How good William had been about it all! A real consolation and support in his troubles, and willing, as he was able, to lift even the money burden of them from him. He blamed himself for having shown the irritability that had grown upon him, under the stress he had gone through, towards his brother. It was a poor return for what he had been so ready to do for him, to make a mountain out of that little molehill of irritation over Barton's Close. But William would not make too much of that. Perhaps the very best way to show him that it had been only a surface irritation, which did not affect the permanent tie of affection between them, would be to accept the help that he had so freely offered. Only pride had held him back, and that had prevented him from even acknowledging the generosity of the offer. He had simply put it aside. With that burden removed, scarcely any trouble would remain to him at all. He had already everything that was necessary to his own life for the remainder of his years. It was only upon Cynthia and the children that the economies which now had to be practised bore hardly. With this relief, which it was open to him to take at any time, he could give them more—if not all that he would have been able to give them but for the war. And he knew that William would be pleased if he were to go to him and say that he would accept his help. It would bind them together still more closely, for it would mean the merging of pride in affection.
He saw it all in that moment of enlightenment and softer feeling, and lingered on his way back to the house to taste the serener air which his vision brought him. His well-loved home would be a source of delight to him once more, and no longer a source of anxiety, if he were to take the freedom that he could have at any time by a word of surrender. He looked about him before he entered the house, and the sunshine that steeped the wide spaces of the park seemed brighter and lovelier than before. There had lain a veil over the beauties of his home. But it only needed a gesture of his to have it removed altogether.
The parlour-maid met him as he went into the hall. "Mr. Coombe, Sir William's gardener, would like to see you, sir."
He went into his business room, where the man was waiting for him.
"I've had this telegram from Sir William, sir."
He handed over the pink sheet, and stood respectfully, cap in hand, while Colonel Eldridge read it. But his eyes rested upon him with an expression that had nothing pleasant in it.
"Stop work on new garden at once; pay outside labourers week's wages and dismiss them."
Colonel Eldridge's eyes, resting upon the paper, remained there longer than it required to take in its meaning. Coming immediately upon the thoughts with which his mind had been full, they gave him an unpleasant shock, the effect of which he could not entirely hide from the man who had administered it to him.
"There's a mistake," he said shortly. "I never intended that the work should be stopped."
Coombe did not take this up. "I've come to ask, sir," he said, "if anything can be done about the men I got in to help with the work. I had a good deal of difficulty in finding them, and I told them it was likely to be at least a two months' job. Sir William said I could count it as that. They're mostly men who've been in the army—unemployed. There's dissatisfaction among them, and I—"