Chapter 463 The Mysterious Photo Album
Upon seeing her enter, Charles felt that if he did not go in, he was not manly enough. After taking a deep breath, he shivered and followed Sonia into the old manor. As the old manor had not been inhabited for a long time, it was completely covered with cobwebs and dust while looking exactly like a haunted mansion in movies. Thus, it was no wonder that he had wondered about ghosts.
It was after Sonia wiped a handful of dust off the table that she thought of something.
“Baby.” His voice sounded behind her.
She patted the dust off her hands, then asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Where are your grandfather’s notes?” He was holding a broom that he found from somewhere and waved it while asking.
While pointing in the direction of the study, she answered, “It’s over there, but it’s way too dirty here. Let’s clean this place up first before searching for the notes later.”
“Yeah, we should do some cleaning; otherwise, there’s no way to stay here tonight.” Charles nodded in agreement.
Thus, Sonia opened her suitcase and took out from it a few towels that she brought. “Let’s get started then.”
“Okay, you wipe the tables and chairs while I’ll remove the cobwebs and sweep the floor,” he said as he stopped waving the broom.
“Sounds like a plan,” she concurred. “I’ll go to the well to get some water.”
Upon saying that, she took the towel and went to the backyard where there was an old well full of water all year round.
Soon, the two began to work for hours on end; it wasn’t until 4:00PM that they were done with cleaning the large place. They were now bone-tired and lay on the respective benches to rest.
Charles gasped, “Baby, t-this is the first time I’ve done so much cleaning in my life. I’m exhausted.”
“Sorry Charles. You did well, so I will make some delicious treats for you later.” Sonia was also drained and couldn’t stop panting.
He nodded as his eyes brightened. “Okay. I want to eat fish, though. Is there any fish here?”
“Yes.” She sat up straight and rubbed her sore back. “There is a village nearby, and there’s also fish at the village head’s house. A few years ago, I even went to buy some from there, so I’ll just head there later to buy it.”
“That would be great.” He happily clapped his hands.
Then, Sonia stood up. “Charles, why don’t you make the bed first? I’ll head to Grandpa’s study to look for the notes.”
“Sure.” Charles looked at the room she pointed at. It seemed that tonight, he would stay in that room. “So, baby, which room will you sleep in?”
He turned to look at her and offered, “I’ll make your bed as well.”
As she thought his offer sounded alright, she pointed to the room opposite his. “That’s the one. That’s the room I used to sleep in.”
“Okay then.” Charles clapped his hands before he carried his suitcase over.
As for her, she also didn’t delay things and went straight to the old man’s study. The study had just been cleaned, which was why it was spotless and clean. She came to the desk and began to search for the notes. Since the document was not difficult to locate, she managed to find it in the second drawer. After flipping through it to confirm that it was the one Leonard had asked her to get, she closed it and was ready to shut the drawer before leaving. However, just as she was doing so, she suddenly spotted something interesting inside.
“Is this a photo album?” Sonia saw a pink photo album that was underneath the notes and couldn’t help but reach out to take it out. The album was small and only palm-sized, but it was voluminous. What really aroused her curiosity was that she had never seen this album before.
Before she married Toby, she would live here for a short period of time each year, so she knew everything about the country house. There were several photo albums in the old manor that she had seen, but not this one. Just by looking at the condition of the album, she could discern that it was an extremely old one. In fact, it was probably more than 10 years old, so it was impossible for it to be a recent addition. An album of this condition would require more than 6 years for time to inflict its damage, so it didn’t make sense that her grandfather would place it in the drawer within the last couple of years. Rather, the truth was that this photo album had already existed more than 10 years ago and it had always been here. It was just that she never knew about it.
Suddenly, Sonia thought of something and was startled by it. She remembered that every time she came to the country house, she could go anywhere and search for anything, but whenever she entered Leonard’s study, he would instruct her not to open this particular drawer of his desk, as if there was something there that he didn’t want her to see.
Since the album was in this drawer in addition to the notes, he probably didn’t want her to see it. As for how she knew it wasn’t the notes that he refused to let her see, it was because she had seen all of his other archaeological notes; he definitely wouldn’t have minded her looking at the notes. Thus, the only thing he didn’t want her to look at was the said album. What exactly was inside that he withheld the item from her?
Her gaze fell on the photo album that she held in her right hand as her heart began to race.
In the end, her innermost curiosity overcame her reasoning. She bit her lower lip, took a deep breath, and murmured in a low voice, “I’ll just take a peek. It should be okay to look at one or two pages…”
While saying that, she set aside the archaeological notes that she had in her left hand and carefully flipped open the photo album. The first thing that caught her eye was a picture of a baby. The baby was lying down with its eyes closed and it had a wrinkled and red face. Clearly, it was a newborn.
At the bottom right corner of the photo was a date written on it. When she saw the date, she smiled. “This is me!”
The date on it was exactly her birthdate, so there was no need to guess who this baby was—it was Sonia.
“So, when I was first born, I was ugly and tiny. Gosh, I didn’t even look healthy.” Sonia stroked the baby’s face on the photo with her thumb and laughed lightly. Then, she flipped to the next photo where there was still a baby in it. The date written at the bottom right corner of the photo indicated that it was the day after she was born.
Could this be a photo album of my birth? With this in mind, she turned to the third page and lo and behold, it was still her as a baby with the date of the third day after her birth in the lower right corner.
This time, Sonia was completely sure that it was the photo album of her birth whereby every picture on it was recorded on a daily basis after she was born. This kind of album was not uncommon in the past as almost every family would have one for each of their children. Some had pictures detailing the baby’s life until the 1st week after its birth whereas others were up to 6 months old. There were a few who stored pictures up until the baby was 3 months old.
Judging by the thickness of the album, this album should be a record of at least 6 months long.
The only thing Sonia couldn’t decipher was her grandfather’s hesitation to allow her to look at it if it was her photo album. She narrowed her eyes, her heart full of confusion and incomprehension. However, she didn’t think much of it and assumed that he merely wanted to keep it as a souvenir, which was why he didn’t want to show it to her. Now that the album was in her hands, she could look at it herself just to reminisce about her childhood.
Yet, strangely enough, there had been an abundance of pictures of her as a child, but never of her when she was a newborn, so she didn’t really know what she looked like as a baby. She pulled the chair and sat down before she began to page through the photos at the back. At first, she looked at it as the corner of her mouth curved into a smile, thinking that she was really cute as a newborn. However, for some reason, she didn’t feel any familiarity with the baby in the photos.
As she continued to flip the pages, the smile on her face slowly disappeared before it was replaced by shock.
