‘Well, Charley, what are you finding there?’ I asked.
‘Proof perhaps that you come of an older family than you think,’ he answered; ‘proof certainly that some part at least of the Moldwarp property was at one time joined to the Moat, and that you are of the same stock, a branch of which was afterwards raised to the present baronetage. At least I have little doubt such is the case, though I can hardly say I am yet prepared to prove it.’
‘You don’t mean I’m of the same blood as--as Geoffrey Brotherton!’ I said. ‘I would rather not, if it’s the same to you, Charley.’
‘I can’t help it: that’s the way things point,’ he answered, throwing down the parchment. ‘But I can’t read more now. Let’s go and have a walk. I’ll stop at home to-morrow and take a look over the whole set.’
[Illustration: “Well. Charley. What are you finding there?” I asked.]
‘No, you won’t. You’ll go and get on with your library. I shall do better alone. If I could only get a peep at the Moldwarp chest as well!’
‘But the place may have been bought and sold many times. Just look here, though,’ I said, as I showed him the crest on my watch and seal. ‘Mind you look at the top of your spoon the next time you eat soup at the Hall.’
‘That is unnecessary, quite. I recognise the crest at once. How strangely these cryptographs come drifting along the tide, like the gilded ornaments of a wreck after the hull has gone down!’
‘Or, like the mole or squint that re-appears in successive generations, the legacy of some long-forgotten ancestor,’ I said--and several things unexplained occurred to me as possibly having a common solution.
‘I find, however,’ said Charley, ‘that the name of Cumbermede is not mentioned in your papers more than about a hundred years back--as far as I have yet made out.’
‘That is odd,’ I returned, ‘seeing that in the same chest we find that book with my name, surname and Christian, and the date 1630.’
‘It is strange,’ he acquiesced, ‘and will perhaps require a somewhat complicated theory to meet it.’
We began to talk of other matters, and, naturally enough, soon came to Clara.
Charley was never ready to talk of her--indeed, avoided the subject in a way that continued to perplex me.
‘I confess to you, Charley,’ I said, ‘there is something about her I do not and cannot understand. It seems to me always as if she were--I will not say underhand--but as if she had some object in view--some design upon you--’