by Janet Dailey
"That cannot be true," Eliza protested, torn between outrage and disbelief.
"I assure you it is, Miss Hall," he stated, then looked at Temple. "In times such as these, you need to be wary when you venture from your home."
"And in times such as these, you are needed at home," Temple stated in sharp criticism.
"I am on my way there now."
"For how long this time?" Temple challenged. "A day? A week? A month? Before you succumb to your restless urges and leave again. Your father is no longer a young man. He needs your help. Your people need your help. It is time you assumed your rightful place as the son of Shawano Stuart."
The Blade was clearly amused by her lecture. "So you told me the last time I saw you."
"And you paid no attention to me. This time you must," Temple insisted.
"And if I do, will you show me the sweetness of your smile instead of the sharpness of your tongue?" His smile continued to make light of her words, but there was a darkening of interest in his eyes as he watched her.
Knowing she had won a small victory, Temple looked away. "I would at least view you with some respect."
"Perhaps it is not respect I want from you," he murmured, then smoothly switched the subject. "How is your mother?"
Temple started to protest the change, then checked the impulse. "She is still troubled by a cough. Otherwise, she is well."
"She will be anxious for you to return. Deu and I will ride a ways with you to ensure the Georgians do not decide to ambush you farther along the road." He backed his horse clear of the carriage.
"Your escort is appreciated, Mr. Stuart," Eliza declared, and she took her seat again.
As soon as Temple joined her, Ike slapped the reins and chirruped to the team, urging them forward. The Blade Stuart and the young black man with him cantered their horses to the front and ranged along the road ahead of the carriage.
"The Blade. That is an unusual name," Eliza remarked.
"It comes from his Cherokee name, which means 'the man who carries the mark of the blade.'"
"The scar on his cheek."
Temple nodded. "He received it in a fight when he was twelve." Her glance traveled to the man under discussion, and her expression softened. "He has been a disappointment to his father. And to others."
Eliza recalled Temple's earlier criticism of him and guessed, "You do not like him very well, do you?"
Temple gave her a startled look. "You are wrong, Miss Hall. If he would but remain here and assume the responsibilities that are his, I would marry him."
"What?"
"Our families have always wanted it."
"But is it what you want?"
"It is what I have always wanted," Temple stated with a determined set to her chin and a gleam in her eye that no proper young lady should have.
2
Thirty more minutes of travel brought the carriage and its occupants to a fork in the road. The Blade Stuart and his black companion took the rutted trail that branched to the right. Ike swung the chestnut team after them, and the federal road was left behind.
On either side of the rough track, the land had been tamed by the plow and planted to crops. Eliza saw fields of corn, indigo, and cotton, the green of young plants vivid against the red-colored soil. Here and there, pastures formed islands of solid green, thick grass providing forage for the cattle that grazed in them.
A mile from the federal road turnoff, The Blade Stuart reined his horse off the trail and pulled in long enough to make eye contact with Temple. Then, without so much as a nod of his head or a lift of a hand, he rode his horse into a stand of trees, the young black man trailing behind him. The carriage continued on, without any slackening of pace.
"Where is Mr. Stuart going?" Eliza inquired when he disappeared from view.
"The home of his father lies beyond that ridge. It will shorten his journey to ride across it."
"I see." Eliza faced the front again and inspected the rutted lane ahead of them. "I hope we meet no more Georgians."
"Few venture onto this trail," Temple assured her.
"Let us pray that is the case today as well." Eliza clutched at the side of the carriage for balance as a front wheel dipped crazily into a deep hole hidden by a puddle of standing water. An instant later, the wheel rolled free with a bouncing jerk.
Ike pulled the team out of a trot into a walk. Directly ahead, a low-water crossing was flooded with runoff from the recent rains and dammed by a fallen limb of an ancient cottonwood tree and the detritus snared by it.
Two Negroes worked to clear the debris and let the water resume its normal flow. One stood in water up to his knees and tugged at the tangle of branches and brush, a single suspender holding his pants up, his dark skin glistening with sweat. The other wielded an ax and chopped at the thick cottonwood limb. The ringing thwack of the ax blade biting into the wood sounded above the rattle and rumble of the carriage.
