Daisy in the Field | Page 5

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 and power. However, these troubles, in their present form, were not unendurable. I only felt them constantly from that time.
My visits to Miss Cardigan now were what they had always been; only perhaps she was a little more tenderly affectionate and careful of me. We did not go back to the discussions of that day, nor to any other regarding my affairs; but she and I scanned the papers well,