The Treasures of Weatherby Read online

  Pulling his mind back from a lot of unanswered questions, Harleigh shrugged and asked, “Why? What do you want to know about it?”

  Her smile widened. “Everything. I really like old houses. All old houses are full of mysteries and stories, and I think the Weatherby House is the most mysterious one in the whole world. I want to know everything about it. Like how many rooms there are and what they all look like. And oh yes, what it looks like right inside those great big front doors. The ones with the carved panels and the big marble posts on each side.”

  It was Harleigh’s turn to smile. “The pillars, you mean. They’re called pillars, not posts.”

  “Yes, pillars,” she said eagerly. “They’re beautiful.”

  Harleigh was nodding in agreement when he suddenly wondered how she knew about the pillars, and the doors as well. “Hey,” he said. “I guess you haven’t spent all your time up in this tree. I mean, how do you know what the front entrance looks like? You can’t see it from anywhere outside our fence. I guess it could be seen from the front gate a long time ago, but not since the trees and bushes got so tall. So you’ve been sneaking around on Weatherby property?”

  Her nod was quick and positive. “Oh, yes. I’ve been all the way around the House. It takes a long time, but I’ve been all the way around it.”

  There was something about the way she said the word “House” that made it seem to need a capital letter. “The House,” she said again. “Tell me about the House.”

  “Well,” Harleigh found himself saying, “I really can’t say for sure how many rooms there are. I’ve tried to count them, but I always lose track. But about what’s inside those big doors? It’s not exactly a room. It’s more like a big lobby or entry hall. Right inside those doors, there’s this big wide area with fancy antique tables and cabinets and clocks and lots of famous paintings on the walls. There’s even”—he tried to make his grin suggest that he thought it was a bit much even for Weatherby House—“there’s even a suit of armor. You know, like a whole man made out of pieces of armor. And with a sword and a shield.”

  She nodded hard. “Yes, I know about medieval suits of armor. I thought there might be one. And what’s after that?”

  “After what?”

  “After the entry hall? What comes next after that?”

  So he went on about the drawing room. “It’s like an enormous living room, only nobody lives in it anymore, so all the furniture is covered with dust sheets. And there’s this domed ceiling painted with pictures of flying birds and angels sitting on clouds, and things like that. I guess it’s all sort of faded, but it still looks pretty good.” He was about to start in on the library when she interrupted.

  “Now about the people. Not the ones who built it. Tell me about all the people who live there now.”

  Harleigh was puzzled. He had begun to think he’d figured out what she was about. She was, he’d decided, just another person who loved expensive stuff, particularly if it was old expensive stuff. Like the people in Riverbend who pretended to be Aunt Adelaide’s friends, but really didn’t like her much. People who, as Aunt Adelaide was always saying, only asked her to teas and parties because, even though they knew she’d never accept their invitations, they still thought if they asked her she might ask them to Weatherby House. This girl, Harleigh had decided, was just another person wanting a Weatherby House invitation. But now she was unexpectedly changing the subject to people.

  “What about the people?” he asked.

  She tipped her head and stared off as if into a far distance. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “Who they are and what they’re like?” Turning back to face Harleigh, she went on, “And the ghosts, too. What are they like?”

  “Ghosts? What makes you think there are ghosts in Weatherby House? I’ve never seen one.”

  “No?” She sounded incredulous. Unbelieving. “Not even one? Not even the one who walks around on that long balcony sobbing and crying?”

  For a moment Harleigh was dumbfounded, but then he laughed. “Oh, that must have been Sheila. She’s not a ghost. She’s just one of the descendants. Everybody calls her Sad Sheila. Aunt Adelaide says she’s hysterical.”

  “Hysterical?”

  “Yes. Whatever that means—besides making her go around looking sorrowful all the time and crying a lot. She came to Weatherby House a long time ago with papers that proved she was related, so Aunt Adelaide let her move in. But most of the other descendants don’t like her because they think there must be something funny about the way she descended. Some of them complained about all the noisy crying, so now she goes out onto the balcony to do it.”