A man on horseback had stationed himself on the opposite bank, where the towering arms of the cottonwood shaded him from the sun's burning rays. Eliza gathered from his watchful attitude that he was there to oversee the work. Slavery, she knew, was a common practice in the Southern states, but one she simply could not endorse.
"That is a shameful sight," Eliza stated, unable to hold her tongue any longer.
Temple gave an absent nod of agreement, her expression showing a similar displeasure. "Little progress has been made since first I passed here. Our field Negroes grow lazy in my father's absence. He will not be pleased."
"Your field Negroes?" Eliza repeated in surprise. "Those are your slaves?"
"Yes," Temple confirmed. "Did you think they belonged to someone else?"
"No. That is ... I simply did not expect a Cherokee to countenance the owning of slaves."
"How else would we plant and harvest our crops?"
"Hire them as you would any worker and pay them a fair wage for their labor. This practice of slavery is an abomination. It should be abolished. Colored people are human beings; they are not livestock to be bought and sold."
Temple summarily dismissed the notion. "You are from the North. You know nothing of our blacks or you would not show such ignorance."
Eliza was about to argue her position when the full import of Temple's earlier remark registered. She sat up. "You said those were your field Negroes. That means we have reached the land you farm."
"We have, yes."
Eliza craned her neck, trying to catch an advance glimpse of her final destination. Several structures built of roughly hewn logs were visible through the heavily leafed trees just ahead. Two of them appeared to be little more than sheds.
A loud, raucous cry rent the air just as the carriage veered away from the buildings and started up a gently sloping knoll shaded by towering chestnut trees. Atop the knoll sat a three-story brick mansion fronted by a white-columned veranda and roofed balcony. Peacocks strolled the front lawn, which was landscaped with flowering shrubs and brick paths that radiated like spokes on a wheel from the imposing structure.
"What is this place?" The building had all the grandeur of some official's residence.
"Our home," Temple replied with unconscious pride. "Welcome to Gordon Glen, Miss Hall."
Eliza stared in amazement.
When she accompanied Temple inside a few minutes later, she discovered the interior was as grand in appearance as the exterior. A great hall, dominated by a handsomely carved walnut staircase, ran down the center of the first floor. At the opposite end was another entrance, a twin to the baroque door they had just entered, complete with a fan-shaped transom above it.
To the left, a set of double doors opened onto the front parlor. An intricately patterned rug of forest green and gold carpeted the room's wooden floor. Its colors complemented the green-velvet-covered mahogany settee that bore the distinctive design of a Phyfe-made piece. Yet the rug, the settee, the brass wall sconces, the Boston rockers—all the parlor's fine furnishings paled in significance
before the room's massive fireplace. Carved out of walnut and crowned by a mantelpiece of chiseled marble, it rose the full height of the room.
From the staircase came a whisper of furtive movement. Two black children peered at Eliza from between the carved banisters.
Footsteps approached the great hall as a woman emerged from one of the main-floor rooms. A long apron covered the front of her gingham dress, and her black hair was twisted in a knot at the back of her head. Her face possessed the heavy bone structure associated with Indians.
"You are here, Miss Hall," the woman said when she saw the new tutor with Temple. A smile immediately lifted the corners of her mouth, but it didn't erase the hollowed look of tiredness around her dark eyes. Temple introduced the woman as her mother, Victoria Gordon.
"How do you do, Mrs. Gordon," Eliza murmured with respect, mindful of her position in the household.
"We are pleased you agreed to come here, Miss Hall," Victoria Gordon replied in somewhat stilted English, then looked past Temple and Eliza in a searching manner, a furrow of concern appearing on her brow. "Is Kipp not with you?"
"Kipp?" Eliza repeated.
"My oldest son," Victoria Gordon explained. "I told him Temple had left to fetch you. He was to be outside to greet you when you arrived."
"We saw no one," she replied.
