The Treasures of Weatherby Read online

  “And now? Who’s allowed in them now?” Allegra was forgetting to keep her voice down.

  “Shh,” Harleigh cautioned. “No one uses them much anymore. Sometimes my uncle plays pool with me.” His voice sank to a whisper. “But I don’t think anyone ever comes in here anymore.”

  Allegra nodded slowly, and once again began to turn in slow circles. “I can see why. I don’t like this room. I don’t think anything interesting ever happened here.” She shuddered. “And it smells bad.”

  “I know,” Harleigh said. “From all the tobacco.”

  She shook her head. “That too,” she said. “But there’s a dull feeling. Dull and uninterested.”

  “You mean uninteresting,” he said.

  She thought for a moment before she said, “No. I think I meant uninterested. Can we go? Could I see the poolroom now?”

  “See the poolroom?” Harleigh asked sternly. “Look. Forget about seeing things. What we have to do now is get you out of here before someone sees you.”

  That’s what he said, but on second thought he realized she would have to see the poolroom, because going through it was the safest way to get to the solarium and from there out into the courtyard. “Well, come on,” Harleigh said. “Here it is. Here’s the poolroom.”

  The light in the poolroom was a little better. Once inside, Allegra walked slowly around, reaching out to touch everything she passed: the pool table, the bar, and the surrounding clusters of chairs and stools.

  She was running her fingers along the rack of pool sticks when Harleigh demanded impatiently, “Come on. You have to get out of here.”

  She sighed. “I know. But there’s so much more to see. Can’t I stay a little longer?”

  Watching her reactions, the way any fear or anxiety she might—and certainly should—be feeling seemed to be almost completely forgotten in her fascinated interest in everything, Harleigh found himself wishing that she could stay just a little longer. Long enough for him to find out why seeing the house mattered so much to her. Or maybe just so he could show her some really grand rooms, like the library and the drawing room. But it just wasn’t possible.

  “No, you can’t.” Harleigh tried to sound very firm. “You have to go.” At the door that led to the entrance to the solarium he turned back to motion and say, “Come over here. Stand right here by this door while I go check to be sure that the gardener isn’t there. And when I come back, follow me and run as fast as you can. Okay?”

  She nodded. He was sure of that, and he was pretty sure she whispered, “All right.”

  After the heavy glass-and-steel door of the solarium closed behind him, Harleigh ran from one side of the greenhouse to the other, stopping only long enough to check out each of the aisles. Just to be sure, he went down one aisle far enough to check behind some big-leafed tropical plants and a dangling curtain of flowering vines. No one was there. No sign of Ralph, the gardener, who should be showing up any time now. But for the moment the coast seemed to be clear.

  Relieved, Harleigh dashed back into the hall, reached the poolroom door, jerked it open, and found—no one at all. He couldn’t believe it. No one in the poolroom and not, he checked quickly, in the smoking room, either.

  His first thought was that she must have been caught. She’d been spotted by one of the descendants and dragged off to Aunt Adelaide’s room, or even to the front gate to be held while someone called the police.

  But as he checked both rooms a second time, he began to wonder if the crazy girl had just decided to give him the slip and try to explore Weatherby House all by herself.

  The more he thought about it, the more he became certain that that must have been what happened. She’d simply decided to go off sightseeing on her own. And along with that conviction came a surge of anger—more and more of it the longer he thought about how she’d promised she’d wait right there by the door. Promised, and then broken her word.

  “Stupid girl,” he muttered. “They’ll catch her for sure, and then both of us will be in a whole lot of trouble.” He had no idea what they’d do to her—jail maybe, or at least juvenile hall. But he was pretty certain it would mean the Hardacre Military Academy for Harleigh J. Weatherby the Fourth. The boarding school that, according to Aunt Adelaide, had “made a man of” other Weatherby boys who’d needed a “little extra push in the right direction.”

  And from Uncle Edgar, who had been one of those boys, he’d heard what that extra push could do to you. Uncle Edgar’s stories were about canings and solitary confinement, as well as bullying older boys who liked to use smaller boys for punching bags. And since he’d previously been threatened with Hardacre Academy for much smaller sins than sneaking a stranger into Weatherby House, he felt sure that was where he’d be headed if Allegra were caught.

  Or else . . . Or else, it suddenly occurred to him, maybe Allegra could be the only one in trouble. All he had to do was go back to his room in the tower and read a book and not come out until they caught her, and then he’d just pretend he knew nothing about it. And when she told them that he’d let her in, he’d simply say he hadn’t. Which wouldn’t even be a lie, because the truth was that she’d pushed her way in while he was trying to push her out. And after that maybe he’d say he’d never seen her before in his whole life. Which would have been the truth if someone had asked him just a few weeks ago. Too bad for Allegra, but that was how it was going to have to be.

  Chapter Eleven

  So that was it. The next step would be to get to his room, where he would wait until he was sure she’d been caught. It wouldn’t be a long wait, he was sure of that. One of the descendants—Uncle Edgar on his way to the kitchen for a snack, or Cousin Josephine running an errand for Aunt Adelaide—would be sure to catch sight of the trespasser before many minutes had passed. And then the hunt would be on, and she’d soon be captured.

