Book: The Way of the World

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WIT. Truths? Ha, ha, ha! No, no, since you will have it, I mean
he never speaks truth at all, that's all. He will lie like a
chambermaid, or a woman of quality's porter. Now that is a fault.


SCENE VII.


[To them] COACHMAN.

COACH. Is Master Petulant here, mistress?

BET. Yes.

COACH. Three gentlewomen in a coach would speak with him.

FAIN. O brave Petulant! Three!

BET. I'll tell him.

COACH. You must bring two dishes of chocolate and a glass of
cinnamon water.


SCENE VIII.


MIRABELL, FAINALL, WITWOUD.

WIT. That should be for two fasting strumpets, and a bawd troubled
with wind. Now you may know what the three are.

MIRA. You are very free with your friend's acquaintance.

WIT. Ay, ay; friendship without freedom is as dull as love without
enjoyment or wine without toasting: but to tell you a secret, these
are trulls whom he allows coach-hire, and something more by the
week, to call on him once a day at public places.

MIRA. How!

WIT. You shall see he won't go to 'em because there's no more
company here to take notice of him. Why, this is nothing to what he
used to do:- before he found out this way, I have known him call for
himself -

FAIN. Call for himself? What dost thou mean?

WIT. Mean? Why he would slip you out of this chocolate-house, just
when you had been talking to him. As soon as your back was turned--
whip he was gone; then trip to his lodging, clap on a hood and scarf
and a mask, slap into a hackney-coach, and drive hither to the door
again in a trice; where he would send in for himself; that I mean,
call for himself, wait for himself, nay, and what's more, not
finding himself, sometimes leave a letter for himself.

MIRA. I confess this is something extraordinary. I believe he
waits for himself now, he is so long a coming; oh, I ask his pardon.


SCENE IX.


PETULANT, MIRABELL, FAINALL, WITWOUD, BETTY.

BET. Sir, the coach stays.

PET. Well, well, I come. 'Sbud, a man had as good be a professed
midwife as a professed whoremaster, at this rate; to be knocked up
and raised at all hours, and in all places. Pox on 'em, I won't
come. D'ye hear, tell 'em I won't come. Let 'em snivel and cry
their hearts out.

FAIN. You are very cruel, Petulant.

PET. All's one, let it pass. I have a humour to be cruel.

MIRA. I hope they are not persons of condition that you use at this
rate.

PET. Condition? Condition's a dried fig, if I am not in humour.
By this hand, if they were your--a--a--your what-d'ee-call-'ems
themselves, they must wait or rub off, if I want appetite.

MIRA. What-d'ee-call-'ems! What are they, Witwoud?

WIT. Empresses, my dear. By your what-d'ee-call-'ems he means
Sultana Queens.

PET. Ay, Roxolanas.

MIRA. Cry you mercy.

FAIN. Witwoud says they are -

PET. What does he say th'are?

WIT. I? Fine ladies, I say.

PET. Pass on, Witwoud. Harkee, by this light, his relations--two
co-heiresses his cousins, and an old aunt, who loves cater-wauling
better than a conventicle.

WIT. Ha, ha, ha! I had a mind to see how the rogue would come off.
Ha, ha, ha! Gad, I can't be angry with him, if he had said they
were my mother and my sisters.

MIRA. No?

WIT. No; the rogue's wit and readiness of invention charm me, dear
Petulant.

BET. They are gone, sir, in great anger.

PET. Enough, let 'em trundle. Anger helps complexion, saves paint.

FAIN. This continence is all dissembled; this is in order to have
something to brag of the next time he makes court to Millamant, and
swear he has abandoned the whole sex for her sake.

MIRA. Have you not left off your impudent pretensions there yet? I
shall cut your throat, sometime or other, Petulant, about that
business.

PET. Ay, ay, let that pass. There are other throats to be cut.

MIRA. Meaning mine, sir?

PET. Not I--I mean nobody--I know nothing. But there are uncles
and nephews in the world--and they may be rivals. What then? All's
one for that.

MIRA. How? Harkee, Petulant, come hither. Explain, or I shall
call your interpreter.