Victoria Gordon nodded in acceptance. "He grew tired of the wait, I think. He plays somewhere now." There was the tolerance of a mother's love in her voice.
Eliza had the impression that Kipp Gordon had known little discipline at his mother's hands. According to Payton Fletcher, the oldest Gordon boy was eleven—a difficult age, neither young man nor child. An age when a firm hand was required.
At the top of the stairs, twelve-year-old Phoebe shrank back from the carved railings and grabbed the arm of her nine-year-old brother, Shadrach, pulling him with her. Crouching low, she wrapped her arms around her bony legs and hooked her fingers around her bare toes to hold the position while she peered down at the strange white woman below.
"That be the teacher?" Shadrach whispered.
Phoebe nodded. The pincushion of ribbon-tied braids on her head bobbed with the motion. "She be from the North. Master Will sent fo' her."
"Master Kipp say them talkin' leaves be magic."
"Master Kipp be teasin' you 'gain." Phoebe didn't like Kipp. He was always filling Shadrach's head with stories and being mean to him. "Ain't no magic. An' they be books, not talkin' leaves. The Indians calls them that 'cause they dumb. Be you dumb?"
"No." But Shadrach didn't look too sure of that as he tucked his chin between his bent knees and gazed down at the white teacher.
"Deuteronomy Jones over at old Master Stuart's place, he reads an' writes jus' like white folks does. He be real smart." Phoebe rocked back and thought about that young black man from the neighboring plantation. She hadn't seen him in a long time, but she remembered he was sure enough a fine-looking man. He had a smile that was all big and wide, the kind that made her feel warm all over.
"I gwine to read an' write someday," Shadrach vowed.
Phoebe started to tell him that was never going to happen, but the dream took hold of her, too. She realized it would be a fine thing. She wouldn't be just a house nigger anymore. If she could read and write, maybe when Deu came back he would see that she was special too.
"Phoebe, is that you?" her mistress called sharply.
Phoebe sprang to her feet and quickly stepped in front of her brother to shield him from sight. "Yes'm, Miz Vi'toria. I be here." She scuffled her feet over the boards, making noise to cover the faint sounds Shadrach made as he crawled away.
"I told you to stay with little Johnny." Victoria Gordon came to the base of the staircase.
"I be comin't' fetch you. He be fussin'. I be thinkin' he be hungry." Everything she said could be true. The baby was awake and acting cross. Course, her mammy claimed it was a tooth coming in that was giving him a fever and making him cranky.
Sighing, Victoria Gordon turned from the stairs and cast an apologetic glance at Eliza. "Temple will see to your needs." She started up the steps.
Halfway to the second floor, she was seized by a racking cough that slowed her pace. Temple watched with concern as her mother climbed the stairs. The look was gone when she turned to face the new tutor.
"Are you hungry, Miss Hall? I can have Black Cassie fix you something to eat."
"No, thank you." But Eliza took advantage of the offer to satisfy a curiosity whetted by glimpses of the other rooms on the main floor. "Is this the dining room?" She stepped closer to the archway on her right to see more of the room's interior. "I was told I would be taking my meals with the family."
"Of course," Temple replied as she came over to stand beside her. Sunlight streamed through the lace curtains on the four large windows and glistened brightly on the Sheraton-style mahogany table that stretched the length of the room. Twelve highly polished chairs were grouped around it. A fireplace of hand-carved walnut occupied the outside wall, its hearth closed off by a screen. A glass cabinet on the far wall housed an elaborate service of china and crystal. Opposite it stood a mahogany sideboard.
"In the evenings, we gather in the family parlor." Temple guided Eliza down the great hall to another room.
When Temple stepped aside, Eliza saw, to her amazement, a rosewood piano in the corner. A piano—here in the middle of the wilderness. She walked over to its velvet-covered stool and sat down, wondering when she would cease to be surprised by what she found here. She touched the smooth wood, then glanced back at Temple. "Do you play?"
