“But I don’t see how you’re going to get out of there, miss,” Queenie said. “You’ll get stuck, likely as not.”

I had to say that I agreed with her. The opening couldn’t have been much more than about fifteen inches high and two feet wide.

“Luckily I’m skinny and I have been told by milliners that I have a small head,” I said.

“I’d go out for you if I could, miss,” Queenie said, “but I don’t think my big toe would fit through there, to say nothing of the rest of me.”

I looked at her and smiled with real fondness. She might be the worst servant in the world, but she was trapped in a hopeless situation and she wasn’t making a fuss.

“Well, here goes,” I said and stuck my head out of the hole. What I saw wasn’t encouraging. I was near the bottom of a long shaft of some sort. It might be a well, because there was ice below me, and there was another grille over the top, far above me. I couldn’t even see any other openings in the side.

“Maybe if we shouted, someone would hear us,” I said. “Try shouting ‘help’ with me, Queenie.”

We shouted. I tried it in French. Nothing happened.

“There seem to be the remains of iron rungs on the far side,” I said. “If the ice holds me, I could lower myself down and get across.”

“What if it don’t hold you, miss?”

“The worst that can happen is that I’ll get really wet and cold,” I said. “It’s worth a try. I’m going out backward.”

I lay on the floor and stuck my feet through the hole, then I inched myself backward until my feet were hanging down, then until I was bent at the waist and then until I was braced at my shoulders.

“Hold my hands and don’t let go until I tell you,” I said. Queenie took my hands in hers. I squeezed my shoulders together, then tilted my head to one side to take it through the hole. The ice was still about two feet below me.

“You can let go of my hands, Queenie,” I said. “I’m going to try to climb down.”

I hadn’t bargained for the slippery rocks. I slithered down and landed hard on the ice, which groaned ominously. I immediately dropped to my knees then crawled forward. It bobbed as I moved but I reached the other wall. Then I found one of the old rungs and started to climb. They were broken and slippery and it was horrible going. One of them came out of the wall when I went to haul myself up on it and it landed on the ice with an echoing thunk.

“You can do this,” I said to myself. “You’ve climbed mountains at home. It’s no worse.”