“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.
CHAPTER XI
HOGG (continued)
Shelley returned next day, sooner than was expected. He had had no success. His father had refused to see him. From very different motives to Shelley’s he too considered his son’s marriage the unforgivable crime.
“I’d have willingly supported any amount of illegitimate children,” he told Captain Pilfold. “But that he should have married her . . . never speak to me of him again!”
Miss Hitchener, afraid for her reputation, had refused to make the journey with Shelley. In London he learned that Eliza had not waited for him. He reached York, tired and out of spirits, hoping to find consolation in the society of his wife and his friend. What he found was an atmosphere of embarrassment and constraint.
Eliza, shut up in her room, brushed her hair all day long. Harriet and Hogg, instead of their former gay nonsense round the tea-tray, treated each other with studied coldness. When Hogg spoke to her, she replied very shortly. There was something mysterious in the air.
The moment Harriet and Shelley were alone, “Dear,” he began, “I don’t like this haughty attitude you take with Hogg. He is my best friend. He has looked after you in my absence. That you now have your sister with you is no reason for giving the cold shoulder to Hogg, whom I look on as a brother.”