Not till three o'clock that Saturday did the Bigwigs begin to come.
Lord and Lady Britto first from Erne by car; then Sir Gerald and Lady Malloring, also by car from Joyfields; an early afternoon train brought three members of the Lower House, who liked a round of golf--Colonel Martlett, Mr. Sleesor, and Sir John Fanfar--with their wives; also Miss Bawtrey, an American who went everywhere; and Moorsome, the landscape-painter, a short, very heavy man who went nowhere, and that in almost perfect silence, which he afterward avenged. By a train almost sure to bring no one else came Literature in Public Affairs, alone, Henry Wiltram, whom some believed to have been the very first to have ideas about the land.
He was followed in the last possible train by Cuthcott, the advanced editor, in his habitual hurry, and Lady Maude Ughtred in her beauty. Clara was pleased, and said to Stanley, while dressing, that almost every shade of opinion about the land was represented this week-end. She was not, she said, afraid of anything, if she could keep Henry Wiltram and Cuthcott apart. The House of Commons men would, of course, be all right. Stanley assented: "They'll be 'fed up' with talk. But how about Britto--he can sometimes be very nasty, and Cuthcott's been pretty rough on him, in his rag."
Clara had remembered that, and she was putting Lady Maude on one side of Cuthcott, and Moorsome on the other, so that he would be quite safe at dinner, and afterward--Stanley must look out!
"What have you done with Nedda?" Stanley asked.
"Given her to Colonel Martlett, with Sir John Fanfar on the other side; they both like something fresh." She hoped, however, to foster a discussion, so that they might really get further this week-end; the opportunity was too good to throw away.
"H'm!" Stanley murmured. "Felix said some very queer things the other night. He, too, might make ructions."
Oh, no!--Clara persisted--Felix had too much good taste. She thought that something might be coming out of this occasion, something as it were national, that would bear fruit. And watching Stanley buttoning his braces, she grew enthusiastic. For, think how splendidly everything was represented! Britto, with his view that the thing had gone too far, and all the little efforts we might make now were no good, with Canada and those great spaces to outbid anything we could do; though she could not admit that he was right, there was a lot in what he said; he had great gifts--and some day might--who knew? Then there was Sir John--Clara pursued--who was almost the father of the new Tory policy: Assist the farmers to buy their own land. And Colonel Martlett, representing the older Tory policy of: What the devil would happen to the landowners if they did? Secretly (Clara felt sure) he would never go into a lobby to support that. He had said to her: 'Look at my brother James's property; if we bring this policy in, and the farmers take advantage, his house might stand there any day without an acre round it.' Quite true--it might. The same might even happen to Becket.
Stanley grunted.
Exactly!--Clara went on: And that was the beauty of having got the Mallorings; theirs was such a steady point of view, and she was not sure that they weren't right, and the whole thing really a question of model proprietorship.
"H'm!" Stanley muttered. "Felix will have his knife into that."
Clara did not think that mattered. The thing was to get everybody's opinion. Even Mr. Moorsome's would be valuable--if he weren't so terrifically silent, for he must think a lot, sitting all day, as he did, painting the land.
"He's a heavy ass," said Stanley.
Yes; but Clara did not wish to be narrow. That was why it was so splendid to have got Mr. Sleesor. If anybody knew the Radical mind he did, and he could give full force to what one always felt was at the bottom of it--that the Radicals' real supporters were the urban classes; so that their policy must not go too far with 'the Land,' for fear of seeming to neglect the towns. For, after all, in the end it was out of the pockets of the towns that 'the Land' would have to be financed, and nobody really could expect the towns to get anything out of it. Stanley paused in the adjustment of his tie; his wife was a shrewd woman.
"You've hit it there," he said. "Wiltram will give it him hot on that, though."
Of course, Clara assented. And it was magnificent that they had got Henry Wiltram, with his idealism and his really heavy corn tax; not caring what happened to the stunted products of the towns--and they truly were stunted, for all that the Radicals and the half-penny press said--till at all costs we could grow our own food.
There was a lot in that.
"Yes," Stanley muttered, "and if he gets on to it, shan't I have a jolly time of it in the smoking-room? I know what Cuthcott's like with his shirt out."
Clara's eyes brightened; she was very curious herself to see Mr. Cuthcott with his--that is, to hear him expound the doctrine he was always writing up, namely, that 'the Land' was gone and, short of revolution, there was nothing for it but garden cities. She had heard he was so cutting and ferocious that he really did seem as if he hated his opponents. She hoped he would get a chance--perhaps Felix could encourage him.
"What about the women?" Stanley asked suddenly. "Will they stand a political powwow? One must think of them a bit."
Clara had. She was taking a farewell look at herself in the far-away mirror through the door into her bedroom. It was a mistake--she added--to suppose that women were not interested in 'the Land.'
Lady Britto was most intelligent, and Mildred Malloring knew every cottage on her estate.
"Pokes her nose into 'em often enough," Stanley muttered.