  Peeking out of the smoking room, Harleigh checked up and down the length of the west hall. No one in sight. He slid through the barely opened door and ran on tiptoe. He was in the entry hall and had just passed the knight in armor when a sudden sound startled him, making him break his stride, trip, and almost fall. He skidded to a stop at the foot of the wide marble stairway and turned to stare back toward the place where there’d been a sharp metallic clang. Back to where the knight stood just as he always had, with one gloved hand holding his sword and the other resting on the top of the circular shield that leaned against one of his ironclad feet. The sound had definitely come from that direction, but nothing had changed and no one was there.

  He went on then, running to the top of the grand stairway, up the second flight to the third floor, and on up the circular stairway until, a little breathless, he arrived at the door that led into his own very private Aerie. He stopped for a moment to look back down the curving iron stairway, where nothing stirred and the silence was unbroken. He breathed deeply, clenched his teeth, and strengthened his resolve to let Allegra pay for her treacherous behavior all by herself. Then he went in and closed the door firmly behind him.

  But it was only a few minutes later, after he had selected a book, settled himself comfortably on his bed, and was trying to concentrate on what he was reading, when he heard it. Someone, or something, was knocking softly on his door.

  For a startled, almost panicky moment, Harleigh stared at the door, trying to make himself believe that he had imagined it. The knocks hadn’t been all that loud. Maybe it hadn’t been . . .

  But then they came again, louder this time. Knock, knock, knock. Harleigh got to his feet and walked to the door, slowly turned the knob, and even more slowly opened the door a small crack. And there she was, smiling at him as if everything was just fine. As if she hadn’t run away when he’d warned her to stay right where she was until he came back for her.

  Doing his fiercest Weatherby glare, Harleigh opened the door barely wide enough for her to squeeze through. But once inside, she forgot all about him. Ignoring his glare and evading his hand as he reached out to grab her
, she ran to the closest window. After running her hand along the wide sill, she stood on tiptoe to look out and down. She stared out for a long time before she ran to the next window, and then the next.

  It wasn’t until she’d completed the whole circle and looked out every window that she turned to Harleigh and began to talk—just as he was starting to tell her what a mess she’d made of everything by not staying where he told her to, and how much trouble they were both in now, and how it was all her fault. When he finished, he wasn’t sure she’d heard any of it. Hurrying, almost running, back to the nearest window, she went on with whatever it was she’d been saying until he finally was able to interrupt her by demanding, “How did you find your way up here, anyway?” And then suddenly he thought he might know. “You were following me, weren’t you?”

  She nodded, looking pleased, as if he’d just paid her a compliment. “Yes. Yes I was. I think you heard me when I was hiding behind the knight.” She smiled, almost giggled. “You almost fell down?”

  Harleigh frowned. He didn’t see what was so funny about it, and what he really didn’t get at all was how anybody could hide behind a skinny knight in armor. “How did you . . .,” he was starting to ask when she explained.

  “I was down behind his shield, only I bumped it a little and it hit his shoe. That was what made the noise.”

  Only that wasn’t a real explanation. Not one you could really believe. There was no way anyone could hide behind a shield that wasn’t much bigger than a garbage can lid. But then, remembering how Allegra curled and uncurled her skinny little body as she climbed the black walnut tree, he wasn’t so sure. She probably had been there all right, folded up like a cat, right behind the knight’s shield.

  And immediately afterward, she’d somehow managed to follow him up all those flights of stairs without being seen or heard. So now, here she was and there went his plan to let her get caught by herself so he could deny knowing anything about her.

  With his hands on his hips, Harleigh rearranged his glare, making it exactly like the one on Harleigh the First’s famous face in the library portrait. “So,” he said. “What do you think you’re going to do now? The front doors are locked and Aunt Adelaide has the only key. And I’ll bet you can’t find your way back to the solarium, and even if you did, the gardener’s probably there by now. But you have to leave now, right this minute, and I’m not going to . . .”

  Even before Harleigh finished with what he was not going to do, Allegra turned away. Running toward the nearest window, she reached for the latch and, rising up on her tiptoes, started to lean forward.

  Harleigh stuttered to a stop, fearing . . . or at least wondering . . . But then she pulled her head back in, turned toward him, and said—not what he’d been almost expecting. Nothing about flying, but only, “I think someone stood right here looking out toward the highway, for hours and hours—for years, maybe. I think she was watching for someone to come. But he didn’t. Not ever. It was very sad. Do you know who she was?”

  Harleigh didn’t. And he didn’t believe there had ever been such a person—at least he certainly didn’t at that particular moment.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Allegra made up the story about a person who had looked out the tower window watching for someone to come, Harleigh said, “I’ve never heard about anything like that. Who was she?”

  “I don’t know.” Allegra’s eyes had that unfocused, faraway stare. “I thought maybe you might know about it.”

  “Well, I don’t. The only thing I ever heard about this tower was that the Weatherbys used to bring people up here to look at the view. My aunt says that important people from all over the country wanted to be asked to a Weatherby Sunset.”

