Whilst Shelley was away, Harriett spent lonely days at York. The weather was rainy, but there were hours when the sky cleared or its clouds forbore to spend themselves on the roofs and open spaces of the city. It speaks for the girl’s uneasiness in a position from which she should have been preserved, and also for her sense of womanly fitness and delicacy, that during her boyish husband’s absence she kept herself within the doors of the dingy lodging-house,—forbearing to visit the Minster and other sights of the city, and declining the many invitations Hogg gave her to take exercise in the open air under his escort. In Edinburgh she took daily walks, usually with her husband and Hogg, sometimes with no other companion than her husband’s friend; but at York, during her husband’s absence, she remained at home. ‘When it was fair,’ says Hogg of her triste and uneventful days at York, ‘she did not go out, having unfortunately transplanted her London notions of propriety to York: she considered it incorrect to walk in the streets of that quiet city by herself.’ As Shelley was certainly absent from York on one Sunday (20th October, 1811),—a day on which Mr. Hogg’s work at chambers did not preclude him from walking about the town—it may be fairly assumed that Harriett’s notions of propriety forbade her to walk in the streets with him no less than by herself. Certainly in her circumspection the sixteen-years-young gentlewoman gave the grim and vigilant milliners no grounds for speaking of her with disapproval, apart from the fact that she continued to share the same parlour with Mr. Hogg. In this matter, how could the poor child do otherwise? How could she help herself?
Having so much of her own company by day, whilst her fellow-lodger was ‘at chambers,’ Harriett may well have enjoyed Hogg’s company in the evening, when they talked together of her husband, and his projects for the regeneration of human kind, her papa and his affairs, her Clapham boarding-school and its discipline, her mamma and sister,—the mamma who looked so ladylike in black satin, and the sister Eliza (in the fulness of her Christian name, Elizabeth) who had so elegant a figure and so noble a crop of black hair. When these and other domestic topics did not hold their attention, Harriett’s fellow-lodger used to sit with unqualified contentment for hours together, whilst she read aloud to him Holcroft’s Anna St. Ives, Dr. Robertson’s historical works, and other staid and instructive books. It may be inferred from expressions in Hogg’s book that, though she often read aloud to him at Edinburgh, Harriett read aloud to him at York, during Shelley’s absence from the city, more copiously than during any other time of their acquaintance. Noteworthy, also, is it, that (by Hogg’s admission), Harriett’s audible readings became much less frequent and lengthy when Miss Westbrook appeared upon the scene, just four-and-twenty hours before Shelley returned to the city, and that they ceased almost entirely before the Shelleys went away abruptly to Keswick. Possibly, Hogg was wrong in attributing this change of Harriett’s conduct altogether to Miss Westbrook’s influence. Possibly, also, he was mistaken in attributing the copiousness of Harriett’s audible readings, during her husband’s absence, altogether to her delight in reading aloud. Harriett read no less clearly than musically. ‘Hers,’ says Hogg, ‘was the most distinct utterance I ever heard.’ It is conceivable that, instead of reading thus distinctly either for her own pleasure or for Mr. Hogg’s pleasure, Harriett at York read thus audibly for the protection of her own character, and the edification of hearers listening in the passage outside the parlour door.
It cannot be doubted that the poor child, left as she should not have been left, in a position of vexatious and humiliating embarrassment, knew that she, Hogg and her husband were each and all objects of suspicion to the austere and dingy milliners. So placed, she was, of course, painfully jealous for her reputation, and resolute that she would shape her course, so as to be able to extort evidence to her goodness from the very women who suspected her of evil. Never leaving the house, she put it beyond the power of the austere milliners to accuse her of going about the town in pursuit of pleasure. Never receiving any visitor but her fellow-lodger, she confined the milliners’ suspicions within narrow limits. Whilst she and her fellow-lodger were together, it was her practice to be incessantly conversing with him or reading to him in a voice, clearly audible outside their room,—so that the milliners should have the evidence of their own ears, that she and her fellow-lodger were no fit objects of suspicion. I have no direct and conclusive evidence that Harriett talked and read aloud for this end. But that she talked and read aloud mainly for this end, is a fair inference from what Hogg says of her talking, reading, and other behaviour during her husband’s absence. Reading Hogg’s evidence in this way, I have no doubt it was to Harriett’s relief, if not at her suggestion, that Miss Westbrook, immediately after her arrival at York, forbade the readings as exercises too exhausting for her sister’s nervous system.
In passing through London, Shelley made attempts to see Miss Westbrook and Mr. Whitton, and, probably, saw both of them. If he did not see the attorney, he communicated with him by letter, saying that he should quickly return from Sussex to London. If he saw Miss Westbrook, one may be sure she told him plainly he had done ill in leaving his bride at York under Hogg’s care, at a moment when he was especially bound to be thoughtful for her comfort and character. It cannot be doubted that, on coming to Cuckfield, he found his Uncle Pilfold of Miss Westbrook’s opinion on this matter. If the old sailor did not say so in words, we may be sure the expression of his countenance told his nephew, that he should not have come to Sussex without his wife; that in leaving her at York he had given people another reason for talking lightly of her and to his disadvantage; that he would do well to withhold from the Field Place and Horsham people a matter they would not fail to report with unfavourable comments, should it come to their knowledge. Under these circumstances it was natural for the young gentleman to take measures to make the Field Place and Horsham people imagine that Harriett had accompanied him to Sussex. The evidence in his own hand-writing, which has caused some writers to imagine she accompanied him to Sussex, is only evidence of the pains taken by Shelley to conceal the indiscretion of which he had been guilty. Dating from his uncle’s house at Cuckfield, on Monday 21st October, 1811, the future poet wrote Mr. Medwin (the Horsham attorney) a letter which has been produced in testimony that, instead of being at York (as Hogg truthfully represented), Harriett was on that day with her scatterbrain husband under Captain Pilfold’s roof.