  The girl who called herself Allegra seemed even more fascinated. When Harleigh ran out of things to say about Sheila, she sighed and said, “Oh that’s such a sad story. I wish I knew what makes her cry. Don’t you know what she’s crying about? Haven’t you ever asked her?”

  Harleigh’s answer was simply, “No,” but its tone said, No. Of course not.

  “Oh,” Allegra said. Just “oh,” but something about the way she said it was definitely disapproving. For a long moment she went on frowning, but then suddenly she stood up. “I have to go now,” she said. “But next time I want to hear more about Sheila and the others. All the others. And about the House, too.”

  She left then, but not by climbing out and dropping off the limb. This time she used the iron rods to climb down to where she waited, calling instructions until Harleigh was back on the ground. Then she pulled out the three lower rods, put them in the bag, and tossed them back up into the tree house. And when Harleigh asked her why she did that, she said, “So no one else will use them.”

  “So how will you get up the next time you come?”

  Her eyes were wide and solemn as she said, “Oh, I don’t need them.”

  Harleigh was still staring up at the tree house wondering about that when there was a rustling noise in the bamboo patch, and when he whirled around she was gone.

  Chapter Five

  The next day Harleigh managed to finish his schoolwork almost as fast as the day before, but when he arrived at the tree house no one was there. There was no answer when he called. Not when he shouted, “Hey. Are you up there?” and still nothing a little later when he even went so far as to call, “Allegra. Where are you?”

  He waited a while longer, walking around the thick trunk, getting more and more furious at Uncle Edgar for not letting him go sooner. The fourth iron rod was still in place. Still there, but way up out of reach. At least out of his reach. The longer he waited, the more upset he became.

  He was mad at Uncle Edgar for making him late, but he was also angry with the Allegra person. She had said she’d be there, hadn’t she? She definitely had said something about “next time.” He was sure about that. And “next time” yesterday obviously meant today, didn’t it?

  On the other hand, he was mad at himself, too. When you came right down to it, what did he think he was doing? Here he was, a direct-descendant Weatherby, running half a mile through berry brambles and bamboo thickets to wait around for a sneaky trespasser to show up. A trespasser who had no business being on Weatherby property in the first place. And who would definitely be told that, in so many words, if she ever showed her face again.

  He meant it. And when she did show up a few minutes later, he did tell her so. “Look here,” he managed to say, after gulping down his surprise when he turned his head and suddenly there she was. “I guess you know you’re breaking the law prowling around on Weatherby property. If Aunt Adelaide or any of the other descendants saw you, the first thing they’d do is call the police. You’re already here this time, but this had better be the end of it.”

  “You mean I can’t come here ever again?” she asked in a strangely calm tone of voice, almost as if she didn’t believe that he meant what he was saying.

  “That’s right,” Harleigh said sternly, and then began to add, “I mean, not unless—not unless . . .”

  But she wasn’
t listening anyway. Instead she turned and, walking to the big bare trunk, stood staring up toward the tree house. She was smiling when she looked back at Harleigh over her shoulder. “Want to see how I do it?” she asked.

  Harleigh stuttered to a stop and then went on, “You mean how you . . .?” At least he didn’t go on and say “fly.” And of course she didn’t fly, at least not exactly. Instead, she suddenly jumped way up to grab the fourth rod in both hands and then somehow went on up. Her bare feet with their long toes scrambled up the trunk, and her thin, limber body curled and straightened out. Then one of her arms was across the edge of the tree house floor, and a moment later she was leaning out and the bag that held the other rods was landing with a thud at Harleigh’s feet.

  When the three lower rods were firmly in place, Harleigh managed to join Allegra in the tree house—a little more efficiently this time—and once there, just like last time, there was nothing to do but talk. But somehow, even with all the talking they did that day, Harleigh never did get around to saying anything more about what might happen to people who kept trespassing on Weatherby property.

