CHAPTER X

HOGG

At the end of six weeks it was necessary that Hogg should return to York. As Shelley and Harriet had nothing to retain them in Edinburgh, nor indeed anywhere else in the world, they decided to go with him. They would remain with him in York during the year which he must still spend in that city, and then all three would remove to London where they would live “for ever,” writing, reading, and being read to.

Not to overtire Harriet they hired a post-chaise. On either side of the road fields of turnips alternated monotonously with fields of barley.

“But which are the turnips and which is the barley?” Harriet asked.

“Why, you little Cockney!” Shelley, the heir to broad lands, exclaimed with indignation.

Silent in his corner, Hogg, the scoffer, asked himself how it came about that the virtuous Idomeneus had taught his disciple so little.

To while away the time, Harriet read aloud in the chaise Holcroft’s novels. The rigid, spartan, iron tone of that stern author was not encouraging. Bysshe sometimes sighed deeply.

“Is it necessary to read all that, Harriet dear?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Cannot you skip some part?”

“No, it is impossible.”

At the first relay, Shelley vanished. He had always possessed the astonishing power of vanishing like an Elf. He was recaptured by Hogg, who found him standing on the seashore—it was at Berwick—gazing mournfully at the setting sun.

He took a violent dislike to York. The theological and civic pre-eminence of the old city had no charm for him, and the only lodgings they could find were dingy rooms kept by a couple of dingy milliners in a dingy street. “It’s impossible to stay here,” Bysshe declared. But to move elsewhere money was needed. He decided to go and see Captain Pilfold, protector of the good and free; there, too, at Cuckfield, he would again meet Miss Kitchener; perhaps he could persuade her to go back with him to York, and on their way through London they could pick up Eliza Westbrook, whose company was much desired by Harriet. And thus, for the first time, all Shelley’s spiritual sisters would find themselves together.

He therefore took the coach, and Harriet and Hogg were left by themselves, a strange and delicious situation. In this city, where they had no acquaintances, they were as free as on some desert island, and Harriet found a childish pleasure in playing at “housekeeping” with her young and witty companion. Hogg’s sarcastic tongue amused her greatly, and was a relief to Shelley’s burning seriousness which she admired so much. Hogg was always paying her compliments, both in Edinburgh and on the journey to York, and she saw no harm in it. Percy was always a little bit of “the school-master.” He had taught her all she knew. He gravely corrected her mistakes. He was conscious of her limitations. Hogg, on the contrary, admired everything she did, noticed her frocks, and the way she did her hair. He listened to _Télémaque_, and praised the voice of the reader. He was always gay. It was really very pleasant.

Hogg’s own sentiments were quite other and less commendable. Living continually in the company of this charming girl, he began to desire her with passion. At first he told himself that this was a terrible desire and that the wife of his best friend could never be an object of his pursuit. But when one is intelligent, one knows how to put intelligence at the service of one’s desires.

“Am I to blame,” said he, “if Bysshe throws her in my arms? What a mad notion of his to sit and write long letters on Virtue when he possesses an adorable creature like Harriet! For she is ravishingly pretty. When she walks in the street the most Puritanical run to the windows to look at her. . . . Does Bysshe really love her? He shows her a rather contemptuous sort of affection, and has some excuse for it. For Harriet is . . . what? The daughter of a publican. . . . She can’t be very stand-off. . . .”

Ever since he first knew Shelley, two contradictory sentiments had divided his soul. He admired his friend’s moral courage, frankness, and ardent loyalty. He knew him to be unique, a diamond of the purest water. Yet, at the same time, his sense of humour was tickled by Percy’s declamatory vehemence, by his feverish energy that yet accomplished nothing.

At Oxford Hogg had acted the cultured Sancho Panza to this fair-skinned Don Quixote, and had taken his share of the punishment meted out by the terrible windmills. His admiration in the beginning had triumphed over his irony, which simply served to lend the former a more tender hue. Now, stirred up by a guilty passion, his irony visibly increased.

On the first day of Shelley’s absence, when Hogg left his chambers he took Harriet for a walk by the river. He gazed in her eyes with delight, and murmured a thousand foolish things. She talked of her husband whose return she longed for, partly for his own sake but chiefly because he was to bring with him her dearest Eliza. “Eliza is very beautiful as you will see, she has splendid hair, jet black, glossy . . . she is awfully clever . . . it is she who has always guided me in the important affairs of my life.”

“The child has had important affairs in its life?”

Harriet spoke of her martyrdom at school . . . of the obstacles to her marriage . . . she remained pensive a moment plunged in the past . . . then, “What is your opinion of suicide? Did you never think of destroying yourself?”

