Twin Willows: A Novel (2 page)

P
HILADELPHIA, 1781

Since its founding in
1772
, Miss Martin’s School for Young Ladies had occupied a narrow red brick house in a fashionable lane just off Philadelphia’s Market Street. Miss Martin’s was neither the most expensive nor the most exclusive school in Philadelphia, but its director prided herself on serving a select clientele and upholding certain standards. Miss Matilda Martin, although a strict headmistress, made sure her girls got thorough instruction in how to be fine, proper, intelligent young ladies suitable to become wives in high society. Of course, being a spinster, Miss Martin taught by the book and not from personal experience.

Most of the young ladies were quartered in the bedchambers on the third floor. Anna Willow McKnight and her best friend Felicia Darby shared a small attic room a half flight above the fourth-floor servants’ quarters. Although in hot weather it was undeniably the least desirable location in the house, in the winter its proximity to the kitchen chimney usually made it almost bearable.

On this raw December day, however, Anna McKnight shivered as she put on all three of her petticoats under her warmest wool dress. Because the other pupils were gone for the holidays, the amount of cooking had been greatly reduced, and along with it, the fires that produced the heat to warm the attic.

“You really ought to go home for the holidays,” Miss Martin had told Anna, more from a desire to get rid of her than from any concern that she might be lonely.

“No, ma’am. I shall stay here and begin to catch up on all the work I missed when I was ill,” Anna had replied.

“Very well, but don’t expect to be catered to.”

Anna had to bite her tongue to keep from saying that she’d never been catered to and knew better than to expect anything extra from the parsimonious headmistress. “I shan’t, Miss Martin,” she had said.

In any case, Anna had no desire to return to the place that she no longer regarded as her home. She had been fourteen, all long legs and big, dark eyes, when her father Ian McKnight insisted that his daughter should leave her aunt’s western Pennsylvania farm to be educated like a lady.

Anna recalled Miss Martin’s look of disdain when she arrived in Philadelphia, as if the muck of the pigpen still clung to her homespun dress. Anna had no doubt that she would have been turned away from the school’s door without a second thought if it hadn’t been for Miss Martin’s nephew, Stuart Martin, who had served with Ian McKnight in the Pennsylvania Line during the War for American Independence. Despite the difference in their ages and backgrounds, the two men had become friends. Ian’s concern that his daughter receive a proper education prompted Stuart Martin to urge his aunt to admit her. Daughters of rich men were seldom turned away, providing their bloodlines were sufficiently pure. Occasionally the daughter of a minister or some other poor man was allowed to enroll if she was willing to work hard for her keep, as Felicia Darby did. However, no one with Anna’s background had ever dared to be presented for entrance to Miss Martin’s school—and no father had ever been more insistent that his daughter should be admitted.

“I will pay the girl’s tuition and board for all three years in one sum if ye wish,” Ian McKnight had offered. That alone would have gone a long way toward changing Miss Martin’s negative opinion, but she had been fully swayed by the letter he carried from Stuart Martin, who stated that he owed his life to the older man. So Anna had been grudgingly admitted, and so she had lived for two and a half years.

Her aunt, Agnes Barfield, the only mother Anna had ever known, had died the year before. Soon after, her eldest cousin Henry had married a local girl who had never liked Anna; and in a letter, Henry had made it clear that the Barfields didn’t need another mouth to feed. Like it or not, Miss Martin’s school had become Anna’s only home.

The headmistress agreed that Anna had much work to make up. “I would also remind you that my nephew has many matters to attend to on his holiday. You must not expect Mr. Martin to help you.”

“No, ma’am, I shan’t.”

“Humph,” Miss Martin had said, looking at Anna as if she doubted it.

In fact, Anna secretly hoped to spend some time with Stuart Martin. She recalled the first time she had seen him, soon after he had returned from the army to resume his studies at Princeton. His tall figure dominating the room was the object of many admiring female stares. Ignoring the others, he had sought out Anna and approached her with a smile of welcome.

“You must be Anna Willow. Colonel McKnight talked about you so much, I already feel that I know you.”