PET. Explain? I know nothing. Why, you have an uncle, have you
not, lately come to town, and lodges by my Lady Wishfort's?

MIRA. True.

PET. Why, that's enough. You and he are not friends; and if he
should marry and have a child, yon may be disinherited, ha!

MIRA. Where hast thou stumbled upon all this truth?

PET. All's one for that; why, then, say I know something.

MIRA. Come, thou art an honest fellow, Petulant, and shalt make
love to my mistress, thou shalt, faith. What hast thou heard of my
uncle?

PET. I? Nothing, I. If throats are to be cut, let swords clash.
Snug's the word; I shrug and am silent.

MIRA. Oh, raillery, raillery! Come, I know thou art in the women's
secrets. What, you're a cabalist; I know you stayed at Millamant's
last night after I went. Was there any mention made of my uncle or
me? Tell me; if thou hadst but good nature equal to thy wit,
Petulant, Tony Witwoud, who is now thy competitor in fame, would
show as dim by thee as a dead whiting's eye by a pearl of orient; he
would no more be seen by thee than Mercury is by the sun: come, I'm
sure thou wo't tell me.

PET. If I do, will you grant me common sense, then, for the future?

MIRA. Faith, I'll do what I can for thee, and I'll pray that heav'n
may grant it thee in the meantime.

PET. Well, harkee.

FAIN. Petulant and you both will find Mirabell as warm a rival as a
lover.

WIT. Pshaw, pshaw, that she laughs at Petulant is plain. And for
my part, but that it is almost a fashion to admire her, I should--
harkee--to tell you a secret, but let it go no further between
friends, I shall never break my heart for her.

FAIN. How?

WIT. She's handsome; but she's a sort of an uncertain woman.

FAIN. I thought you had died for her.

WIT. Umh--no -

FAIN. She has wit.

WIT. 'Tis what she will hardly allow anybody else. Now, demme, I
should hate that, if she were as handsome as Cleopatra. Mirabell is
not so sure of her as he thinks for.

FAIN. Why do you think so?

WIT. We stayed pretty late there last night, and heard something of
an uncle to Mirabell, who is lately come to town, and is between him
and the best part of his estate. Mirabell and he are at some
distance, as my Lady Wishfort has been told; and you know she hates
Mirabell worse than a quaker hates a parrot, or than a fishmonger
hates a hard frost. Whether this uncle has seen Mrs. Millamant or
not, I cannot say; but there were items of such a treaty being in
embryo; and if it should come to life, poor Mirabell would be in
some sort unfortunately fobbed, i'faith.

FAIN. 'Tis impossible Millamant should hearken to it.

WIT. Faith, my dear, I can't tell; she's a woman and a kind of a
humorist.

MIRA. And this is the sum of what you could collect last night?

PET. The quintessence. Maybe Witwoud knows more; he stayed longer.
Besides, they never mind him; they say anything before him.

MIRA. I thought you had been the greatest favourite.

PET. Ay, tete-e-tete; but not in public, because I make remarks.

MIRA. You do?

PET. Ay, ay, pox, I'm malicious, man. Now he's soft, you know,
they are not in awe of him. The fellow's well bred, he's what you
call a--what d'ye-call-'em--a fine gentleman, but he's silly withal.

MIRA. I thank you, I know as much as my curiosity requires.
Fainall, are you for the Mall?

FAIN. Ay, I'll take a turn before dinner.

WIT. Ay, we'll all walk in the park; the ladies talked of being
there.

MIRA. I thought you were obliged to watch for your brother Sir
Wilfull's arrival.

WIT. No, no, he comes to his aunt's, my Lady Wishfort; pox on him,
I shall be troubled with him too; what shall I do with the fool?

PET. Beg him for his estate, that I may beg you afterwards, and so
have but one trouble with you both.

WIT. O rare Petulant, thou art as quick as fire in a frosty
morning; thou shalt to the Mall with us, and we'll be very severe.

PET. Enough; I'm in a humour to be severe.