  Allegra nodded vaguely and turned back to walk around the room, running her fingers along the walls and over the broad windowsills. When she came back, she nodded slowly and sighed before she said, “Yes. Other people came here too.” She sighed again before she said, “There are happy stories, but sad ones, too.”

  For some reason an involuntary shiver lifted Harleigh’s shoulders. But he shook it off and said, “Well, there’s one sad story I can tell you about, and that’s the one about the mess we’re both going to be in if someone sees you.”

  “You too? You’d be in trouble too?”

  “I certainly would. I told you about Aunt Adelaide’s rule that no one can bring strangers into the house without getting her permission.”

  Allegra looked concerned. “Would they beat you?”

  “No,” he said. “What they would do, though, is send me away.”

  “Oh no!” Allegra said. “They couldn’t do that, could they?”

  “They could if they wanted to,” Harleigh said.

  “So how do we get me out without anyone seeing us?” Allegra finally sounded a little worried. But not anywhere near as worried as she ought to be.

  Harleigh let his frustration show in the way he said, “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Maybe if we . . .” He stopped, as he hastily began to go over the possibilities. “Maybe we could go through the kitchen to the service entrance when Matilda—she’s our cook—is in one of the pantries.” He shook his head. “But we’d have to be very quiet and fast—and lucky.”

  There had to be a better way. There was the door just beyond the poolroom that led out into the solarium, but that would be very risky, now that old Ralph would almost certainly be there. If they could get to the library and Uncle Edgar wasn’t there, it would be a good place to hide, but it had no outside exit, not even a window. From there the only way out was through the entry hall and the front doors, which, of course, were locked. The only other possibility would be to go all the way down the west corridor to one of the wings that branched off it, and then to a rear entrance that was used by the distant descendants who lived in one of the west wings. That would be dangerous too, especially the first part, where they would have to go down the corridor that went right past Aunt Adelaide’s recital hall. But something had to be done, and quickly, and the west hall exit might be the best possibility.

  “Come on,” he said.

  She held back. “To where? Where are we going?”

  “Out of the house.”

  “But how?”

  “I’ll show you. Just follow me.”

  At first she did. As they wound their way down the circular stairway she kept close behind him. But later, on the third-floor landing and again as they made their way across the huge expanse of the ballroom, she insisted on stopping to look one way and then the other. And each time, when Harleigh turned back to urge her to hurry, she seemed to be listening as well as looking. Listening to something—but not to him.

  He had to call louder and then even more loudly before she turned toward him, raising her shoulders in a kind of shiver. “All right,” she said. “All right. I’m coming.”

  They were on the grand stairway and nearing the main floor when Harleigh began to hear a frightening sound—the squeal and whirr of Aunt Adelaide’s wheelchair. Grabbing Allegra’s wrist, he pulled her the rest of the way down the stairs, through the nearest door—and into the library.

  Good. It was dark. Very dark. Which meant that Uncle Edgar wasn’t there. Shuffling forward carefully, feeling his way, Harleigh reached the nearest lamp. With his fingers on the switch, he stopped to wonder why he was lighting the lamp when complete darkness would be best for hiding. But then he went ahead and flipped the switch and turned quickly to watch Allegra’s face when she saw . . . when she, for the first time, saw Harleigh Weatherby the First’s magnificent library.

  Just as he expected, Allegra seemed to be absolutely amazed. Looking up at the book-lined walls soaring up to the huge stained-glass dome, Allegra caught her breath and then froze for a moment, as if transformed into a statue. A statue of a small, thin girl in a ragged dress, who stood perfectly still for several seconds before she slowly came out of her paralysis and began to turn in a circle. And then, still without sayi
ng a word, she began to move, wandering off between the tables and along the nearest wall. Moving as slowly and uncertainly as a sleepwalker, reaching out to touch everything she passed—the chairs and tables and shelf after shelf of books. Harleigh caught up with her just as she stopped beneath the enormous painting of Harleigh the First in its massive golden frame.

  “Well, what do you think?” Harleigh asked, not expecting much more than astonished gasps and wordless wonder.

  Allegra smiled and nodded. “It’s so big,” she said.

  “I know.” Harleigh was pleased.

  She looked at him and smiled. “And you’re allowed to read these books? Any book you want?”

  “Of course,” he said. He made a sweeping gesture. “I’ve read a lot of them. But how about the place? What do you think of . . .” He gestured grandly. “Of this room?”

  “This place?” She nodded, and then said, “It’s beautiful, but it’s not . . .”

  “It’s not what?” Harleigh asked suspiciously.

  She shook her head. “It’s so—quiet. It doesn’t have stories. At least not many.” She paused, looking around as if searching for a better answer to his question.

  “No stories?” He could hardly believe his ears. “It probably has every story that was ever written. At least every one that was written back when it was built.”

  “I mean . . .,” she said, “I mean, some of the other rooms are full of . . .” She paused again.

  “Full of what?” Harleigh said indignantly.

  She nodded and then went on uncertainly, “Of stories . . . When you close your eyes and breathe deep you can almost hear them whispering their stories.”

  She wasn’t making any sense. “Well, we’re lucky that nobody’s whispering stories about you being here. At least not yet.”