MARIE JOSEPHINE’S SECRET
Lisle put his head inside the schoolroom door before starting downstairs
for his ride. Marie Josephine and Flambeau were standing by the window,
and he crossed over to them, his jeweled riding crop and his gloves in
his hand. His bright hair was tied at the back of his neck with a crisp,
black ribbon. Marie Josephine turned toward him when she heard his
footsteps.
“I’ve been watching from the window. Le Pont is walking with maman in
front and the girls are behind them, with Neville following. Why does
not Georges go with them? Does he not always accompany maman?”
“Georges has gone. He left our household early this morning. He is all
for the people and has no longer any use for our kind. He is wise to go,
for his neck is safer away from us than with us!” Lisle laughed down at
her as he spoke.
Marie Josephine put her arm about Flambeau’s neck and looked at her
brother.
“I don’t quite know what you mean, Lisle,” she said.
“I mean that Georges would rather be where he can talk with people in
the streets and make trouble,” Lisle answered, but he looked almost as
puzzled as his sister. He was fifteen and the head of his house, but he
had never been taught to think things out for himself. He had hardly
ever been alone in all his life, for when he rode or walked a tutor had
always been with him. He had fenced and danced and shot, had studied
about the old kings and the exploits of his own ancestors, but, like
Marie Josephine, he only vaguely understood what really was going on in
Paris.
“I want to go to Pigeon Valley, Lisle. I don’t like the sounds at
night,” Marie Josephine said. She wanted to ask about the blue velvet
and ermine and the crown but she could not make up her mind to do it.
Lisle pulled her cherry-colored rosette. He had come back because he had
teased her. She knew this and she suddenly put her head down on his arm.
“I wish I could go to the bal masqué, Lisle. It’s going to be so
wonderful,” she whispered.
“It is silly nonsense; that’s what it is! Madame de Soigné is giving the
party for Cécile and Bertran. The fat Bertran needs a good caning
instead of a bal masqué. He knows I know he cheated at fencing last
week. It is a foolish time to have a soirée when everything in the city
is upside down!” Lisle answered her.
“Maman said to Le Pont, 'There is no longer any pleasure for us now that
the king and queen are in such danger, but let the children enjoy
themselves while they may.’ I did not overhear her. She said it before
us all here in the schoolroom.”
“Yes, maman fears always for the queen. Well, I must be off. Monsieur
Laurent is waiting.” He lifted Marie Josephine’s chin and looked at her.
“You are an odd little mortal. You are like grandfather.” Then he
crossed the room and, looking back at her from the doorway, said:
“I’ll tell you all about the silly party after it is over.”
“The same night—as soon as you come home, no matter how late it is?”
she called across the room excitedly.
Lisle nodded. It was a long room and she looked such a little figure
sitting there on the broad window sill. He was right. She was like their
grandfather.
She listened until his footsteps had died away. Proté was in the
housekeeper’s room having a good gossip. She and Flambeau were alone.
She settled back in the corner of the window sill, Flambeau at her feet.
She liked being there alone, and she felt sleepy and comfortable. She
was thinking of her grandfather and of the spring afternoon two years
before when they had had the adventure. She had often sat with him while
he read or wrote and on that particular day she had found him looking at
her in his sad, wistful way. The others had gone for a drive with Madame
le Pont. The servants, except for the footmen on duty in the lower hall,
were in their own part of the house, so they were quite alone. She had
been sitting in the chair with the fawn and tiger coat of arms of the
Saint Frères emblazoned in gold at the top of it.
“You have l’esprit, little Marie,” he had said. “You are the one who
will think and understand and you are the one of this generation who
will know how to help. I have a secret to tell you and something to show
you. Promise me first that you will keep this afternoon locked up in
your heart. Do not breathe of it to any soul unless the time should come
when by so doing you feel that you will be of service to those you hold
dear. Do you understand?” Grandfather had risen and come over to her as
he spoke. “Do you understand, my child, that, after I am gone, except
for one other, you are the only one who will know of what I am to show
you and tell you?”
“Who is the other one, grandfather?” she had asked, all afire with eager
interest.
Grandfather had shaken his head. “Do not concern yourself with that,
little one. Be grateful that from them all I have chosen you. I am
taking you down into the heart of the earth, Marie. I am going to tell
you the legend of your house.”
Flambeau barked suddenly and fiercely, his feet on the window seat, his
eager eyes intent on something which had caught his interest in the
garden below. His bark brought Marie Josephine back to the present with
a start. She jumped to her feet.
“Come, Flambeau, we’ll go down to the cellar,” she said. She ran across
the room and the dog followed her with graceful bounds. When they
reached the staircase, Marie Josephine leaned over the banister and
listened, and Flambeau stopped and listened too. At the top of the first
flight of stairs they both stopped and listened again. There was not a
sound in the great house.
