“Lenny! Lenny lost! Oh, Father! Oh, Heavenly Father, have mercy!” cried Drusilla, reeling back into the arms of Anna, who sprang forward to support her.
“The child missing! What do you mean? It cannot be! Pina, where is little Lenny?” demanded Anna, scarcely able to control her own terror and distress, even while she sustained the agonized mother. “Answer me, Pina, I say! Where is little Lenny?”
But Pina was past answering, past everything but grovelling at their feet and howling and tearing her hair.
“Has the girl gone suddenly mad and so lost the child? Policeman, where and under what circumstances did you find her? Waiter, bring forward that easy-chair.”
The chair was rolled forward and Drusilla was eased into it, where she sat pale, and mute, every sense on the qui vive to hear the policeman’s story. Terrified, agonized, yet with a mighty effort holding herself still and calm, the bereaved young mother sat and listened to the policeman’s account of his meeting with the nurse, after the loss of the child.
“If you please, my ladies, I first saw her in the Strand, tearing up and down the street, running after babies and nurses and bursting into shops and houses, and going on generally like one raving, distracted, with a rabble of boys at her heels hooting and jeering. So she being complained of by certain parties as she annoyed and I, suspecting of her to be a mad woman broke loose from Bedlam, or leastways making a great disturbance in the streets, I takes her into custody, and should have took her off to the station-house and locked her up, only she began to howl about the child she had lost, and I began to see what had happened to her and how it was; and I asked her where she lived, and she told me and I brought her here; and that is all about it, my ladies; but if you can get more out of her nor I could, I think it would be well you should, and then maybe we could help you to get the child, my lady,” said officer E, 48.
“Oh, missus! missus! kill me! kill me! it would be a mercy!” cried Pina, wringing her hands.
“I think it would be justice, at least,” answered Anna, sternly.
“Where did you lose sight of him, Pina?” inquired the young mother, in a strangely quiet manner.
“Oh, missus! oh, missus! knock me in the head and put me out of my misery! do! do! do!” cried Pina, gnashing her teeth and tearing her hair, rolling on the floor and giving way to all her excess of grief and despair, with all the utter abandonment of her race.