Too shy to speak, she could only nod and curtsy, fearing she couldn’t say a word to him without stammering. Since then, as his own schedule allowed, Stuart had taught enough Latin and Greek to his aunt’s pupils to justify Miss Martin’s claim that her young ladies were instructed in both scholarly and artistic subjects. Not a few of Miss Martin’s pupils were interested in Stuart Martin, but so far, he had gone out of his way to avoid even the slightest personal contact with them.

“I think Stuart Martin likes me, though,” Anna said aloud to the empty room, and her breath made a cloud in the cold room. Quickly she laced the bodice of her plain blue wool dress and peered critically into the shadowy piece of broken glass that passed for a mirror. As a child, Anna had hoped that her dark hair and eyes and complexion might miraculously lighten, making her look more like her cousins and everyone else she knew. The hurt of knowing that she was different remained even after Anna’s father had explained that she looked very much like her Delaware Indian mother, who had died giving birth to her.

“Ye’re beautiful, lass, and ye should never be ashamed of your mother,” Ian McKnight had told her.

Her father had told her many times how he had met the beautiful Silverwillow when she brought her baskets to his trading post, and how only weeks later he had taken her down the river to find a white minister to marry them. His oft-repeated account made Anna even more curious.

“I want to see the village where you lived,” Anna had insisted. “My mother’s relatives still live there, don’t they?”

“Nay, lass. Your mother had no relatives. She was an orphan, taken in and raised by a kind old woman no kin to her at all. When ye’re older, I’ll take ye there.”

But long before that time had come, her father had gone off to war.

Anna sighed and pinched her cheeks for color, as she’d seen other girls do. She couldn’t help but envy the light complexions of Miss Martin’s other girls. Even Rose Smythe, with hair even darker than Anna’s, had creamy white skin, strikingly set off by her rosy cheeks.

“I imagine that color comes from a rouge pot she’s got hidden away somewhere,” Felicia once told Anna, but that knowledge was small consolation.

“Stuart Martin will have to accept me as I am or not at all,” Anna told the mirror as she pinned up her thick chestnut hair, covered it with a mob cap, and left her chilly room.

She found Miss Martin and her nephew seated at the round wood table in the family dining room, where Stuart conducted his infrequent lessons. Anna couldn’t help but notice the contrast in the appearance of aunt and nephew. Both had wavy, thick hair of the same sandy shade, and startling, almost violet, eyes; but otherwise the two bore no other resemblance. Miss Martin’s face was long and mournful, her mouth perennially drooping as if she had just heard bad news, and the tilt of her nose suggested she disapproved of everything that came her way. On the other hand, Stuart Martin’s face was almost square, and the corners of his mouth turned up as if he knew some delightful secret.

As Anna approached the table, Stuart rose in greeting and pulled out a chair for her. Miss Martin scowled and rang for the servant.

“Miss McKnight has finally decided to join us,” she told the elderly cook, Nancy, who shuffled into the room. Then she fixed her legendary stare on Anna. “I’m afraid late risers must make do with cold porridge.”

“I don’t mind, Miss Martin. I didn’t realize the hour was so late.” Anna attempted a slight smile, but as usual, the headmistress didn’t return it.

“Even if her breakfast is cold, it’ll still be warmer than the attic,” Stuart said to his aunt. “I was up there yesterday when you and Miss McKnight were at the market, and my hands were numb with cold before I found my old Latin texts.”

“You should have left your books here in our library in case any of my pupils wanted to use them,” Miss Martin said.

Stuart waved at the wall where some fifty volumes resided on three shelves of a somewhat rickety old cabinet. “Calling that paltry collection of books a library is something of an exaggeration, Aunt Matilda. Anyhow, I doubt that any of your young ladies would ever voluntarily choose to peruse Caesar’s
Gallic Wars
on their own.”

“I should like to try it,” Anna said.

Stuart nodded, unsurprised. “I just told Aunt that you are her only pupil with any facility for language at all. However, I suspect that the book may be too elementary for you.”

“I know that Gaul was divided into three parts, but not much else,” Anna said.

Stuart’s look of pleasure was balanced by his aunt’s opposite expression, which neither he nor Anna heeded. “Then we shall start a bit further into the book and see how you do with it.”

