Wilfrid Cumbermede by George MacDonald (desktop ebook reader txt) 📕

this mystery? Why not have told me what you wanted me to go for?'

'I will why you in turn. Why should I have wanted to show you now more than any other time what I have known for as many years almost as you have lived? You spoke of a ride-why shouldn't I give a direction to it that might pay you for your trouble? And why shouldn't I have a little amusement out of it if I pleased? Why shouldn't I enjoy your surprise at finding in a place you had hardly heard of, and would certainly count most uninteresting, the record of a fact that concerned your own existence so nearly? There!'

'I confess it interests me more than you will easily think-inasmuch as it seems to offer to account for things that have greatly puzzled me for some time. I have of late met with several hints of a connection at one time or other between the Moat and the Hall, but these hints were so isolated that I could weave no theory to connect them. Now I dare say they will clear themselves up.'

'Not a doubt of-that, if you set about it in earnest.'

'How did he come to drop his surname?'

'That has to be accounted for.'

'It follows-does it not?-that I am of the same blood as the present possessors of Moldwarp Hall?'

'You are-but the relation is not a close one,' said Mr Coningham.

'Sir Giles was but distantly related to the stock of which you come.'

'Then-but I must turn it over in my mind. I am rather in a maze.'

'You have got some papers at the Moat?' he said-interrogatively.

'Yes; my friend Osborne has been looking over them. He found out this much-that there was once some connection between the Moat and the Hall, but at a far earlier date than this points to, or any of the hints to which I just now referred. The other day, when I dined at Sir Giles's, Mr Alderforge said that Cumbermede was a name belonging to Sir Giles's ancestry-or something to that effect; but that again could have had nothing to do with those papers, or with the Moat at all.'

Here I stopped, for I could not bring myself to refer to the sword. It was not merely that the subject was too painful: of all things I did not want to be cross-questioned by my lawyer-companion.

'It is not amongst those you will find anything of importance, I suspect. Did your great-grandmother-the same, no doubt, whose marriage is here registered-leave no letters or papers behind her?'

'I've come upon a few letters. I don't know if there is anything more.'

'You haven't read them, apparently.'

'I have not. I've been always going to read them, but I haven't opened one of them yet.'

'Then I recommend you-that is, if you care for an interesting piece of family history-to read those letters carefully, that is constructively.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean-putting two and two together, and seeing what comes of it; trying to make everything fit into one, you know.'

'Yes. I understand you. But how do you happen to know that those letters contain a history, or that it will prove interesting when I have found it?'

'All family history ought to be interesting-at least to the last of his race,' he returned, replying only to the latter half of my question.' It must, for one thing, make him feel his duty to his ancestors more strongly.'

'His duty to marry, I suppose you mean?' I said with some inward bitterness. 'But to tell the truth, I don't think the inheritance worth it in my case.'

'It might be better,' he said, with an expression which seemed odd beside the simplicity of the words.

'Ah! you think then to urge me to make money; and for the sake of my dead ancestors increase the inheritance of those that may come after me? But I believe I am already as diligent as is good for me-that is, in the main, for I have been losing time of late.'

'I meant no such thing, Mr Cumbermede. I should be very doubtful whether any amount of success in literature would enable you to restore the fortunes of your family.'

'Were they so very ponderous, do you think? But in truth I have little ambition of that sort. All I will readily confess to is a strong desire not to shirk what work falls to my share in the world.'

'Yes,' he said, in a thoughtful manner-'if one only knew what his share of the work was.'

The remark was unexpected, and I began to feel a little more interest in him.

'Hadn't you better take a copy of that entry?' he said.

'Yes-perhaps I had. But I have no materials.'

It did not strike me that attorneys do not usually, like excise-men, carry about an ink-bottle, when he drew one from the breast-pocket of his coat, along with a folded sheet of writing-paper, which he opened and spread out on the desk. I took the pen he offered me, and copied the entry.

When I had finished, he said-

'Leave room under it for the attestation of the parson. We can get that another time, if necessary. Then write, "Copied by me"-and then your name and the date. It may be useful some time. Take it home and lay it with your grandmother's papers.'

'There can be no harm in that,' I said, as I folded it up, and put it in my pocket. 'I am greatly obliged to you for bringing me here, Mr Coningham. Though I am not ambitious of restoring the family to a grandeur of which every record has departed, I am quite sufficiently interested in its history, and shall consequently take care of this document.'

