“I thought that you ought to see the kind of thing you are going to put on our beautiful old historic bridge,” she said. “Did Mr. Mansell tell you that his bronzes had been forbidden in Snipton?”
“Never a word to us,” Mr. Fist truly said.
He looked once more through the Councillor’s letter. This was what a servant of the public got when he went wading out of his depth in the waters of art. Now there would be a fine old row. Oh, that Old Joe had let the gas lamps stand where the bronzes were to be.
“Something must be done about it,” Laetitia said. “You can’t let a beautiful old bridge like ours be made a dumping ground for rejected statues. Isn’t the bridge an Historical Monument?”
It was, but not in the sense she meant; she could not write to a Society, to bid it wield a bludgeon on Frampton’s head.
“Well,” Old Fist said, “well, my lady, it’s awkward, for we’ve accepted the bronzes, or statues, or bronze statues, from Mr. Mansold; we’ve said we’d be glad to have ’em, and thanked him kindly; we wrote him a pretty letter. And he’s done up the ground for them now; it’s all ready to put them in, or as good as. It’d look so awkward if we were to go back now.”
“I don’t see that. He must have known all along that the things had been rejected by Snipton. He kept it from you. It’s what the Law calls the concealment of a vital fact. He’s made you accept the bronzes on false pretences.”
Old Fist did not agree about the Law, but he felt aggrieved; he felt that he’d been had. And then, there was this statue, or bronze, or bronze statue of King Stubba; they had as good as said they’d like to have that; in fact they had said it; they’d written him another pretty letter. What if King Stubba, too, had been rejected from somewhere? It was a serious matter, being made to look absurd in the Press. The Press would be on to him about it. And the worst was, that the invitations had gone out for the unveiling ceremony; or had they gone? It was just possible that they hadn’t.
“I think it’s exactly like Mr. Mansell,” the lady went on; “the kind of malicious thing he exults in doing. He has a spite against the people here, because they know him for what he is. He has planned this to make the place look absurd. He buys these two bronzes as old metal, and knowingly persuades you to put them up. When they are up, everybody will round upon you to say that you have put up Snipton’s leavings. Depend upon it, he’s laughing in his sleeve at you now. If I were you, I’d write to Mr. Mansell at once, and tell him that Stubbington wants no more of the sweepings from Snipton nor from Mr. Mansell. Tell him to keep his bronzes for himself, and let him lecture his housemaids upon them, which I am told is a way he has.”
Old Fist said that “Circumstances alter cases.” He dwelt with much pleasure on the fact.
“Yes, that is so,” he repeated. “Circumstances do alter cases.”
He was, as she knew, a slow-moving man, but she suspected also, that in this case he did not mean to move; it might well be necessary to goad him.
“Well, it’s very true,” he said. “Circumstances will alter a case.”
“I should think that the suppression of a vital fact would alter people’s opinion of a man,” she said. “If the members of the Council are Englishmen, I should think it would. We are the ratepayers and taxpayers of all this area. We may not be called upon at once to keep up these bronzes. Ultimately we shall. And I think it monstrous that we should have a city’s leavings foisted on us in this way, to be maintained at our cost. But it’s not going to rest like this. Something’s got to be done about it.”
She went out on this, leaving Old Fist perplexed, but yet determined that the old hen what had begun to crow (thus he ungallantly described her), should not have it all her own way. He went across from his office and found that the invitations to the unveiling had not yet been sent out. He told the clerks to hold them. He took his car out over the bridge to see what had been done. He found that the sites had been prepared, one on each side, just where the lamp-posts should have been, but for poor old Joe, who was beginning to fail even then.
Meanwhile Laetitia, in her rage, went home, with the devil at her elbow suggesting poison and daggers in the back. On arrival at her home, she had another scheme. She believed in swiftness of action, “and trebly armed is he, who gets his blow in first.” With the help of the telephone, as well as invaluable introductions, also telephoned, and suggestions from Ponk, she contrived her attack.
The next morning, a London daily paper had a big photograph of the eastward end of King Stubba’s Bridge at Stubbington, under the heading: “Save Us From Our Friends. Another Beauty Spot Threatened.” There was an article beneath this which said that this beautiful bridge, the reputed scene of King Stubba’s victory, was to be used as a base for two bronze figures, lately rejected by the Snipton Town Hall as parts of the Snipton War Memorial. It asked all lovers of the unspoiled countryside to rally to prevent this new act of vandalism, which would bring the fever of modern art into the peace of rural surroundings and the beauty of one of our finest bridges. It said, that as far as could be learned, the Town Council which had accepted the bronzes, had no knowledge of the fact that Snipton had refused to house them. Had they known, nothing would have persuaded them to accept any such gifts. It would be remembered, the writer continued, that the giver of these bronzes was responsible but a few months ago for an agitation in our columns against the proposed desecration of Mullples Hill. That agitation came too late to be of help. Perhaps this article might come in time to prevent Stubba’s old and beautiful bridge from being desecrated with the leavings and rejections of Snipton.
On the other side of the page was a caricature of the two bronzes in place on Stubba’s Bridge, with old King Stubba looking at them. It was a clever caricature, and rather a triumph for the young man who had done it. He had only received the photographs of the bronzes from a Snipton photographer at midnight, and the drawing had gone to press before one.
Frampton was not a subscriber to this London paper; he did not see it that morning; as it happened, he was at his Works, trebly busy with routine and a matter that was not routine. His first knowledge of the article came when a Press man telephoned to him on behalf of some syndicate of papers, to ask if he had anything to say about it. He replied that he had not seen the article and had nothing to say about it. The pressman asked if it were true that Snipton had rejected the statues. He replied:
“What else would you expect Snipton to do with works of genius?”
“Oh, so you consider them works of genius, do you?” the pressman asked.
“Good morning,” Frampton said, and hung up the receiver.
He had much to do that morning, but at lunch-time saw the paper and at once recognised that the moving spirit had been the angry ham.
“Well, I did make her squirm,” he said. “I thought I would. The silly old hen has got busy.”
However, he had much to do, and gave no more thought to the matter, except that he registered the fact that she had some sort of access to the Press. An occasional feud or quarrel was nothing to him; he had lots of such things at all times; but a quarrel bulked big in Laetitia’s life; she made the most of each one while it lasted. He did not suspect the depth of the rage he had kindled in her. While he brooded on his daily task of making it easy for his countrymen to kill their foes, she in Weston Mullples prepared her second attack. Armed with copies of the newspaper containing “Save Us From Our Friends,” she set forth to Stubbington. She called on Old Fist and gave him his copy. He already had one. She then gave a copy to each member of the Council. After this, she contrived that Ponk should say something in the Tatchester Times; then she descended on the Stubbington Gazette. Harold had gone now; he was in his new office, enjoying himself. She found in his stead a young man who was very happy to be in charge just at the moment when fate had made Stubbington a part of the London news.