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"Let others in the field their arms employ, but stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy."
The Iliad, translation by Alexander Pope
The days had grown very short, and the twilight long. Emma found herself wandering around the house, following her own long shadow as it flickered in the glow of candles. The hoarfrost had grown like swan's feathers on the windows, as if panes of ice were set where the glass had been.
Her father feared for her health too much to let her out of doors. It was too cold, the sun was not up, one could see one's breath in the lamps that lined the drive. It would not do. She pleaded, but Miss Taylor sided with her father and Emma was left to wander the house again. She could not sit still like Isabella and read a book. Her puzzles and dolls and picture books lay about forgotten as she gazed through the swan's feathers into the blue of twilight.
They had been snowed in. It had been such a storm that the Oldest Inhabitants shook their hoary heads and said they hadn't seen anything like it since the winter of '77 (or was it '78?). Emma had heard all about it when she snuck down to play hopscotch around the frozen puddles in the stable yard. Miss Taylor had come to find her and scolded her (very gently) for giving her father such a fright. He had been absolutely convinced that she had fallen through the ice in the pond and drowned. Emma thought it funny at the time, but felt a pang of remorse when she saw the expression on her father's face.
Since then, she had been trapped in the house and left to poke listlessly at projects that suddenly seemed hideously boring. As night fell, she went back to the window and gazed at the feathers on the glass that glittered in the moonlight. She wanted something new, a breath of fresh air, an interruption, but the only sound was the throw of dice on the backgammon board.
Then she heard a horse's hooves breaking through the ice on the drive… and here he came, exactly when he was most wanted. It was as if he had heard her summon him through time and space in some uncanny way.
"It must be the post," Isabella said, looking up.
"No," Emma said. "It is Mr. Knightley."
"How could you possibly know?" Isabella asked. "You can't see the drive from that window."
Emma gave her an arch look.
"Oh no," Mr. Woodhouse said comfortably. "Mr. Knightley is too sensible to go out on a night like this. He would not endeavor such a thing."
Emma did not speak, because doors were already opening and closing. There was the whinny of a horse calling to its friends in the Hartfield stables, then they heard Mr. Knightley's voice in the entrance hall. The parlor door opened with air as sharp as broken mint.
She turned from the window and smiled at him. Whenever he entered the room, his eyes always sought hers first and she had a kind of secret pride in the knowledge of it. She was first, had always been first, and even at her age, she was gratified at being first to the man she admired most in the world. She loved her father, but she revered Mr. Knightley.
Mr. Woodhouse was torn between pleasure at seeing his friend and panic at the thought that the same friend had come through snow and ice and would have to go back through snow and ice in order to return home. What if he fell from his horse? What if he was stranded on the road in the darkness?
"With the moon up, it is almost as bright as day," Mr. Knightley rejoined with infinite patience.
But there was a blizzard, a veritable blizzard?
"There was not a flake of snow to be seen, sir," Mr. Knightley replied firmly. "The entire night sky is on display. It was a fine ride, and a short one."
Emma crossed the room to ask him to sit down, then went to the bell to ring for some tea. She knew her father did not want him to stay, that every minute was in increasing worry that Mr. Knightley would fall from his horse on the ride back to Donwell. The horse might slip on a patch of ice-
"Not so," Mr. Knightley replied easily. "I had him shod with studs."
With a glance of concern at Mr. Woodhouse, Miss Taylor paused in the game of backgammon to ask Mr. Knightley how his brother did. A kind inquiry after someone's health always distracted Mr. Woodhouse.
"I couldn't convince John to come; he would rather sit by his own fire," Mr. Knightley replied, "But he sends his greetings."
Mr. Woodhouse was not offended that John Knightley had not come; he was gratified that John Knightley felt the same way he did about his own fire.
Mr. Knightley's mind was far away from the fire. The stars had been very bright on his ride; they had dazzled the sky. There was something about the winter air that made them brighter and sharper than they were in summer. He had seen all the winter constellations.
Emma listened with rapt attention. She was rarely let outside during winter nights and she could not see the full, star-scattered sky through a windowpane frosted with swan's feathers. She said so.
"Swan's feathers," Mr. Knightley said with a pleased smile in her direction.
The tea came and was served. Both Isabella and Miss Taylor unconsciously gave way to Emma; she poured the tea and made sure everyone was supplied with biscuits. She looked like a little lady poised on her chair with the firelight glowing through the teacup in her hand.
~o*o~
"Well," Mr. Knightley said when it was announced that his horse had been brought around for him. "I only wished to see how you all did and if you had turned to snowmen in my absence. I see that my fears were unfounded."
"Might I go and see Mr. Knightley off, papa?" Emma asked. "I don't often have the chance to see the winter constellations."
"I don't see why she should not, sir, if it is agreeable to you," Mr. Knightley said swiftly before Mr. Woodhouse could form a thought against it.
Mr. Woodhouse finally spoke: "Perhaps, Emma, some warm summer night…"
"But one cannot see the winter constellations in the summer, papa," Emma said, kneeling down next to his chair.
"But the cold air, my dear Emma," Mr. Woodhouse's hand hovered over her head as if she was a bird he feared to break. "You have not been well."
"That was nearly a month ago."