  The first subject that Harleigh brought up was the maze. “I’ve been looking for a maze,” he told Allegra. “You know. A complicated pathway through a bunch of prickly hedges. There’s supposed to be one on the Weatherby property. I’ve even seen pictures of it, but so far I haven’t been able to find it. Do you know where it is?”

  She nodded eagerly. “Oh, yes,” she said. “We went right past one side of it the other day. You know, where it looks like a high thick hedge. The entrance is right near there, but it’s pretty much covered up. But I know how to get in.”

  “You do?” Harleigh tried not to seem excited. “Could you show me?”

  She nodded. “All right. But not right away. I want to talk some more first. Don’t you?”

  Harleigh didn’t. “About what?” he asked, and she didn’t say, but strangely enough, that turned out to be the day that Harleigh actually told her about his parents—something that he never talked about, not to anybody. Not even to Uncle Edgar, who apparently had read a book that said that it was healthy for kids to talk about problems they had with other people, particularly their parents. Not that Harleigh Four’s parents were that much of a problem. Particularly not his mother, who had died a few days after he was born. And actually, his father wasn’t around enough to be that much of a problem either.

  “And your father?” Allegra had asked after Harleigh told her about his mother. “Is he dead too?”

  “No, of course not,” Harleigh told her. “It’s just that he’s an architect. You know, a person who designs buildings. Most of the time he’s traveling around the world studying famous buildings.”

  Allegra seemed fascinated. “You mean famous old buildings, like the Parthenon and the pyramids? And then he designs new buildings that are going to become famous too?”

  “Famous buildings? My father?” Harleigh did his most negative snort. “That’s great! I mean it would be great if his buildings were famous. He’s designed a lot of stuff, but most of it hasn’t been built.”

  “Oh.” Allegra looked disappointed. “Why don’t they get built?”

  Harleigh shrugged. “I don’t know. Aunt Adelaide says it’s because he doesn’t have any social skills. He doesn’t get along with people. Especially the kind of people who might hire him as an architect. He usually tells people who are thinking about building something that all of their ideas are stupid.”

  Allegra nodded. She thought for a moment before she went on. “And what does he say about you? What does he say about your ideas?”

  Harleigh stifled a snort and then a shrug, and managed a grin instead. “Not much,” he said. “At least not to me. I guess he talks about me some to Aunt Adelaide and Uncle Edgar; at least they say he does. But when I’m around he says, ‘Hello, son’ and pats me on the shoulder, and—and that’s about it.”

  Harleigh hadn’t meant the words “and that’s about it” to mean anything special. He hadn’t meant, for instance, that he wished his father would talk to him more. But after he said it, he could tell by the expression on Allegra’s face that she thought he might be feeling that way, and that maybe she was feeling sorry for him. It was then that Harleigh told her it was her turn to talk. “So tell me about your parents,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I told you,” she said calmly, “sometimes they do things they think are too dangerous for me. I could if they’d let me, but they won’t. So sometimes they leave me here in Riverbend.” She sighed, stared sadly into space, and then suddenly smiled. “But I want to talk some more about the people you live with. You know, the other people who live in the House.”

  Harleigh’s shrug suggested that he didn’t think much of that idea.

  “Why?” he asked. “I mean, they’re a pretty uninteresting bunch.”

  “Oh, no. They’re all very interesting, and some of them do fascinating things. Like the man with no hair on top of his head who sits out in the courtyard sometimes with a big notebook in his lap. Who is he?”

  Harleigh sighed before he began, “Oh, that’s Cousin Alden, the writer. He’s especially boring. He’s Cousin Josephine’s husband. I told you about her. She’s the one who takes care of Aunt Adelaide. Uncle Edgar says it’s a good thing Josephine gets paid to be Aunt Adelaide’s nurse, because nobody ever pays Uncle Alden for anything.”

  Allegra nodded thoughtfully. “That’s too bad. And the one named Sheila who walks up and down the balcony crying.”

  Harleigh sighed again. “I already told you about her.”

