“Look here, King,” he said, “the Stubbington gang have turned down the bronzes, and I’ve withdrawn the Stubba from them. But I want you to go on with Stubba. I’m going to put in my new gas-plant in a model village in the wood above my house. I want you to let me have Stubba for the centre of things. I want to put your two Griefs, one on each side of this approach on the plan. In between, I want an inspired figure. I want you to get busy on it at once. It is a fine site, and as you can see from Rolly’s drawings, the building will be pretty good. In the meantime, I’ve been to the Sculptors’ Galleries in Bond Street, and taken them for June and the first half of July. I want to have a Faringdon show there, and you’ve got to help me. We’ll have all your bronzes and studies; the Griefs’ll go in the big room; and you must let me have the drawings for the Stubba and so forth. Then, I’ve got a good chap to write you up in the catalogue; and we’ll get some good reproductions in the catalogue, too. We have time to make the catalogue a collector’s piece. You’re ripe, as old Haulover used to say. The next step with you will be a wild success. And this show is going to be the next step. Don’t think of Snipton and Stubbington. You’ll have all the capitals of the world to choose from after June.”
He put life into Faringdon by this. He put life into the direction of the show. He put life into the beginnings of his model factory. In odd moments, when he was not driving himself, he used to say: “You can’t put life into yourself.” That was true. He seemed to be dead within. A few old loyalties to artists in poverty, the symbol to him of the art-starved England he longed to change, and a few old hatreds of all that had starved his England, alone seemed to keep him going; the rest was routine.
But lest his enemies should think that they had won the battle, he contrived to buy three big pastures stretching from Spirr towards Weston Mullples. On these fields, the farthest of which was in view of the windows of Coombe, he determined to build. He did not yet know what he would build.
“A Buddhist Temple would be a good thing,” he thought. “That’d make ’em squirm.”
But he meant to place there some memorial to Margaret when he could decide. He thought often of the Buddhist temple, for the story of Buddha meant much to him. He thought that a big notice board on the field, where the angry-ham would see it twenty times a day, would be something to the good, so he had one placed there, with the announcement:
That made ’em squirm indeed. There were letters to the Press and anonymous letters in the post. Pob and his friends got busy at once; but Frampton had foreseen their attack. The notice-board was on iron framings and was itself treated with barbed wires and a preparation known as Tikklo. He found a few days later some very fine fragments of tweed on the wires, and learned that Pob had gone to the doctor for an irritation of the skin. Tikklo had done its work. It had made him squirm.
In the middle of May the War Memorial was unveiled in Stubbington. Frampton had not asked about its progress, but had heard that it was being done. He was very busy with his building schemes, and did not see the Memorial till it had been ten days in place. Being then in Stubbington, he went to see it. The flags had been removed and the flowers had withered; the mean design looked at its meanest; and little boys had already put their marks upon the open marble page. There were forty-five wreaths at the foot of the prie dieu. He read the inscriptions on three: “To Bert from Mum,” “Alf from Daisy,” “Joe from a pal.” They struck him to the heart. Bert, Alf and Joe had been fine fellows, deserving a better thing than this noble book. Surely something could be done to show the Stubbington people that art could lay something lovelier than this at the shrine of the honoured dead? He had a fine collection of modern work; why should he not show it and talk about it, and get eminent critics down to talk of it? He could hang the best of his collection in the theatre and lecture to people about it every Sunday afternoon. He determined to do this.
Before he could prepare this work, the Faringdon exhibition began at the Sculptors’ Gallery. It happened that the Stubbington rejection, coming so soon after the Snipton refusal, had brought a great deal of attention upon Faringdon’s work. Faringdon was now news, he was arriviste, he was the idol of Little London; those who did not think him “simpy too marvous” were nowhere. The exhibition was a great success. It was well attended and well-noticed by the Press; people came to it in numbers; all the drawings and studies which were for sale were sold. The edition de luxe of the catalogue has sold since then for ten times its original price.
Among the exhibits were some drawings and wax sketches of the King Stubba. During the exhibition, an Australian from Stubbington, in Victoria, asked if he might have a replica of the bronze, when finished, to put up in the central square there. The new Stubbington had been founded by a settler from the Tatshire Stubbington, a century before; the bronze would be a link the more with the parent town.
This fact was made known to the Press by Frampton; press-cuttings were later sent to the Stubbington Town Council. Just before the exhibition closed, a big London Gallery begged to be allowed to show the Griefs until the autumn. Frampton gladly lent them.
He was happy at the results of his thought. He had made Faringdon’s name now, won him a good commission, and made the Stubbington Town Council to feel exceeding small. One paper had said that it was monstrous that creatures with less art-feeling than potatoes should have the power to refuse masterpieces when offered by one of great public spirit and generosity, such as Mr. Mansell of Mullples. This particular cutting Frampton posted to each member of the offending Council marked in red ink with his own hand.
Immediately the show was over, he arranged another exhibition in the theatre at Mullples; twenty of his best paintings and seventy of his drawings were hung there, with a couple of screens of Timothy Copshrew’s studies of birds. Naunton and Tenor Cobb came down to speak about their work, and invitations were sent to those whom Frampton felt likely to wish to come. Most of these were shopkeepers and shop-assistants in the Stubbington and Tatchester shops, and builders and carpenters working at St. Margaret’s. About forty people came for the opening day. After the talks, Frampton gave them all tea, and sent them away happy. He made a little speech, to say that the exhibition would be open on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, from two till six, during the summertime. He said that he hoped that the members of a local Town Council, referred to lately in the London Press as having less art-feeling than potatoes, would leap at the chance of getting even with the spud at any rate. His words were reported, as such words will be, “with advantages.”
Soon after this, there came the anniversary of Margaret’s death, which was a sad time for him.
During the rest of the summer he made occasional changes in the exhibition, and added to it cases of examples of prints and book-illustration. On Sundays, he contrived to have talks by artists there. It was not well attended at first; in August, as the holidays drew to an end, people began to come to it; and in September fifty or sixty would come in one afternoon.
Early in September he went up to St. Margarets with his old father, whom he had net seen for some time. The old man shrewdly judged that his son’s settlement at Mullples had roused him some enemies; he knew how his son enjoyed putting people’s backs up, and how this unwisdom tempered his excellences of energy and insight. He regretted Margaret’s death more than he could say.
“You see,” Frampton said, “this place will be the centre of the community; a hall, where they can gather for lectures, or plays or gym. I’m putting Faringdon’s two Griefs there, and in the middle Faringdon will have a figure of Margaret; he has done some good sketches. But it is all tommyrot trying to make a decent village in this land. It’s like trying to make an ear of corn grow roots instead of the other way about. Only yesterday a man at my show said: ‘I’m told you have a theatre here on the premises, Mr. Mansell. May I see it, please?’ I told him he was in it; that that was the theatre. ‘Oh; what? This? I thought this was a billiard-room or so forth, made over for the occasion.’ They’re used to having a room in a house for a game; they’ve no thought of having a room for an art, or one of the crafts. I’m going to try a real exhibition in Stubbington in the autumn, something that’ll make the London critics take notice. And if that ham woman gives another concert, I’ll give a real one, to show them what’s the truth, her shabby old pretence, or something with some guts in it.”