"You may still have a weakness in your lungs," he said gently. "I think you had better not attempt it."
Emma felt a flash of irritation. Her feelings must have shown on her face, because she felt Mr. Knightley's gaze fall on her. She would not look at him. She knew what he was thinking. In contrition, she took her father's large, cold hand in her own.
It was Miss Taylor who came to her rescue—it was a mild night for winter, and if Emma was well wrapped up, she shouldn't come to any harm—and she was to be with Mr. Knightley, their good friend Mr. Knightley—Mr. Knightley would not agree if there was the least amount of danger-
"Certainly not," Mr. Knightley said, and it was decided.
Emma was well wrapped up, so much she could barely move, but she submitted, because she knew her father would not be easy until she was safely inside (and probably would not be easy for another week until it became clear that she had not fallen ill).
Out-of-doors dazzled with diamonds. The humps of blue snow glittered under the gaze of the moon, the trees were garlanded with fairy shawls and bowed to each other as if frozen in a dance. On the other side of light, the shadows were very deep and dark, pulling back before the glow of yellow candlelight in the snow beneath the windows. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…
Mr. Knightley's horse stood with a groom at its head, stamping the white ice and blowing steam like a dragon. Above were the stars.
"Emma," Mr. Knightley said.
Emma knew that tone. She met his gaze squarely just to vex him.
"I know that you are sometimes annoyed by your father, that you sometimes find his concern tiresome," Mr. Knightley said, "You should not think of your father in those terms. There are few fathers who care for their children as he cares for you and your sister."
"It can be very trying at times," she said quietly.
"Better to be tried by love than indifference," He rejoined. "You will never have to doubt his regard, no matter how long you live. You are secure in his love. That is a blessing that ought to drown out little day to day irritations."
Emma nodded and a look at her face in the moonlight seemed to satisfy him that his words had been felt.
"Of my own father's love, I was not certain until he lay on his deathbed," he said, looking away again.
His voice was matter-of-fact, not asking for compassion, only understanding. Impulsively, she reached out and touched his hand. Sometimes she felt much older than her thirteen years; she felt as though time did not exist. He had seen more than she had, but she understood his meaning without seeing it herself. She knew she ought to be grateful for the window he offered her.
"Perseus is there, and so is Cetus, the sea monster he is off to dispatch, and there is Orion and his dog," Mr. Knightley's mind had already turned to other things and her gaze followed his to the stars.
"I can always pick out Orion," she replied. She could see his bow, his club, his belt, and the sword hanging at his side. He was a heroic figure. She wondered for a passing moment how Mr. Knightley would look suited up for war. The picture would not come.
"Some are easier to see then others," Mr. Knightley agreed. "There are the Twins; Caster and Pollux, one a tamer of horses, the other a boxer, brothers to Helen of Troy."
"I read the Iliad," She said archly. He had told her that she should read more, and she had done it just to prove to him that she could.
"Did you?" he said, refusing to be drawn in. She wanted praise; he would not give it.
She wouldn't for the world tell him how much he reminded her of Hector, the noblest Trojan of them all. His forthright manner and solid uprightness were the same. When Hector told Andromache that he would die when he died and not a moment sooner, she had heard Mr. Knightley's voice in her head. He ought not have been taken out by someone like Achilles; someone never reformed but celebrated by all—a disgrace to the name of man. (In her mind, she had rewritten the story, and felt her version was better—Andromache kept her beloved husband.)
"Yet while my Hector still survives, I see my father, mother, brethren, all, in thee…"
Pope's verse sang—she had loved reading it… but she would never tell Mr. Knightley that. Nor would she tell him that she had already started The Odyssey and had, until that morning, but perched on her seat, reading with bated breath. The Sirens were quite something.
Mr. Knightley was still talking about planets and constellations. He had a telescope at Donwell— he would bring it next time he came; perhaps even Mr. Woodhouse could be persuaded to look through it. He pointed out Tauris, the bull, with the seven sisters in his shoulder. She couldn't see the little group of stars if she looked straight at them, only out of the corner of her eye.
"I suppose that is a commentary on life," she said, "Sometimes we can't see the things that are right before us."
Mr. Knightley looked around at her with a smile. "That is true more often than not, I think."
The sound of the horse pawing at the ice in the drive brought their star-gazing to an end. Mr. Knightley took her by the elbow and hurried her back towards the house. "I've kept you out too long," he said, as if he had forgotten that it had been her idea to come out in the first place.
"I said I would see you off and I shall," she replied.
She watched while he swung astride his horse and checked it when it took a few steps. With the moon behind him, he looked like one of the shadow portraits that were all the rage at that time, the fine etched profiles that hung framed on the wall. She had one of her mother. It occurred to her that she might like to have one of Mr. Knightley, too.
"God's speed-" she hesitated, and a devious smile came over her face, "George."
She saw the corner of his mouth twitch upwards, but he said nothing, only pressed his horse a step closer to her. He leaned from the saddle and took her hand.
"Good night, Emma," he said, then turned his horse's head. She watched the flash of its shoes in the moonlight as horse and rider were swallowed in the darkness beyond the gate. By the time she went up the front steps and lingered on the threshold even the horse's footfalls had faded to silence.