Margery at that moment happened to be putting the finishing touches to her own toilette. She came flying without her cap out of one of the many narrow passages and windings which intersected each other on that floor. “The child went off to you, ma’am, as soon as I had put on her pinafore.”
“Then, Margery, she has gone up into the turret. She never came to us.”
Up to the turret hastened Janet; up to the turret followed Margery. Bessy and Maria traversed the passage leading to the turret-stairs, and stood there, looking upwards. Maria, had she been alone, could not have told which of the passages would lead her to the turret-stairs; and she could not understand why so much commotion need be made, although Meta had run up there. Strange as it may seem, Maria Godolphin, though so many years George’s wife, and the presumptive mistress of Ashlydyat, had never passed beyond that separating door. Miss Godolphin had never offered to take her to the unused rooms and the turret; and Maria was of too sensitively refined a nature to ask it of her own accord.
Janet appeared, leading the rebel; Margery, behind, was scolding volubly. “Now,” said Janet, when they reached the foot, “tell me, Meta, how it was that you could behave so disobediently, and go where you had been expressly told not to go?”
Meta shook back her golden curls with a laugh, sprang to Maria, and took refuge in her skirts. “Mamma did not tell me not to go,” said she.
Janet looked at Maria: almost as if she would say, Can it be true that you have not done so?
“It is true,” said Maria, answering the look. “I heard something about her running into the turret the last time she was here: I did not know it was of any consequence.”
“She might fall through the loopholes,” replied Janet. “Nothing could save her from being dashed to pieces.”
Maria caught the child to her with an involuntary movement. “Meta, darling, do you hear? You must never go again.”
Meta looked up fondly, serious now. Maria bent her face down on the little upturned one.