Miss Martin’s tone was frosty. “Perhaps I should remind you that Miss McKnight’s father did not pay extra for private tutoring.”

Stuart’s lips compressed into a thin line and his face colored briefly. “Miss McKnight and I are scholars discussing a mutual interest. Such a conversation is not tutoring.”

His aunt flushed, but she said no more until after the cook had set Anna’s breakfast before her and once more returned to the kitchen.

“I should think that your studies at Princeton would demand all of your time. Perhaps if you are to be unduly distracted here, it would be better for you to return at once to your lodgings at the college.”

Stuart looked levelly at his aunt, something that few others ever dared to do. “Are you asking me to leave this house, ma’am?”

Miss Martin’s cheeks flamed even redder. “You well know that this is your home, Stuart. But I would remind you that your poor departed father meant the funds he left you to be used for your education. I am sure he would not want you to abuse the privileges that you have been given in this household.”

With fascination Anna watched the battle of wills being played out before her. Miss Martin’s pupils knew that the building that housed the school had been owned by Stuart Martin’s father, who had died the previous year. John Martin had broken convention by bequeathing the house to his unmarried sister instead of to his only surviving son.

Miss Martin shouldn’t be angry with her nephew
, Anna thought. She returned her attention to Stuart as he spoke, breaking the tense silence between him and his aunt.

“I am fully aware of your generosity, Aunt Matilda.”

“I should hope your studies have taught you that generosity is due to be returned in like kind.”

A slight smile played at the corners of Stuart’s mouth, but whatever words he might have said were left unspoken. “And so shall it be. After the twenty-fifth of this month, I shall return to Princeton and bother you no more.”

Miss Martin lowered her eyes and sipped tea from a bone china cup. “You may stay as long as you like,” she murmured halfheartedly.

Stuart returned his attention to Anna, who had been quietly trying to appear oblivious to the scene she had just witnessed. In the past few days, Stuart had become fully aware that the coltish, gawky girl child he’d persuaded his aunt to admit to her school had become a beautiful young woman. Everything about her, from her obvious intelligence to her unusual complexion and the easy grace with which she moved, stirred him in a way he had never felt before. Lately Stuart had found it hard to sound businesslike when speaking to Anna.

“I have some errands to attend to this morning, Miss McKnight, but perhaps later today we can see where you stand with Mr. Caesar.”

Anna glanced at Miss Martin, who apparently was completely absorbed in pouring more tea into her cup, then looked back at Stuart. The new way in which he seemed to be regarding her sent a thrill of hope through her body. “That is most kind of you, sir,” she managed to say.

“My pleasure.” Stuart sounded as if he meant it. He rose from his chair and bowed slightly, first to his aunt and then to Anna. “Please excuse me, ladies.” His eyes held Anna’s, seeming to hold a breath-stopping message that his words had not.

It’s no wonder that half the girls at Miss Martin’s are in love with him
, Anna thought. His face was more rugged than handsome, true, and perhaps he was slender almost to the point of thinness, but Stuart Martin’s warm and genuine smile and passion for life and learning had endeared him to her from the start. Never before had Anna met any man who attracted her the way Stuart Martin did.

I’m glad I’ll see him again today
, she thought happily.

“Well, Miss McKnight, I recommend that you use the morning hours to work on our wall hanging,” Miss Martin said.

“I’ll get my embroidery supplies.” Anna rose to leave the table.

Miss Martin angrily smacked her palm against the polished rosewood. “Just a moment, young lady! Have you quite forgotten your manners?”

Her face warm, Anna sat back down. “I’m sorry, Miss Martin. May I please be excused?”

The headmistress compressed her lips. “In a moment. Perhaps it is time that I remind you, Miss McKnight, that I do not expect and will not tolerate any familiarity between you and my nephew. Is that clear? ”

Anna nodded, aware that protest would be futile.

“Very well, then. You may leave the table. Next time, do not forget to ask permission to do so.”

On her way back to her attic room for her scissors and embroidery hoop, Anna chastised herself for giving Miss Martin an excuse to remind her of how poor she considered Anna’s manners to be.

“Were you reared with animals, Miss McKnight?” Miss Martin had asked Anna during the first meal she had taken at the school.