“Come, come,” he said, “you know we mustn’t hunt this line. Come on, Master; come on, Bill. Get going. Never mind what has happened; we’re not wanted here and have no business here. Take hounds out of it, Bill.”
Bill swore under his breath: “We don’t want any Christian religion with a fox-shooter,” but he trailed his thong and called the hounds, who followed. He led them at a fast trot towards Weston Mullples, and the riders, with a few choice remarks to Frampton, went after them. Frampton followed them to the gap, with a few choice retorts. He had enjoyed the scene enormously. He had faced the lot and cowed the lot, and all with an empty gun, which had lain at the ready. He had publicly called Annual-Tilter “a bun-headed ape,” which exactly described him; he had put a poor fox out of his misery, and had won all along the line.
Going home late for lunch, he saw that the news of the scene had come somehow before him. Mrs. Haulover and the maids were looking at him very curiously. Well, let them look, he thought.
“Look, first, at this gun,” he said. “You can bear witness, that all the cartridges in this clip have been fired.”
During that afternoon, the tale of the shooting of the fox went up and down the land; it roused a pretty storm in all that part of Tatshire; nothing else was talked of. The gun-fella at Mullples, whose father had sold cats’-meat-pies in Stanchester, had held up the enure Hunt with a gun, had threatened them all with death, had shot at the Master, and had killed the fox.
Frampton knew that the case would reach the police; he, therefore, drove in to Stubbington Police Station that afternoon, taking his uncleaned gun and the salved corpse of the fox. He made an exact statement of the occurrence, and was able to prove, by one of his workmen, who had been ditching within earshot, that only one shot had been fired and no threat made. Having thus cleared the ground, he waited for the next move. No move came from the other side. He knew that he was loathed by every sportsman in the district; but he took pleasure in that. He liked being loathed; it showed him that he had made them squirm. He had certainly done that.
Some of the charitable said that he was a clever man, perhaps, but quite deranged, because he hadn’t been raised to the peerage. The less charitable said that he was simply a bounder, who behaved like the pie-seller he was. The few, who had read the science gossip in their weekly paper, said that he had an inferiority complex, “which, of course, would make him behave like that.” One knew for a fact that he was sickening for G.P.I. The main body of people said, “The chap’s a bounder,” and wished that one of his beastly guns would go off by accident and blast him into eternity.
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.
“Welclass="underline" 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, pronto and muy muy pronto. Take a letter from me; ‘Dear King, I’m sorry Snipton is so mad, but one man’s folly may be a wise man’s gain. May I have the refusal of your Bronzes? I’m sorry I was out when you called. Miss Pilbrow will arrange matters with you.’ Tell Joe to take that and to wait at King’s studio till he’s given the letter into King’s hand and seen him read it. If King isn’t at the studio, and anyone can tell him where King is, he’d better go on to that place in the taxi. Get Joe off at once.”
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.