All along one side of the cellar were shelves on which were jars of the good fig jam made by Mother Barbette at Les Vignes, the Saint Frères’ summer home in Pigeon Valley. Barrels of apples and potatoes stood in dusky corners. Marie Josephine went over to the shelves and sniffed at the jam. Then she spoke to Flambeau.
“I want to see Mother Barbette, Flambeau. I want to see Jean and Dian and Pince Nez, the crow. I want our home, Les Vignes. The lilies will be in bloom all along the south terrace.”
She sat down on the lowest step of the cellar stairs and put her chin on her hand, shaking her dark ringlets away from her face. A rat scudded all the way along a rafter above her head, making a queer, squeaking noise as he did so. Marie Josephine had seen him before, or at any rate one of his kind. He was a part of the expedition and the fun. She liked sitting there in the gloom, with Flambeau’s head against her knee, the silence of the house above her, and below her the secret! The cellars had been just as dusky and mysterious two years ago as they were to-day. Flambeau’s feet had scraped the same way against the stone floor. The only difference was that she was now almost thirteen and that grandfather had died!
She stood up and went quickly across to a far corner of the cellar, Flambeau following her. She knelt down near a pile of sacks filled with potatoes, and felt along the cold floor. Still leaning on the floor with one hand, she gave Flambeau’s head a little pat with the other.
“You are not to be afraid, you know, Flambeau. No Saint Frère is ever afraid. Grandfather said so; and you are one of the family you know, Flambeau!”
She felt carefully along the floor. She knew well that it was the seventh stone square from the corner that she wanted, and she found it easily, in spite of the shadowy, uncertain light from the torch by the stairs. Then she spoke again to Flambeau.
Flambeau
“This is the stone. It will open, you know. It always does, even though it never seems as though it really could. No one knows about it but you and me and the other one.”
She put her head sideways so that it rested for a moment on Flambeau’s upturned face, and she felt the eager response of a warm, rough tongue. Then she leaned over again, putting her palm on the center of the seventh stone, and pressing down upon it. At the same time she laid her other hand on the upper left side of the stone and pushed away from herself, and slowly and noiselessly it slid aside, disclosing a long, steep, ladderlike flight of stairs, leading down into what might have been the innermost depths of the earth!