Ferrers shrugged his shoulders, and yielded, in his usual fashion, to the influence of the moment. “I should be delighted, but how is it to be managed? Lady Haigh watches over her like a dragon when I am there.”
“I will undertake Lady Haigh if you will seize your opportunity. Penelope is unhappy in her present anomalous position, I am certain. She distinctly gave me the impression that she had thought you unkind and neglectful. Of course I defended you as best I could, but you should have been there to speak for yourself.”
“But I thought it was Penelope’s own wish that I should keep my distance?”
“So I thought,” was the troubled answer; “but now I think it might have been better if you had not held aloof quite so much. I may have mistaken her—I was so anxious to bring you together again that I would have agreed to almost any terms.” Ferrers laughed involuntarily, but Colin’s forehead was puckered with anxiety. “Perhaps you should have refused to take her at her word——”
“Or at your word,” suggested Ferrers.
“Well, perhaps if you had been more eager, refused to be kept at a distance in this way, she might have liked it better. Women seem to find some moral support in an engagement, somehow——”
“What a young Solon you are, Colin! Well, give me a lead at the right moment, and I’ll play up to it. So poor little Pen is miserable, is she?”
“She is not happy, and she won’t talk about you. She must think you have treated her badly—don’t you agree with me? I daresay she has the idea that I might have helped her more. I hope it will be all right now, and that I am not wrong in——”
“Oh, look here, Colin, don’t trot out that conscience of yours,” said Ferrers, with rough good-nature. “We’re going to put things right, at any rate, and you can’t quarrel with what you’ve done yourself,” and Colin consented to leave the subject. He was honestly anxious to do what was best for his sister, with an unconscious mental reservation in favour of what he thought was best; and the barrier which the last few months had raised between Penelope and himself was a real grief to him. Penelope had learnt to carry her burden alone. Colin could not understand why it should be a burden at all, and she could not confide in Lady Haigh without seeming to accuse Colin. Her sole comfort hitherto had been that Ferrers made no attempt to enforce what she regarded as his threats in the message sent by Colin, and she looked forward to Christmas-week with absolute dread. She hoped desperately that he might still hold aloof; but this hope was destined to be shattered as soon as he reached Alibad.
Colin brought him up immediately to pay his respects to Lady Haigh, who still held her court in the fort, for at the very beginning of the rains one of the newly built houses had subsided by slow degrees into its original mud, and Major Keeling would not allow the ladies to move until the others had been tested and strengthened. Lady Haigh’s policy was unchanged, it was evident. She kept the conversation general, and made it clear that she would remain on guard over Penelope until Ferrers was safely off the premises. But Colin had come prepared to throw himself heroically into the breach.