No. They had had that out once, years before, in their father's time. Edmund Eldridge was at home on leave from the Curragh, and William on summer vacation from Cambridge. They were driving over to lunch at Pershore Castle, and William appeared for the expedition in a pair of lemon-coloured spats, a form of decorative summer attire then in its infancy. The cavalry subaltern, spick and span in a style of sober correctitude, objected to the lemon-coloured spats, and used the same word, vulgarity, in connection with them; and the undergraduate bowed meekly to his ruling and took them off.
Better leave it at that, though. He had said quite enough to bring William to his bearings, and relieved his own mind of the annoyance that had irked it. It was with quite another feeling underlying his words that he went on to write about the estate affairs in which he was relying upon William's help to deal with the Government. But this was not a matter in which there could be much indication of any state of feeling, unless it was annoyance with the obliquity of the Department concerned; and his letter ended as his letters to William always did, whatever their subject: "Your affec. brother, Edmund Eldridge."
He read the letter over again before dispatching it, but did not detach himself from the varying moods in which it had been written, and when Mrs. Eldridge asked him later what he had said to William, he told her that he had just said that it would be a mistake to enlarge the Grange garden any further, and had written chiefly about another matter.
"You didn't say that he mustn't make this enlargement, did you, dear?" she asked.
"Oh, no. He can go on with that, as he has begun it. I must say that I think it will be the best thing that he has done there. I can't say that I like to see the pasture broken up, but there's been such a lot of it during the war that perhaps it's not so much of a point as it was. One seems to have to change one's views about everything nowadays. I dare say I'm a bit old-fashioned. Got to recognize that I'm getting older, I suppose."
"Dear man!" she said cooingly. "You'll never be old to me, and you don't look old either. Of the two I think you look younger than William, though he pays more attention to his appearance than you do. I hope I don't look very old myself. I don't really feel it. Still, women have to pay attention to their appearance when they reach the forties. Otherwise, people would leave off looking at them. Eleanor doesn't, much; but she's handsome in a different sort of way. I should think she would outlast me; but I shan't make a fuss about it. I love Eleanor; she's so reliable. I'm glad you don't really mind their having their extra garden, dear. It will suit Eleanor better than all the tiresome pergolas and things. She will be able to be quiet in it."