It’s one of the finest things I’ve got. You know, facially you’re rather like him.”
The Rector looked as though he would have his face lifted as soon as he was in funds.
The door opened; Mr. and Mrs. Method-Methodde came in. Mrs. Methodde was ambitious for her husband; she took a lot of pains, but was not intelligent; Mr. Methodde was ambitious for his wife, did not take many pains and was not intelligent. They were frequently photographed together, gardening in their rock-garden. Their nicknames were Ducky and Twee; it did not much matter which was which.
“Oh, Rector,” Mrs. Methodde began, in the gushing manner usual to her, “oh, my dear Rector, can you forgive us for being so disgracefully late. We have broken all the speed limits and all the traffic regulations to get here.”
“I’m so glad you were able to come,” the Rector said. “I think you know all here. We’ve decided to have a work of art, and are now just deciding where to put it. Shall we go on from there?”
“Oh, I am so glad we aren’t too late,” Mrs. Methodde said. “Is this Mr. Mansell of Mullples? Oh, Mr. Mansell, what will you think of us? We have been dying to have you to lunch. But you know what a Member’s life is, don’t you? The House sits and sits, and he is never able to get away. It will be too delicious if you will come to lunch with us sometime.”
As Frampton judged that he had been avoided by them of set purpose, he bowed, but said nothing, except that it would be delicious.
“Oh, I am so glad that you have decided to have a work of art,” Mrs. Methodde cried to the Committee. “And now, will you let us take our places. Admiral, I want you to let me sit next you, and Twee the other side of you.”
As they took their places, Frampton produced a portfolio. The Rector said that they had better get on with the next point, where the Memorial was to go. They decided, in a few minutes, that by much the best place was the triangular island-site.
“We’ve decided on a work of art, and we’ve decided on the place for it,” the Rector said. “Now the real debate begins. What are we to put up? I have to tell you that the sum of money at our disposal, three hundred and sixty pounds odd, has been increased since we came into this room by an anonymous donor—please do not ask me for the name; it must be kept secret—to four hundred pounds. For that sum we can do much.”
“I wonder,” Frampton said, “I wonder, Rector, if I might be allowed to say a few words here, in my momentary capacity as adviser?”
“Certainly; do,” the Rector said.
Frampton rose with his portfolio.
“I have here,” Frampton said, “a portfolio of some fifty or sixty of the best of the smaller War Memorials in this country. It excludes all the social service memorials, such as water supplies or playing fields, but includes some of what you might call garden shrines.”
He produced his portfolio, which was a remarkable collection.
“How did you get this book?” Mrs. Methodde asked. “I mean, is it published? I haven’t seen it anywhere.”
“It isn’t published,” he said. “But the country was stirred by its losses in the War and showed deep feeling in many of its designs. I took the trouble to collect photographs of all that I could hear of, and when the result seemed good, I went down to see the place and had good photographs taken. Wherever I could, I learned the cost of each Memorial; the figures are very interesting to me; so much good work was given free. I have a couple of other portfolios at home, not quite so good as these, but good.”
“After all,” Lady Susan said, as she sniffed above the designs, “four hundred pounds isn’t quite the Bank of England. We have to cut our coat according to our cloth. We can’t afford anything out of the way.”
“Why not?” Frampton asked. “There are scores of young geniuses in this land, eager to give of their best.”
“We don’t want genius in Stubbington,” Mr. Quart said. “Thank God, we’re plain folk in Stubbington.”
“You know them better than I do,” Frampton said, “but in this case the plain folk are not quite plain folk, but sorrowing humanity; they demand the very best that they can get, in memory of the extremity of their loss.”
“I must say that I agree with Mr. Quart,” a member said. We don’t want any medical students coming round our War Memorials with green paint, as they say they do in London. We want an art that we can understand. It seems to me, that if we have a local War Memorial, we ought to employ local talent. I’m a builder myself, and it don’t beseem me to push my own wares; but a lot of local men could put up a simple stone with the names on and tidy it all round a bit, and have something over for a supper to the poor on Armistice Night. All these memorials in this book, Mr. Mansell, are a lot above us.”
“In what way above? I don’t quite see.”
“They aren’t the sort of thing people would like to have about.”
“But people do like to have them about. In some villages and towns they’re very proud of them. In one or two, they have even found that their War Memorial has given them a kind of fame. People come there from distances to see the Memorial. Just look at page thirty-three in that book, will you? That’s it—the Memorial at Naunton Crucis, a little place, with a very fine village cross, one of the best still standing. They got young Dick Pilbrow to do a marble for the great spring of water just opposite the Cross. That marble with the low relief is the result. It loses a full half of its beauty in a photograph; but you go over to Naunton and look at it. It’s only forty-odd miles. If it doesn’t take your breath away, I’ll be sorry for you. People go from all over the Continent to see that marble. It made young Pilbrow famous all over the world. He’s in America now, doing a fountain for one of their colleges.”
“Yes, but I don’t think that Stubbington would quite approve of marble figures with quite so few clothes,” Mrs. Methodde said. “Four hundred pounds may not be very much, but it should be enough to provide the figures, if we must have figures, with decent suitings. After all, we insist upon it, even at seaside resorts, and I feel that art ought not to have a lower standard in these matters than the ordinary rank and file of everyday people.”