Instructing the lawyer that Mrs. Shelley spelt her Christian name with a second t, Shelley further instructed him to prepare a deed of marriage settlement (assigning 700l. a-year for Mrs. Shelley’s provision during her life, in case of her husband’s death). Further, Mr. Medwin was directed to address to his youthful client ‘at Mr. Westbrook’s, 23 Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square.’ After giving these directions, and announcing his purpose of remarrying Harriett (by English form) in the course of three weeks or a month, before which renewal of his nuptials he intended to execute the settlement, Shelley added: ‘We most probably go to London to-morrow. We shall probably see Whitton, when I shall neither forget your good advice, nor cease to be grateful for it.’
The instructions by the nineteen-years-old boy for a deed of settlement on his wife, to be executed by him in a few weeks, are amusing. What induced him to say she spelt her Christian name with two t’s, when she spelt it in the ordinary manner with only one, is unknown. The main object of the epistle was the purpose of the two delusive sentences beginning with ‘we,’—sentences intended to create an impression, or to confirm Mr. Medwin in the impression, that Harriett had accompanied the writer from York. Even in the absence of evidence to the point, the young gentleman (who ten months earlier ‘resorted to deception’ in order to escape a trivial annoyance) might be presumed to have written other letters to make the Horsham and Field Place gossips imagine his wife was with him in Sussex and London, when she was at York. Taken by itself the evidence that, instead of leaving her at York, Shelley took Harriett with him to London and Sussex is considerable. Indeed, standing by itself, it would justify the historian in representing that the boyish husband carried her southward in his company. But the counter evidence that he left her in York is so much stronger, that I do not hesitate in adopting Hogg’s narrative, and in regarding the contradictory evidence as fallacious testimony, arising from Shelley’s wish to conceal, and his measures for concealing, the impropriety of which he had been guilty.
Shelley had better have remained at York in submission to Hogg’s counsel, instead of spending the greater part of his few remaining guineas on the costly journey, from which he got nothing but disappointment. Refusing to see him, the Squire of Field Place declined for the present to hold any communication with him except through Mr. Whitton. At the same time the Squire declined to give his unruly son any more money, till he should promise to amend his ways and submit himself to his father’s authority with fit expressions of penitence. Acting doubtless at his client’s instance, Mr. Whitton begged he might not be troubled with a call from his client’s son, who could say all that was needful under the circumstances on a sheet of paper. The attitude of the Squire and the attitude of the attorney are clearly defined in two notes dated by the latter to Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley on the same day (23rd October, 1811); the one note being addressed to the poet at Cuckfield, the other being directed to him at the Turk’s Coffee-House, Strand.
The young gentleman, who in August chuckled over anticipations of his father’s surprise and fury at his runaway match with an innkeeper’s daughter, had not made his account for his father’s steady persistence in displeasure. The young gentleman who had just travelled southward by mail from York, to talk matters over and settle them with the ‘old boy’ (Shelley’s expression), found the ‘old buck’ (also Shelley’s expression) in no haste to talk matters over, found him resolute to leave matters as they were till he could rearrange them in his own way. Kept at a distance in this way by ‘old Killjoy’ (also one of the son’s nicknames for his sire), Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley was treated with similar insolence by old ‘Killjoy’s’ attorney, who enjoined him to say what he wished to say in writing. It was Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s turn to feel surprise and indignation. Baffled and resentful the young gentleman returned to York with a heavy heart and a light purse.
At length there was war to the bitter-end between the long-suffering father who had endured so much, and the son, who had now exhausted his sire’s patience. At length he was excluded from Field Place, not for his religious opinions, but for his successive extravagances of deceit, disloyalty, and disobedience to an affectionate father, and for the escapade by which he sought to introduce a tavern-keeper’s daughter to his mother’s drawing-room as the young lady, who in the course of time would be Lady Shelley of Field Place.
Successive writers have insisted that the poet would never have been drawn into this disastrous marriage had it not been for the excessive chivalry of his nature, that placed him at the mercy of the designing, artful, unscrupulous Eliza Westbrook. A chivalrous boy usually has some care for the feelings and dignity of the women of his own blood and hearth. If Shelley really surpassed other boys in chivalry, even as he surpassed them (according to Lady Shelley) in truthfulness and candour, he would surely have been more thoughtful for his mother’s feelings and his sister’s dignity, than for Miss Westbrook’s wishes. It does not appear to have occurred even for a single moment to this chivalrous youth that, in choosing a wife, he should not be absolutely without concern for his mother’s sensibility, his sister’s honour and social interest. From first to last he seems to have assumed that his own feelings were the only sensibilities for which he was required to think. By those who (with the present writer) think Shelley ran away with Harriett Westbrook because he was thoroughly in love with her, it may, of course, be urged in his excuse that love is proverbially selfish, and that in choosing their wives young men are always more bent on pleasing themselves than on pleasing their mothers and sisters. But such considerations cannot be urged in the youngster’s behalf by those, who maintain (with Mr. Garnett) that, instead of marrying the young lady, because he desired her passionately, Shelley fell with passionless weakness into the mésalliance through Miss Eliza Westbrook’s artful treatment of his sense of chivalry. Moreover, even by those who believe him to have been honestly in love, it must be conceded that he was less thoughtful for his mother and sisters, than a generous and chivalric young man must necessarily be when he is choosing a wife.