“Never! Nor you either, I should hope?”

“Oh yes, very often. Even at school I used to get up in the night with the fixed intention of killing myself. I would look out of the window, and say good-bye to the moon and the stars, to the sleeping girls . . . and then I would go back to bed again and fall asleep.”

The walk continued, so did their intimate talk. Then they went home to make the tea, a ceremony during which Hogg was always extremely funny. After tea Harriet offered to read to him, but of what she read to him that evening he retained no notion. When she said “good night” and left him, he asked himself, “Is she really _good_?”

When he saw her next day he told her he was madly in love with her.

Harriet was upset and indignant. For a child of sixteen, she defended herself fairly well. She spoke of Shelley and of Virtue. “Don’t you see how odious your behaviour is? Percy gave me into your care and you betray his confidence. . . . But I’m sure you are cured already. . . . Please don’t say another word about it. . . . And I will say nothing to Percy so as not to grieve him.”

She spoke with vivacity. Love scenes are a pretty woman’s battlefields and soldiers enjoy fighting. Harriet’s courage was victorious, and Hogg promised to be good.

That evening, when he returned from work, he saw sitting by Harriet’s side on the sofa a big woman, with raven-black hair, a face of a dead white, and a horse-like profile. “Hogg, this is Eliza, she is come, isn’t it kind of her? Eliza, this is Hogg, our greatest friend, of whom Percy has so often spoken to you.”

Eliza shadowed him a bow from the nape of her neck.

“I thought Bysshe was to have brought you with him?”

“Oh dear no!” said Eliza, and she went on talking to Harriet and paid him no further attention.

Hogg was not used to such treatment in the Shelleys’ house.

“So this is Eliza?” he thought. “She is hideous and common-looking. Here’s an end to my flirtation with Harriet—though perhaps that’s just as well. . . .”

“Harriet, dearest,” he said aloud, “aren’t we going to have any tea to-day? You don’t take tea, Miss Westbrook?” he inquired, turning to her politely.

“Oh dear no!” replied that lady.

“And you, Harriet?”

“No, I won’t either.”

Hogg resigned himself to making his own tea, and to drinking it in silence.

From this day forth the house became insupportable. Eliza took over, or rather resumed, the management of everything. She had managed Harriet her whole life through, and though she had been obliged to relinquish her post to Shelley during the first few weeks of marriage, she now again took her place on the bridge like a captain on his ship, who runs his flag up to the mast-head, and tolerates no other authority on board.

She began by criticizing severely Shelley’s conduct. “So if I hadn’t come you would have been left alone with this young man? It’s unbelievable! And he calls you ‘dearest’? And you permit him to do so! Good heavens! What would Miss Warne say!”

When Hogg proposed a walk, “What are you thinking of?” said Eliza. “Harriet is very tired, not well at all. . . .”

Hogg was astounded. “Harriet?” he repeated. “What on earth’s the matter with her?”

“It’s her poor nerves, you must be blind not to see it.”

When Harriet wanted to read aloud to Hogg the virtuous counsels of Idomeneus, of which he stood so much in need: “Read aloud, Harriet? Whatever will become of your poor nerves? What would Miss Warne say?”

“Who the deuce _is_ Miss Warne?” Hogg asked Harriet so soon as Eliza had gone to her room.

“She is Eliza’s greatest friend, and we have the highest opinion of her.”

“Why? Is she anything extraordinary by birth and education?”

“Oh dear no, her father keeps a public-house like ours.”

Hogg heaved a sigh and lifted his eyebrows.

“What does that dear Eliza do in her bedroom? Does she read?”

“No.”

Harriet leaned over him to say in tones of mystery: “She brushes her hair.”

“Let’s go out, Harriet. . . .”

At first Harriet refused, but as the hair-brushing was prolonged she agreed to accompany Hogg for a few minutes.

Since his first attempt on her virtue he had kept his promise “to be good.” She was pleased—but disappointed. Quite sure of herself, she would have enjoyed temptation.

They stood on the high centre of the old Roman bridge, there was a mighty flood. The Ouse had overflowed his banks, carrying away with him timber and what not.

“Harriet dearest, think how nicely Eliza would spin down the river! How sweetly she would turn round and round like that log of wood. . . . And gracious heavens! What would Miss Warne say?”

Harriet turned away her head to hide her laughter. Hogg said dreadful things, but really he was too funny.

“You have such a delightful laugh, Harriet! . . . so musical, so gay!”

Harriet, full of courage, felt the battle was close at hand.