He hesitated at the word. "William may call it quarrelling," he said. "I suppose it is just a quarrel to him. I shouldn't admit that I quarrelled. He got very excited, and I didn't. That's the plain truth. I didn't feel excited; I felt very sad."
"My poor old darling!" she said tenderly. "It's too bad of William, with all the troubles you have had on you."
He went on, in the same quiet, unemotional voice: "I accepted his good will. Yes, I did that, though his way of expressing it was distasteful to me. But I said that I didn't want the cause of complaint set aside like that. I thought that the reasons I had given against the extra garden-making were sound; but they didn't override other considerations and I should prefer it to go on. That didn't seem to suit him. In the mood he was in, I suppose he didn't want me to be the one to make concessions. But I rather think, from something he let fall, that he has something new on hand to interest him, and the garden plan means nothing to him now; or at any rate that he would rather give it up, on the grounds of giving way to me, than go on with it because I have given way to him. That's one of the ways in which his money has spoilt him. When a man has a lot of money, and doesn't care for just piling it up, he's always looking about for ways of spending it; and the last way he has found is all important to him, until he finds another one; then his interest in it goes. I'm sure that's how it is with William. But I was firm about it. 'It may not interest you now as much as it did,' I said; 'but the way in which it has been thrown over will reflect upon me, if it is given up altogether. For one thing, there's Barton's Close already cut up, and you can't leave it like that. You must either go on with the work or put it back as it was. It has been put about that I stopped the work, unreasonably; and the men who were doing it are now working for me. If you want to do justice to me, you'll remove all that talk, and you can only do it by going on. When the road has been mended,' I said, 'you can take on that extra labour again, and get all the digging and so on done in time to plant!'"
"Did he make any fuss about the men being taken on for the drive?"
"It was one of the things that he had put aside, with a wave of the hand, as if I had done something that I ought not to have done, but he would overlook it with the rest. That was why I mentioned it. I wasn't going to justify myself about it, but I said: 'The men wouldn't have gone straight back to work for you after being sent away; but they will when the time comes, if I talk to them.' He didn't quite like that either. He was gradually losing his position as being entirely in the right, but giving way because it wasn't worth while to come up against me in something that didn't matter. It does matter, and I was determined not to close it up on those terms.
"At last he agreed to go on, but by that time he had lost a good deal of his—what shall I say?—expansive manner, and gave in grudgingly. Then he was for going home, and if it could have been settled at that, there would have been an end of the affair. I had left Coombe out of it until then, for I didn't want it complicated by something that I thought would probably be new to him altogether. I said: 'There's one thing, William, that I must ask you to do and that is to send Coombe about his business. If it hadn't been for him the work would have been going on now. You can easily satisfy yourself about that,' I said, 'and I don't press it. But Coombe spoke of me openly with the grossest impertinence, and in a way that you would have resented just as much as if you had heard it. I've held my hand,' I said; 'I left it till you came down. But something has got to be done about it now.'"
"You didn't tell me, dear, that you were going to say that Coombe must be sent away."
"I didn't talk to you much about Coombe, did I? I took it for granted that William would dismiss him when he knew what sort of man he was. Servants may talk about you behind your back, and I dare say most of them do. But when it is brought to your notice you can't shut your eyes to it. If I had heard one of mine speaking of William in the way that fellow spoke of me, I should have sent him about his business in double-quick time, however useful he was to me."
"Did William refuse to do it?"
"He haggled about it. He had always found Coombe perfectly respectful. Surely I was mistaken. He couldn't have said what he was reported to have said. If I showed annoyance at all perhaps I showed it then; but I had myself in hand. I knew that if I got into the excited state that he was beginning to get into then, it was all up. Besides, I was determined that he should get rid of Coombe. For one thing, it will be a sort of test of his sincerity, for I don't deny that it will be of some inconvenience to him. Coombe is a good gardener, and they are not so easy to get now. But it's a monstrous idea that a man who has openly shown his hand in that way should be kept in the place. It would have a bad effect all round. William ought to be able to see that, and I told him so."