MIRA. Are you? Pray then walk by yourselves. Let not us be
accessory to your putting the ladies out of countenance with your
senseless ribaldry, which you roar out aloud as often as they pass
by you, and when you have made a handsome woman blush, then you
think you have been severe.

PET. What, what? Then let 'em either show their innocence by not
understanding what they hear, or else show their discretion by not
hearing what they would not be thought to understand.

MIRA. But hast not thou then sense enough to know that thou
ought'st to be most ashamed thyself when thou hast put another out
of countenance?

PET. Not I, by this hand: I always take blushing either for a sign
of guilt or ill-breeding.

MIRA. I confess you ought to think so. You are in the right, that
you may plead the error of your judgment in defence of your
practice.


Where modesty's ill manners, 'tis but fit
That impudence and malice pass for wit.



ACT II.--SCENE I.



St. James's Park.

MRS. FAINALL and MRS. MARWOOD.

MRS. FAIN. Ay, ay, dear Marwood, if we will be happy, we must find
the means in ourselves, and among ourselves. Men are ever in
extremes; either doting or averse. While they are lovers, if they
have fire and sense, their jealousies are insupportable: and when
they cease to love (we ought to think at least) they loathe, they
look upon us with horror and distaste, they meet us like the ghosts
of what we were, and as from such, fly from us.

MRS. MAR. True, 'tis an unhappy circumstance of life that love
should ever die before us, and that the man so often should outlive
the lover. But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never
to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to
refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as
preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day
must be old. For my part, my youth may wear and waste, but it shall
never rust in my possession.

MRS. FAIN. Then it seems you dissemble an aversion to mankind only
in compliance to my mother's humour.

MRS. MAR. Certainly. To be free, I have no taste of those insipid
dry discourses with which our sex of force must entertain themselves
apart from men. We may affect endearments to each other, profess
eternal friendships, and seem to dote like lovers; but 'tis not in
our natures long to persevere. Love will resume his empire in our
breasts, and every heart, or soon or late, receive and readmit him
as its lawful tyrant.

MRS. FAIN. Bless me, how have I been deceived! Why, you profess a
libertine.

MRS. MAR. You see my friendship by my freedom. Come, be as
sincere, acknowledge that your sentiments agree with mine.

MRS. FAIN. Never.

MRS. MAR. You hate mankind?

MRS. FAIN. Heartily, inveterately.

MRS. MAR. Your husband?

MRS. FAIN. Most transcendently; ay, though I say it, meritoriously.

MRS. MAR. Give me your hand upon it.

MRS. FAIN. There.

MRS. MAR. I join with you; what I have said has been to try you.

MRS. FAIN. Is it possible? Dost thou hate those vipers, men?

MRS. MAR. I have done hating 'em, and am now come to despise 'em;
the next thing I have to do is eternally to forget 'em.

MRS. FAIN. There spoke the spirit of an Amazon, a Penthesilea.

MRS. MAR. And yet I am thinking sometimes to carry my aversion
further.

MRS. FAIN. How?

MRS. MAR. Faith, by marrying; if I could but find one that loved me
very well, and would be throughly sensible of ill usage, I think I
should do myself the violence of undergoing the ceremony.

MRS. FAIN. You would not make him a cuckold?

MRS. MAR. No; but I'd make him believe I did, and that's as bad.

MRS. FAIN. Why had not you as good do it?

MRS. MAR. Oh, if he should ever discover it, he would then know the
worst, and be out of his pain; but I would have him ever to continue
upon the rack of fear and jealousy.

MRS. FAIN. Ingenious mischief! Would thou wert married to
Mirabell.

MRS. MAR. Would I were.

MRS. FAIN. You change colour.

MRS. MAR. Because I hate him.

MRS. FAIN. So do I; but I can hear him named. But what reason have
you to hate him in particular?

MRS. MAR. I never loved him; he is, and always was, insufferably
proud.

MRS. FAIN. By the reason you give for your aversion, one would
think it dissembled; for you have laid a fault to his charge, of
which his enemies must acquit him.

MRS. MAR. Oh, then it seems you are one of his favourable enemies.
Methinks you look a little pale, and now you flush again.