'Mind you read your grandmother's papers, though,' he said.

'I will,' I answered.

He replaced the volume on the shelf, and we left the church; he locked the door and replaced the key under the gravestone; we mounted our horses, and after riding with me about half the way to the Moat, he took his leave at a point where our roads, diverged. I resolved to devote that very evening, partly in the hope of distracting my thoughts, to the reading of my grandmother's letters.


CHAPTER XLVI.


MY FOLIO.

When I reached home I found Charley there, as I had expected.

But a change had again come over him. He was nervous, restless, apparently anxious. I questioned him about his mother and sister. He had met them as planned, and had, he assured me, done his utmost to impress them with the truth concerning me. But he had found his mother incredulous, and had been unable to discover from her how much she had heard; while Mary maintained an obstinate silence, and, as he said, looked more stupid than usual. He did not tell me that Clara had accompanied them so far, and that he had walked with her back to the entrance of the park. This I heard afterwards. When we had talked a while over the sword-business-for we could not well keep off it long-Charley seeming all the time more uncomfortable than ever, he said, perhaps merely to turn the talk into a more pleasant channel-

By the way, where have you put your folio? I've been looking for it ever since I came in, but I can't find it. A new reading started up in my head the other day, and I want to try it both with the print and the context.'

'It's in my room,' I answered, 'I will go and fetch it.'

'We will go together,' he said.

I looked where I thought I had laid it, but there it was not. A pang of foreboding terror invaded me. Charley told me afterwards that I turned as white as a sheet. I looked everywhere, but in vain; ran and searched my uncle's room, and then Charley's, but still in vain; and at last, all at once, remembered with certainty that two nights before I had laid it on the window-sill in my uncle's room. I shouted for Styles, but he was gone home with the mare, and I had to wait, in little short of agony, until he returned. The moment he entered I began to question him.

'You took those books home, Styles?' I said, as quietly as I could, anxious not to startle him, lest it should interfere with the just action of his memory.

'Yes, sir. I took them at once, and gave them into Miss Pease's own hands;-at least I suppose it was Miss Pease. She wasn't a young lady, sir.'

'All right, I dare say. How many were there of them?'

'Six, sir.'

'I told you five,' I said, trembling with apprehension and wrath.

'You said four or five, and I never thought but the six were to go. They were all together on the window-sill.'

I stood speechless. Charley took up the questioning.

'What sized books were they?' he asked.

'Pretty biggish-one of them quite a large one-the same I've seen you, gentlemen, more than once, putting your heads together over. At least it looked like it.'

'Charley started up and began pacing about the room. Styles saw he had committed some dreadful mistake, and began a blundering expression of regret, but neither of us took any notice of him, and he crept out in dismay.

It was some time before either of us could utter a word. The loss of the sword was a trifle to this. Beyond a doubt the precious tome was now lying in the library of Moldwarp Hall-amongst old friends and companions, possibly-where years on years might elapse before one loving hand would open it, or any eyes gaze on it with reverence.

'Lost, Charley!' I said at last.-'Irrecoverably lost!'

'I will go and fetch it,' he cried, starting up. 'I will tell Clara to bring it out to me. It is beyond endurance this. Why should you not go and claim what both of us can take our oath to as yours?'

'You forget, Charley, how the sword-affair cripples us-and how the claiming of this volume would only render their belief with regard to the other the more probable. You forget, too, that I might have placed it in the chest first, and, above all, that the name on the title-page is the same as the initials on the blade of the sword,-the same as my own.'

'Yes-I see it won't do. And yet if I were to represent the thing to Sir Giles?-He doesn't care for old books--'

'You forget again, Charley, that the volume is of great money-value. Perhaps my late slip has made me fastidious; but though the book be mine-and if I had it, the proof of the contrary would lie with them-I could not take advantage of Sir Giles's ignorance to recover it.'

'I might, however, get Clara-she is a favourite with him, you know-'

'I will not hear of it,' I said, interrupting him, and he was forced to yield.

'No, Charley,' I said again; 'I must just bear it. Harder things have been borne, and men have got through the world and out of it notwithstanding. If there isn't another world, why should we care much for the loss of what must go with the rest?-and if there is, why should we care at all?'

'Very fine, Wilfrid! but when you come to