You are here

قراءة كتاب Daisy in the Field

تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"

‏اللغة: English
Daisy in the Field

Daisy in the Field

تقييمك:
0
No votes yet
المؤلف:
دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 3

them, to let them not know?"

There were so many things, of which Miss Cardigan was ignorant! How could I answer her? I sat silent, pondering the difficulty; and she was silent on her side, waiting for me to think over it. It was never her way to be in a hurry; not to leave her work half done neither, as I knew.

"I will honour them the best way I can," I said at length.

"Then you will write them next steamer. Is it not so, Daisy?"

"That would make it very difficult for me to honour them," I said; "to honour them in action, I mean."

"Why so? There is no way so short as a straight way."

"No, ma'am. But -I cannot undo what is done, Miss Cardigan."

"What our cheeks say your heart has done. No, child." And again I heard the unwonted sigh from Miss Cardigan's lips.

"Not my heart only," I went on, plucking up courage. "I have spoken - I have let him speak. I cannot undo it - I cannot undo it."

"Well?" said Miss Cardigan, looking anxious.

"It was done before I thought of mamma and papa. It was all done - it is done; and I cannot undo it now, even for them."

"My dear, you would not marry without your parents' consent?"

"No, Miss Cardigan. They may forbid that."

"What then? What harm would be done by your letting them know at once how the case stands. They would care for your happiness, Daisy."

Not with a Northerner, a farmer's son, and an officer in the
Northern army. I knew how it would be; but I could not tell
Miss Cardigan.

"What is it you cannot undo, little Daisy?" she said softly, I suppose seeing me look troubled. And she stretched out a kind hand and took hold of mine. It was very hard to bear. All this was a sort of dragging things into light and putting things in black and white; more tangible and more hard to deal with for ever after.

"What is it you cannot undo? Since you confess, that if they desired, you would undo the whole."

"Not my faith, nor my affection," - I said, slowly. "Some things they may forbid, and I obey; but these things are passed beyond their power, and beyond mine. I will be true. I cannot help it now, if I would."

"But, Daisy -" said Miss Cardigan, and she was evidently perplexed now herself. - "Since you are ready to obey them in the utmost and give up Thorold if they say so, what is there, my dear, which your father and mother could command now in which you are not ready to obey them?"

"The time has not come, Miss Cardigan," I said. "It may be - you know it may be - long, before they need know anything about it; before, I mean, anything could be done. I am going abroad - Christian will be busy here - and they might tell me not to think of him and not to write to him; and - I can't live so. It is fair to give him and myself the chance. It is fair that they should know him and see him before they hear what he wants of them; or at least before they answer it."

"Give him and yourself the chance - of what, Daisy?"

"I don't know," I said faint-heartedly. "Of what time may do."

"Then you think -my dear, you augur ill of your father's and mother's opinion of your engagement?"

"I can't help it now, Miss Cardigan," I said; and I know I spoke firmly then. "I did not know what I was doing - I did not know what was coming. If I had known, if I could have helped myself, I think I ought not to have loved anybody or let anybody speak to me without my father and mother choosing it; but it was all done before I could in the least help it; and you know I cannot help it now. I owe something besides to them now. I will not disobey them in anything I can help; - but I will be true, - as long as I live."

Miss Cardigan sat a long while silent, holding my hand all the while; sometimes clasping, and sometimes fondling it. Then she turned and kissed me. It was very hard to bear, all of it.

"I suppose you are a great heiress," she said at last; as if the words escaped her, and with a breath of a sigh.

"It is not that!" I exclaimed. "No, I am not. I am not - I shall not be a great heiress, or an heiress at all, I think. Christian is richer than I."

"My dear!" said Miss Cardigan. "Christian never said a word to me about it, but your friend Mrs. Sandford - she told me; she told me you would be one of the richest women in your State."

"She thought so," - I said.

"My dear, your parents are very wealthy; and they have only one other child, Mrs. Sandford told me. I remember, for it took me with a pity at my heart, little Daisy, for you."

"Yes, they are wealthy," I said; "and Ransom, my brother, is the only other one. He will be rich. But I shall not."

"Do you mean he is the favourite?" said Miss Cardigan.

"Oh, no!" I said. "At least, if he is, so am I. It isn't that. But I shall never be an heiress, Miss Cardigan. I shall be very poor, I rather think."

I smiled at her as I said these words - they were upon the first pleasant subject that had been touched for some time between us; and Miss Cardigan looked quite bewildered. I remembered she had good reason; and I thought it was right, though very much against my will, to explain my words.

"You know what makes my father and mother rich?" I said.

"My dear!" said Miss Cardigan - "They have large Southern properties."

"And you know what makes Southern wealth?" I went on.

"Rice - cotton -"

"No, it isn't that," I said.

"What then, my dear? I do not know what you mean. I thought it was mainly cotton."

"It is unpaid labour," I said. "It is hands that ought to work for themselves; and men and women that ought to belong to themselves."

"Slaves," said Miss Cardigan. "But, Daisy, what do you mean?
It's all true; but what can you do?"

"I can have nothing to do with it. And I will have nothing. I would rather be poor, as poor as old Darry and Maria, than take what belongs to them. Miss Cardigan, so would you."

She settled herself back in her chair, like a person who has got a new thought. "My dear child!" she said. And then she said nothing more. I did not wish she should. I wanted no counsel, nor to hear any talk about it. I had only spoken so much, as thinking she had a right to hear it. I went back into my own meditations.

"Daisy, my child," she said suddenly after a while, - "there is only one thing to be said; and the word is not mine. 'If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you."

"Why, Miss Cardigan," said I, smiling, "do you think the, world will hate me for such a thing?"

"It hates all those who pretend to tell it is wrong."

"I do not pretend to tell it anything," I said.

"There is no preaching like that of the life. Daisy, have you well considered this matter?"

"For years."

"Then I'll know how to pray for you," she said. And there our conversation ended. It had laid on my heart a grave burden of well-defined care, which went with me thenceforth. I could never ignore it nor doubt it was there. Not but I knew well enough each several point in our discussion, before it had come up in words between Miss Cardigan and me; but having so come up, and taken form, each was a tangible thing for ever after. It is odd, how much we can bear unspoken, to which words give an unendurable weight

Pages