"One of the missionary wives at Brainerd was teaching me, but—" She paused, then shrugged and smiled. "Father has become weary of listening to me play the same three melodies over and over. Do you play the piano? Perhaps you could teach me some new songs."
"I see no reason why music lessons cannot be scheduled in the afternoons." With difficulty, Eliza resisted the urge to raise the wooden cover and expose the keys. She stood and firmly clasped her hands together.
"The library is across the hall." Temple started toward the door, adding over her shoulder, "Father said you are to be allowed access to all of the books."
"How very kind of him."
The instant Eliza entered the library, she stopped and stared at the portrait above the fireplace mantelpiece. None of the library's other furnishings registered, not the large walnut desk, the elaborately carved sofa, or the vast collection of books on the shelves. All paled before the oil painting of a tall, stern-eyed man— dressed in a Scottish kilt.
"Who is that?"
"My grandfather Lachlan Gordon. He built this house," Temple replied.
"He wears a kilt." Eliza frowned, noticing for the first time the jeweled pin on the front of the man's plaid skirt. It was exactly like the amethyst brooch Temple wore.
"His father, William Gordon, came from Scotland. He was the second son of a nobleman there. Shortly after he arrived in Savannah, he killed a man in a fight. The English were going to charge him with murder, so he fled here to the mountains among the Cherokees." Temple paused to gaze at the painting. "The kilt originally belonged to him. My grandfather Lachlan said he was tall and strong like an oak tree, with hair as red as the maple leaves in autumn. My father was named William Alexander after him."
"Then he remained in the mountains?"
"He could not go back. They would have arrested him for murder," Temple reminded her. "He married Dánagâsta, a respected war woman of the Cherokees."
"A war woman?" Eliza questioned the term.
"A female warrior who has earned honors in war."
"You surely cannot mean she actually took part in a battle?"
"Why not? A woman can fight with a war club, musket, or bow and arrow as well as a man. In Dánagâsta's time, it was not uncommon for a Cherokee woman to choose to become a warrior as well as the mother of warriors. When war was contemplated, war women sat in the holy area of the council and advised the
war chiefs on the strategy to be used. My grandfather's mother was such a woman. Her English name was Jane Gordon." Temple again paused thoughtfully. "She and her husband, William Alexander Gordon, started this farm. When I was a small girl, their log cabin still stood, but it burned several years ago."
"I see." Eliza looked around again. "You say your grandfather built this house. It must have cost a fortune. How did he ever acquire such wealth out here in the wilderness?"
"He was a very clever man. He operated the trading post and gristmill his father had established. With the profits from those businesses, he brought in agriculturists to advise him, and purchased field Negroes to plant more lands to crops and orchards. A venture that proved most successful," Temple explained. "He fashioned this house after the fine homes he saw in Scotland and England."
"You mean the ones his father saw," Eliza corrected, certain Temple had misspoken.
"No, Lachlan Gordon saw them himself. He had heard so many stories from his father about Scotland that my grandfather wanted to see it for himself. He took my father with him, though he was only a young boy no older than my brother Kipp. They traveled all through England and Scotland and visited many of the grand estates there. They even met King George the Third."
Will Gordon, her employer, had met the late King of England? Eliza was startled by this revelation, then hastened to assure herself that she wasn't impressed by the royal title but rather by the historical significance of George the Third.
In retrospect, Eliza found it quite typical of the English to lionize a party of American Indians and fawn over them, according them the honors they would show visiting royalty. She had only to recall the legendary Powhatan Indian maiden Pocahontas and the fuss that was made over her when she went to England.
While Eliza inspected the rest of the library, Temple carefully scrutinized the new teacher. There was nothing particularly compelling about her strong features and small mouth. Her brown hair was curly and light in color like the wood of the hickory. Tall and thin, she held herself stiffly erect, the jut of her chin suggesting a willful personality. Temple had at first thought this Eliza Hall to be cold and stern without a woman's core of warmth and deep feeling until she had seen the delight that sprang into the teacher's hazel eyes when she spied the piano in the family parlor. At that moment, Temple had decided that she could, perhaps, like this new tutor.