MRS. FAIN. Do I? I think I am a little sick o' the sudden.

MRS. MAR. What ails you?

MRS. FAIN. My husband. Don't you see him? He turned short upon me
unawares, and has almost overcome me.


SCENE II.


[To them] FAINALL and MIRABELL.

MRS. MAR. Ha, ha, ha! he comes opportunely for you.

MRS. FAIN. For you, for he has brought Mirabell with him.

FAIN. My dear.

MRS. FAIN. My soul.

FAIN. You don't look well to-day, child.

MRS. FAIN. D'ye think so?

MIRA. He is the only man that does, madam.

MRS. FAIN. The only man that would tell me so at least, and the
only man from whom I could hear it without mortification.

FAIN. Oh, my dear, I am satisfied of your tenderness; I know you
cannot resent anything from me; especially what is an effect of my
concern.

MRS. FAIN. Mr. Mirabell, my mother interrupted you in a pleasant
relation last night: I would fain hear it out.

MIRA. The persons concerned in that affair have yet a tolerable
reputation. I am afraid Mr. Fainall will be censorious.

MRS. FAIN. He has a humour more prevailing than his curiosity, and
will willingly dispense with the hearing of one scandalous story, to
avoid giving an occasion to make another by being seen to walk with
his wife. This way, Mr. Mirabell, and I dare promise you will
oblige us both.


SCENE III.


FAINALL, MRS. MARWOOD.

FAIN. Excellent creature! Well, sure, if I should live to be rid
of my wife, I should be a miserable man.

MRS. MAR. Ay?

FAIN. For having only that one hope, the accomplishment of it of
consequence must put an end to all my hopes, and what a wretch is he
who must survive his hopes! Nothing remains when that day comes but
to sit down and weep like Alexander when he wanted other worlds to
conquer.

MRS. MAR. Will you not follow 'em?

FAIN. Faith, I think not,

MRS. MAR. Pray let us; I have a reason.

FAIN. You are not jealous?

MRS. MAR. Of whom?

FAIN. Of Mirabell.

MRS. MAR. If I am, is it inconsistent with my love to you that I am
tender of your honour?

FAIN. You would intimate then, as if there were a fellow-feeling
between my wife and him?

MRS. MAR. I think she does not hate him to that degree she would be
thought.

FAIN. But he, I fear, is too insensible.

MRS. MAR. It may be you are deceived.

FAIN. It may be so. I do not now begin to apprehend it.

MRS. MAR. What?

FAIN. That I have been deceived, madam, and you are false.

MRS. MAR. That I am false? What mean you?

FAIN. To let you know I see through all your little arts.--Come,
you both love him, and both have equally dissembled your aversion.
Your mutual jealousies of one another have made you clash till you
have both struck fire. I have seen the warm confession red'ning on
your cheeks, and sparkling from your eyes.

MRS. MAR. You do me wrong.

FAIN. I do not. 'Twas for my ease to oversee and wilfully neglect
the gross advances made him by my wife, that by permitting her to be
engaged, I might continue unsuspected in my pleasures, and take you
oftener to my arms in full security. But could you think, because
the nodding husband would not wake, that e'er the watchful lover
slept?

MRS. MAR. And wherewithal can you reproach me?

FAIN. With infidelity, with loving another, with love of Mirabell.

MRS. MAR. 'Tis false. I challenge you to show an instance that can
confirm your groundless accusation. I hate him.

FAIN. And wherefore do you hate him? He is insensible, and your
resentment follows his neglect. An instance? The injuries you have
done him are a proof: your interposing in his love. What cause had
you to make discoveries of his pretended passion? To undeceive the
credulous aunt, and be the officious obstacle of his match with
Millamant?

MRS. MAR. My obligations to my lady urged me: I had professed a
friendship to her, and could not see her easy nature so abused by
that dissembler.

FAIN. What, was it conscience then? Professed a friendship! Oh,
the pious friendships of the female sex!

MRS. MAR. More tender, more sincere, and more enduring, than all
the vain and empty vows of men, whether professing love to us or
mutual faith to one another.

