“If it’s Miriam you’re talking of, she’s no light of love of mine nor of any other man, Mother Sykes, you shameless old woman, that I should use such a word to one that lies on her death-bed, or so I thought when I was fetched here at dead of night. Miriam’s neither hussy nor light-of-love. She’s my promised wife, and proud I am to say it,” and I put my arm boldly round Miriam’s rounded waist, and drew her to my side, where she seemed to find no small comfort in clinging, as together we gazed down upon the brown, shrunken face and the thin, spare, grizzled wisps of hair that hung about it in wild disorder. “My plighted and ’trothed beloved,” I continued in a firm voice, gaining confidence as I went on, “and I gave her that ring in token of our betrothal. As to where I got it, that’s my business. Tell me first how you got it, Mother Sykes. I didn’t give it to you, that’s certain sure.”
“Your promised wife!” sneered that very evil-spoken old woman. “Promises and pie-crusts, we know what they’re made for. Aw’n heerd that tale afore, an’ so in an evil day did my dowter an’ her mother afore her.”
“Miriam’s mother!” I gasped. “Your daughter! Tell me—oh! this is a fearful tangle!”
“Aye, Miriam’s mother. Her ’at that gew-gaw once belonged to, that went the way o’ shame, th’ same Miriam’s like to tread. It’s i’ th’ blood, it’s i’ th’ blood, an’ wi’ a parson’s son, too. It’s time aw deed, but aw’ll put a spoke i’ this wheel afore they put me under th’ sod.”
I stood as in a dream. I am not quick at reading riddles. A straightforward story I think I can grasp with any plain and ordinary man. But through the maze my brain was wrapped in stole at length a slender gleam of light, a sort of inkling, a mere glimpse of what the truth might be.
I seized the thin wrist of the sick Woman more roughly, I fear, than there was warrant for.
“You say this ring once belonged to Miriam’s mother, and that that mother went the way of shame. Then, Mother Sykes, though you were at your last gasp, I tell you, you lie foully in your throat. Her mother was the loved and honoured wife of as good and God-fearing and of as unfortunate and wronged a man as ever trod this earth. I knew him well, and closed his eyes in death, and were it the last word I have to speak, James Garside was no seducer of women. Aye, even a Burnplatter’s daughter would be safe with him, as a Burnplatter’s granddaughter is safe with Abel Holmes. I’m my father’s son in that, if in nothing else,” and I closed my arm about that bonnie waist till I think Miriam must have gasped for breath.
“Garside, James Garside, aye, that were his name, the name of the man who led my Esmeralda astray, and broke her young heart. She died when Miriam were born, heart-broken if ever woman were.”
“But Esmeralda, Mr. Garside’s Esmeralda,” I cried in sore perplexity, “was brought up in his mother’s house, and yet you say she was your daughter. Oh! I remember now—he said the child was left on the doorstep of his mother’s house. And your hands laid her there?”
“Aye, marry, that they did, and oft I’ve rued it. But I did it for the best. I saw no way of rearing the bairn myself, and I’d no mind the bonnie wee thing should lead the life, the only life, I saw before me. Twas bad enough for me to cast in with the Burnplatters, but I thought to find a safe asylum for my bairn.”