  “Yes, I know. But not very much. I want to know more about her story.” Allegra nodded again. “And then there’s the man who goes around waving a big iron wandlike thing over the ground. I think it’s a metal detector.”

  That one was a complete surprise to Harleigh. “A metal detector? I don’t know anything about that. What does he look like?”

  Her eyes widened as if with fright. “He looks huge—like a giant.” She paused then and twisted her mouth into a sort of snarl. “He looks like this.” She snarled again. “He has a crooked nose and mean eyes. Really mean eyes. I think he looks scary.”

  The word “huge” as well as the crooked nose put Harleigh on the right track. “That must be Cousin Junior. He calls himself Junior Weatherby, but Aunt Adelaide says his last name is really something else. He got a lawyer to prove that his mother was a distant relative, so he gets to live in the house, but Aunt Adelaide put him way out in an ell off the west wing. I guess he didn’t like that much. He kept saying he belongs in something better, like on the second floor of the main building, but arguing didn’t get him anywhere. Not with Aunt Adelaide.”

  It was interesting that Allegra thought Junior looked scary because, now that she’d mentioned it, Harleigh realized that he’d always felt pretty much the same way. Especially since the day when he’d been exploring one of the deserted wings of Weatherby House and had suddenly found himself face-to-face with Junior in a dimly lit hallway.

  Not that Cousin Junior had tried to hurt him. In fact, all he did was stick out a huge, fat-fingered hand, show his teeth in what was something like a smile, and say, “Hello, Harleigh Weatherby the Fourth” in a slimy tone of voice. It was the smile that was the most frightening. But it was then, remembering that greedy smile, that it suddenly occurred to Harleigh why Junior might have a metal detector.

  “I’ll bet he was looking for buried treasure,” he told Allegra. “There’s always been this rumor that there’s some sort of treasure buried somewhere on the property. Junior was probably looking for it.”

  “Buried treasure? What kind of treasure?” Allegra looked delighted.

  “I don’t know. I guess it was just that people thought Harleigh the First had so much money he must have run out of places to put it. Something like that. Aunt Adelaide says she never believed there was any treasure, because she knew that a lot of Weatherbys looked for it years and years ago, in
every possible place, without finding a thing.”

  Allegra shrugged and changed the subject. “Now the House,” she said. “I want to talk about the House.”

  Harleigh groaned. “I told you all about it. What more do you want to know?”

  Her eyes went wide and glowing. “When can I see it? When can we go inside? I can come here again on Monday. Could I see it then?”

  “Look,” Harleigh said firmly, “there’s no way I can take you inside Weatherby House. Aunt Adelaide would have a fit, and so would all the rest of them. They’d call the police right away, and I might get . . .”

  “You might get what?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, but actually he did. At least he had a pretty good idea. He might get sent away to a place called the Hardacre Military Academy, which was something Aunt Adelaide had threatened to do more than once when she thought he’d disobeyed an order.

  “Why would they care?” Allegra said. “I wouldn’t touch anything. I’d just look.”

  “Well, Aunt Adelaide would care because she has this very strict rule that nobody, none of the Weatherbys, can bring anyone into the house without getting her permission first.”

  “Why does she have a rule like that?”

  “She says it’s because of the insurance. She says her insurance on the house would be a lot more expensive if any of us let people in when she didn’t know about it.” Uncle Edgar had said that Aunt Adelaide’s insurance excuse wasn’t exactly the truth, but Harleigh decided not to go into that at the moment. Actually, he was getting bored with the whole conversation. “So here’s a why for you,” he said. “Why are you so crazy to see it? It’s just a big old house.”

  “I know.” Her eyes had a faraway stare as she went on. “I told you. I just like old houses. Houses have mysterious stories. All of them do, unless they’re brand-new. And very old ones like Weatherby House have the most.”

  The one question Harleigh still wanted to ask was what she meant by mysterious stories, but instead he just sighed and said, “Look. It’s not going to happen. So just forget about it. Okay? Let’s go look at the maze.”