The next staircase was steep and they had to be cautious. Marie
Josephine felt along the side of the rough stone wall as they walked,
and she placed one foot before the other very carefully on the uneven
hollows of the stone steps. It was a long way down to the cellars. They
stopped to rest several times and welcomed the flare of a taper set in
the wall at the bottom of the stairs. A damp, musty odor greeted them
and a gusty wind blew about them.
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. [Illustration: 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!
Marie Josephine reached down to the right into the dark, yawning, square
hole and lifted out a small iron lanthorn which rested on a ledge just
underneath the stone panel. Then she struck the flint against the
tinder, opened the lanthorn’s squeaky little lid, and lit the wick. A
bright blue flame shot up at once, and, when she had shut the wee door,
settled to a steady flame. She turned around and began to descend
backward, resting the lanthorn on each step as she went down. When she
had gone down several steps, she called softly to the dog, and he
followed, facing her, putting one strong, slender foot in front of the
other, with slow, unerring precision.
It was a long, slow descent, and as they went farther and farther into
the musty gloom, a chill closeness enveloped them. Finally they reached
the last step and found themselves on another stone floor, more uneven
than the floor above, one that seemed to hold the echoes of the ages.
It was a large room into which they had come and there was the grey
glimmer of rooms beyond. The walls were rough hewn, and trickles of
water faintly edged their way through the massive stones. There was an
astonishing air of homelikeness about the strange place. A huge red rug
hung against one side of the wall, and above a great carved chest at the
other end was a tapestry of the crusaders. The rug, though old, was
still in good condition. It had been hung there by a Saint Frère just
three generations back, but the tapestry had been there much longer, so
long that it seemed a part of the ancient place. Near the ladderlike
stairs was a long stone shelf and it shone and gleamed in the light from
the lanthorn.
Marie Josephine sat down on the chest and leaned her head against the
rough wall. The whole adventure of coming to the secret cellar was
enthralling, but the most wonderful part of it was sitting there and
thinking of Lisle Saint Frère, her oldest ancestor, he who had laid the
first stone of this ancient place and whose one thought had been always
to help others and to serve the right. As she sat there she felt the
tears smarting in her eyes. She was thinking of her grandfather too. She
fancied that she could see him walking up and down, a slight figure in
his black velvet breeches and long coat, the brilliants shining on his
pointed shoes, his delicate hands clasped together, the soft frills of
lace falling over them. Yet it was not so much of him that she was
thinking as of what he had said to her:
“It all began so long ago. This house is not like other houses, Marie.
You know that well; all of you do. It is not just an old house like that
of your Great-aunt Hortense, or of the De Soignés, or of others of our
friends. This house is ancient, Marie. It is medieval! It was standing
here when Lisle Saint Frère, your oldest ancestor, was brought home
mortally wounded, and that is farther back than even your fancy can take
you, little one—almost as long ago as the time of Charlemagne and the
Song of Roland! It was built in the time of knights at arms. It was the
idea of that first Lisle Saint Frère, and it was he who laid its first
stone, he who became the bravest knight of his time in all France. He
was the best one of us that ever lived. There has never been another who
was so good.”
“Except you, grandfather,” she had said stoutly, and as she sat there in
the dim stillness, she remembered that his face had lightened at her
words. But he had answered her earnestly:
“I am poor indeed in the little I have done for my brother man, Marie. I
have dreamed—just dreamed. I have wanted to help, but I have not known
how. In each generation one of us has wanted to help, has been weighed
down by the misery of those upon our lands. There is a time coming, mark
me well, Marie, when the old days shall be at an end, when new ways of
freedom shall sweep the old régime away. You will live to see that day.
Be strong, Marie. There is not a young lamb at Pigeon Valley that you do
not love. There is not a human being whom you could not love. You will
see beyond the tinsel and the satin. You are the truest descendant of
Lisle Saint Frère.”
She had protested, “Lisle is the truest, grandfather!”
He had answered: “Lisle is too proud. I have brought you to this secret
cellar which has sheltered your ancestors in peril. No one has ever
known of it except one of our family in every generation and one other
who is outside the family. Keep it a secret unless the time should come
when by disclosing it you can help some one in need. Meanwhile, be glad
that you are the one of this generation to know!”
She began to be sleepy as she sat on the chest, thinking of all that her
grandfather had told her, wondering who the “other one” could be. She
jumped up, called Flambeau, and slowly and carefully they made their way
up the steep, ladderlike stairs. A grey gleam of light greeted them
through the open secret panel. Flambeau scrambled up on to the cellar
floor after Marie Josephine and watched her, his nose quivering with
interest, as she shut the panel.
She knelt there for a minute thinking of the old green lanthorn which
she had put out and so carefully placed on its ledge under the secret
stone, of the hidden room itself, and of the Lisle Saint Frère who had
helped to build it with his own mailed hands. Last of all she thought of
her grandfather and of the honor he had done her in letting her be the
Saint Frère of her generation to know the secret. Then, suddenly, she
remembered that her dancing master was to come at five. She brushed the
cobwebs from her wide skirts and climbed up from the sombre cellar to
the stately spaciousness of her home.