Remember the Morning by Thomas Fleming Page B

red barns, a fieldstone carriage house, and at least two dozen smaller wooden huts, which she would soon learn were slave quarters. “Does this village have a name?” Clara asked.
    â€œHappenstance Hall,” Adam Duycinck said.
    â€œHampden Hall,” Malcolm Stapleton said. He was holding the reins of the two-horse team that was pulling their springless wagon, in which crude seats had been fastened by a country carpenter.
    â€œAfter some bloody English hero,” Duycinck said.
    â€œHe was a real hero, you stupid Dutch bastard,” Malcolm said. “John Hampden defied the Stuart kings and their corrupt ways. My grandfather, Hugh Stapleton, served in his regiment in the civil war. He was with him when he died at Chalgrove Field.”
    â€œYou can’t get an idea into this fellow’s noodle that isn’t connected to a battle,” Duycinck said to Clara. “All he thinks about is war.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with that?” Clara asked. Among the Senecas, men thought of little else except the exploits of the great warriors they hoped to match.
    â€œYou can get yourself killed in a war,” Duycinck said.
    â€œWhat difference does that make, as long as you die with your honor unbroken?” Clara said.
    â€œListen to that, Duycinck!” Malcolm Stapleton said. “From the mouth of a slave girl.”
    â€œI’m not a slave,” Clara said. “I’m a Seneca. A daughter of the Bear Clan!”
    Startled, Malcolm looked over his shoulder. Was he seeing her for the
first time? Words from her Seneca mother leaped into Clara’s mind. There are people who look and see nothing. Trust only those who look hard and see truly . This young man was learning to look hard. Should she trust him?
    No, it was impossible. He was white. With him, as with the others, even Catalyntie, she would always wear a false face. But she soon saw the value of having Malcolm Stapleton’s good opinion. In the lofty entrance hall, they met the mistress of the mansion, whom Malcolm introduced almost rudely as “my stepmother.”
    A tall, and fair-skinned woman, Georgianna Stapleton faced the world with the hauteur of a queen. Her hair was a glistening auburn, strewn with darker shades. She was wearing a green riding outfit and green hat with a black raven’s feather in it. “Who is this beautiful creature?” she asked, with the hard eyes of a woman who does not tolerate rivals.
    Malcolm explained who Clara was and why she was here. “We have no need of another house servant,” Mrs. Stapleton said. “She’ll have to go into the fields.”
    â€œShe’s too educated for that,” Malcolm said. “She can read and write. Father thinks she can help Jamey with his lessons. She can also help Adam with his accounts.”
    â€œLessons!” Mrs. Stapleton said. “I fear scholarship will be as lost on Jamey as it was on you. I will never understand how an intelligent man like your father sired two such boobies.”
    Malcolm flushed and struggled to control his anger. Mrs. Stapleton went blithely on: “What does Adam need with an assistant, unless she knows how to turn red ink into black?”
    â€œShe’s turned black blood into red, madam,” Duycinck said with his leering smile. “Her mother was killed by the Indians and she was adopted by them. She considers herself a Seneca.”
    In a more confiding voice, he added: “They say her mother had powers. She may be able to change our luck.”
    â€œThat would be a novelty,” Mrs. Stapleton said. “I’m off to the Alexanders for a fortnight. We’ll decide what to do with Clara when I return. If she wants to try teaching Jamey in the meantime, good luck to her.”
    â€œAs for you,” she said, poking her riding crop into Duycinck’s protruding stomach. “If there’s a Negro born with a twisted back in nine months, I will