FAIN. Ha, ha, ha! you are my wife's friend too.

MRS. MAR. Shame and ingratitude! Do you reproach me? You, you
upbraid me? Have I been false to her, through strict fidelity to
you, and sacrificed my friendship to keep my love inviolate? And
have you the baseness to charge me with the guilt, unmindful of the
merit? To you it should be meritorious that I have been vicious.
And do you reflect that guilt upon me which should lie buried in
your bosom?

FAIN. You misinterpret my reproof. I meant but to remind you of
the slight account you once could make of strictest ties when set in
competition with your love to me.

MRS. MAR. 'Tis false, you urged it with deliberate malice. 'Twas
spoke in scorn, and I never will forgive it.

FAIN. Your guilt, not your resentment, begets your rage. If yet
you loved, you could forgive a jealousy: but you are stung to find
you are discovered.

MRS. MAR. It shall be all discovered. You too shall be discovered;
be sure you shall. I can but be exposed. If I do it myself I shall
prevent your baseness.

FAIN. Why, what will you do?

MRS. MAR. Disclose it to your wife; own what has past between us.

FAIN. Frenzy!

MRS. MAR. By all my wrongs I'll do't. I'll publish to the world
the injuries you have done me, both in my fame and fortune: with
both I trusted you, you bankrupt in honour, as indigent of wealth.

FAIN. Your fame I have preserved. Your fortune has been bestowed
as the prodigality of your love would have it, in pleasures which we
both have shared. Yet, had not you been false I had e'er this
repaid it. 'Tis true--had you permitted Mirabell with Millamant to
have stolen their marriage, my lady had been incensed beyond all
means of reconcilement: Millamant had forfeited the moiety of her
fortune, which then would have descended to my wife. And wherefore
did I marry but to make lawful prize of a rich widow's wealth, and
squander it on love and you?

MRS. MAR. Deceit and frivolous pretence!

FAIN. Death, am I not married? What's pretence? Am I not
imprisoned, fettered? Have I not a wife? Nay, a wife that was a
widow, a young widow, a handsome widow, and would be again a widow,
but that I have a heart of proof, and something of a constitution to
bustle through the ways of wedlock and this world. Will you yet be
reconciled to truth and me?

MRS. MAR. Impossible. Truth and you are inconsistent.--I hate you,
and shall for ever.

FAIN. For loving you?

MRS. MAR. I loathe the name of love after such usage; and next to
the guilt with which you would asperse me, I scorn you most.
Farewell.

FAIN. Nay, we must not part thus.

MRS. MAR. Let me go.

FAIN. Come, I'm sorry.

MRS. MAR. I care not. Let me go. Break my hands, do--I'd leave
'em to get loose.

FAIN. I would not hurt you for the world. Have I no other hold to
keep you here?

MRS. MAR. Well, I have deserved it all.

FAIN. You know I love you.

MRS. MAR. Poor dissembling! Oh, that--well, it is not yet -

FAIN. What? What is it not? What is it not yet? It is not yet
too late -

MRS. MAR. No, it is not yet too late--I have that comfort.

FAIN. It is, to love another.

MRS. MAR. But not to loathe, detest, abhor mankind, myself, and the
whole treacherous world.

FAIN. Nay, this is extravagance. Come, I ask your pardon. No
tears--I was to blame, I could not love you and be easy in my
doubts. Pray forbear--I believe you; I'm convinced I've done you
wrong; and any way, every way will make amends: I'll hate my wife
yet more, damn her, I'll part with her, rob her of all she's worth,
and we'll retire somewhere, anywhere, to another world; I'll marry
thee--be pacified.--'Sdeath, they come: hide your face, your tears.
You have a mask: wear it a moment. This way, this way: be
persuaded.


SCENE IV.


MIRABELL and MRS. FAINALL.

MRS. FAIN. They are here yet.

MIRA. They are turning into the other walk.

MRS. FAIN. While I only hated my husband, I could bear to see him;
but since I have despised him, he's too offensive.

MIRA. Oh, you should hate with prudence.

