properly.'
'I dint do it!' Polly was a small woman with pale eyes that drooped downward at the corners, and as she came forward obediently her fingers twisted the gray cotton of her dress. 'Honest I dint!'
Pitt moved away from the matron and sat down on one of the chairs, motioning Polly to do the same.
'I know that,' he said agreeably. 'Of course you didn't. I believe you.'
'You do?' She was incredulous, uncertain what to do next.
'Sit down, Polly, please. I need your help.'
'Mine?'
'Yes, please. You knew Elsie, didn't you? You were friends?'
'Elsie? Yeah, I knew Elsie. She's gorn 'ome.' S83
'Yes, that's right.' The elemental truth of the words wrenched his heart. 'Elsie used to be in service, didn't she.' He made it a statement, not a question; perhaps questions were more than she could handle. 'Did she ever tell you anything about that?'
'Oh yeah!' Polly's vacant face lit up for a moment. 'Lady's maid, she were-ever so grand. Said 'er mistress were the best lady hi the world.' Slowly the light faded from her eyes; tears filled them, spilling down her pallid cheeks, and she made no move to wipe them away.
Pitt took his handkerchief and leaned forward to dry her tears. It was a pointless gesture-she kept on crying-but he felt better for it. Somehow it made her seem more like a woman, less a thing broken and shut away.
'She died, Elsie's mistress, a long time ago,' he prompted. 'Elsie was very sad.'
Polly nodded very slowly. 'Starved, poor soul; starved to death, for Jesus' sake.'
Pitt was startled. Perhaps this had been an idiotic idea, coming to Bedlam for an answer when he did not even know what the question was, and asking lunatics.
'Starved?' he repeated. 'I thought she died of scarlet fever.'
'Starved.' She said the word carefully, but her voice sounded empty, as if she did not know what it meant.
'Is that what Elsie said?'
'That's what Elsie said. For Jesus.'
'Did she say why?' It was a wildly optimistic question. What could this poor creature know, and what could it mean, having come from Elsie Draper's jumbled mind?
'For Jesus,' Polly repeated, looking at him with clear, shallow eyes.
'How was it for Jesus?' Was it even worth asking?
Polly blinked. Pitt waited, trying to smile at her.
Her attention wandered.
'How was it for Jesus, this starving?' he prompted her. 284
'The church,' she said with a sudden return of interest. 'The church in an 'all on Bethlehem Road. She knew it were true, an' 'e wou'nt let 'er go. That's wot Elsie said. Foreign, they was. 'E seen God-an' Jesus.'
'Who had, Polly?'
'Idunno.'
'What were they called?'
'She never said. Least, I never 'eard.'