MRS. FAIN. Yes, for I have loved with indiscretion.

MIRA. You should have just so much disgust for your husband as may
be sufficient to make you relish your lover.

MRS. FAIN. You have been the cause that I have loved without
bounds, and would you set limits to that aversion of which you have
been the occasion? Why did you make me marry this man?

MIRA. Why do we daily commit disagreeable and dangerous actions?
To save that idol, reputation. If the familiarities of our loves
had produced that consequence of which you were apprehensive, where
could you have fixed a father's name with credit but on a husband?
I knew Fainall to be a man lavish of his morals, an interested and
professing friend, a false and a designing lover, yet one whose wit
and outward fair behaviour have gained a reputation with the town,
enough to make that woman stand excused who has suffered herself to
be won by his addresses. A better man ought not to have been
sacrificed to the occasion; a worse had not answered to the purpose.
When you are weary of him you know your remedy.

MRS. FAIN. I ought to stand in some degree of credit with you,
Mirabell.

MIRA. In justice to you, I have made you privy to my whole design,
and put it in your power to ruin or advance my fortune.

MRS. FAIN. Whom have you instructed to represent your pretended
uncle?

MIRA. Waitwell, my servant.

MRS. FAIN. He is an humble servant to Foible, my mother's woman,
and may win her to your interest.

MIRA. Care is taken for that. She is won and worn by this time.
They were married this morning.

MRS. FAIN. Who?

MIRA. Waitwell and Foible. I would not tempt my servant to betray
me by trusting him too far. If your mother, in hopes to ruin me,
should consent to marry my pretended uncle, he might, like Mosca in
the FOX, stand upon terms; so I made him sure beforehand.

MRS. FAIN. So, if my poor mother is caught in a contract, you will
discover the imposture betimes, and release her by producing a
certificate of her gallant's former marriage.

MIRA. Yes, upon condition that she consent to my marriage with her
niece, and surrender the moiety of her fortune in her possession.

MRS. FAIN. She talked last night of endeavouring at a match between
Millamant and your uncle.

MIRA. That was by Foible's direction and my instruction, that she
might seem to carry it more privately.

MRS. FAIN. Well, I have an opinion of your success, for I believe
my lady will do anything to get an husband; and when she has this,
which you have provided for her, I suppose she will submit to
anything to get rid of him.

MIRA. Yes, I think the good lady would marry anything that
resembled a man, though 'twere no more than what a butler could
pinch out of a napkin.

MRS. FAIN. Female frailty! We must all come to it, if we live to
be old, and feel the craving of a false appetite when the true is
decayed.

MIRA. An old woman's appetite is depraved like that of a girl.
'Tis the green-sickness of a second childhood, and, like the faint
offer of a latter spring, serves but to usher in the fall, and
withers in an affected bloom.

MRS. FAIN. Here's your mistress.


SCENE V.


[To them] MRS. MILLAMANT, WITWOUD, MINCING.

MIRA. Here she comes, i'faith, full sail, with her fan spread and
streamers out, and a shoal of fools for tenders.--Ha, no, I cry her
mercy.

MRS. FAIN. I see but one poor empty sculler, and he tows her woman
after him.

MIRA. You seem to be unattended, madam. You used to have the BEAU
MONDE throng after you, and a flock of gay fine perukes hovering
round you.

WIT. Like moths about a candle. I had like to have lost my
comparison for want of breath.

MILLA. Oh, I have denied myself airs to-day. I have walked as fast
through the crowd -

WIT. As a favourite just disgraced, and with as few followers.

MILLA. Dear Mr. Witwoud, truce with your similitudes, for I am as
sick of 'em -

WIT. As a physician of a good air. I cannot help it, madam, though
'tis against myself.

MILLA. Yet again! Mincing, stand between me and his wit.

WIT. Do, Mrs. Mincing, like a screen before a great fire. I
confess I do blaze to-day; I am too bright.

MRS. FAIN. But, dear Millamant, why were you so long?

MILLA. Long! Lord, have I not made violent haste? I have asked
every living thing I met for you; I have enquired after you, as
after a new fashion.

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