Book: The Way of the World

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FOIB. No, no, dear madam. Do but hear me, have but a moment's
patience--I'll confess all. Mr. Mirabell seduced me; I am not the
first that he has wheedled with his dissembling tongue. Your
ladyship's own wisdom has been deluded by him; then how should I, a
poor ignorant, defend myself? O madam, if you knew but what he
promised me, and how he assured me your ladyship should come to no
damage, or else the wealth of the Indies should not have bribed me
to conspire against so good, so sweet, so kind a lady as you have
been to me.

LADY. No damage? What, to betray me, to marry me to a cast
serving-man; to make me a receptacle, an hospital for a decayed
pimp? No damage? O thou frontless impudence, more than a big-
bellied actress!

FOIB. Pray do but hear me, madam; he could not marry your ladyship,
madam. No indeed, his marriage was to have been void in law; for he
was married to me first, to secure your ladyship. He could not have
bedded your ladyship, for if he had consummated with your ladyship,
he must have run the risk of the law, and been put upon his clergy.
Yes indeed, I enquired of the law in that case before I would meddle
or make.

LADY. What? Then I have been your property, have I? I have been
convenient to you, it seems, while you were catering for Mirabell; I
have been broker for you? What, have you made a passive bawd of me?
This exceeds all precedent. I am brought to fine uses, to become a
botcher of second-hand marriages between Abigails and Andrews! I'll
couple you. Yes, I'll baste you together, you and your Philander.
I'll Duke's Place you, as I'm a person. Your turtle is in custody
already. You shall coo in the same cage, if there be constable or
warrant in the parish.

FOIB. Oh, that ever I was born! Oh, that I was ever married! A
bride? Ay, I shall be a Bridewell bride. Oh!


SCENE II.


MRS. FAINALL, FOIBLE.

MRS. FAIN. Poor Foible, what's the matter?

FOIB. O madam, my lady's gone for a constable; I shall be had to a
justice, and put to Bridewell to beat hemp. Poor Waitwell's gone to
prison already.

MRS. FAIN. Have a good heart, Foible: Mirabell's gone to give
security for him. This is all Marwood's and my husband's doing.

FOIB. Yes, yes; I know it, madam: she was in my lady's closet, and
overheard all that you said to me before dinner. She sent the
letter to my lady, and that missing effect, Mr. Fainall laid this
plot to arrest Waitwell, when he pretended to go for the papers; and
in the meantime Mrs. Marwood declared all to my lady.

MRS. FAIN. Was there no mention made of me in the letter? My
mother does not suspect my being in the confederacy? I fancy
Marwood has not told her, though she has told my husband.

FOIB. Yes, madam; but my lady did not see that part. We stifled
the letter before she read so far. Has that mischievous devil told
Mr. Fainall of your ladyship then?

MRS. FAIN. Ay, all's out: my affair with Mirabell, everything
discovered. This is the last day of our living together; that's my
comfort.

FOIB. Indeed, madam, and so 'tis a comfort, if you knew all. He
has been even with your ladyship; which I could have told you long
enough since, but I love to keep peace and quietness by my good
will. I had rather bring friends together than set 'em at distance.
But Mrs. Marwood and he are nearer related than ever their parents
thought for.

MRS. FAIN. Say'st thou so, Foible? Canst thou prove this?

FOIB. I can take my oath of it, madam; so can Mrs. Mincing. We
have had many a fair word from Madam Marwood to conceal something
that passed in our chamber one evening when you were at Hyde Park,
and we were thought to have gone a-walking. But we went up
unawares--though we were sworn to secrecy too: Madam Marwood took a
book and swore us upon it: but it was but a book of poems. So long
as it was not a bible oath, we may break it with a safe conscience.

MRS. FAIN. This discovery is the most opportune thing I could wish.
Now, Mincing?


SCENE III.


[To them] MINCING.

MINC. My lady would speak with Mrs. Foible, mem. Mr. Mirabell is
with her; he has set your spouse at liberty, Mrs. Foible, and would
have you hide yourself in my lady's closet till my old lady's anger
is abated. Oh, my old lady is in a perilous passion at something
Mr. Fainall has said; he swears, and my old lady cries. There's a
fearful hurricane, I vow. He says, mem, how that he'll have my
lady's fortune made over to him, or he'll be divorced.

MRS. FAIN. Does your lady or Mirabell know that?

MINC. Yes mem; they have sent me to see if Sir Wilfull be sober,
and to bring him to them. My lady is resolved to have him, I think,
rather than lose such a vast sum as six thousand pound. Oh, come,
Mrs. Foible, I hear my old lady.

MRS. FAIN. Foible, you must tell Mincing that she must prepare to
vouch when I call her.

FOIB. Yes, yes, madam.

MINC. Oh, yes mem, I'll vouch anything for your ladyship's service,
be what it will.


SCENE IV.


MRS. FAINALL, LADY WISHFORT, MRS. MARWOOD.

LADY. O my dear friend, how can I enumerate the benefits that I
have received from your goodness? To you I owe the timely discovery
of the false vows of Mirabell; to you I owe the detection of the
impostor Sir Rowland. And now you are become an intercessor with my
son-in-law, to save the honour of my house and compound for the
frailties of my daughter. Well, friend, you are enough to reconcile
me to the bad world, or else I would retire to deserts and
solitudes, and feed harmless sheep by groves and purling streams.
Dear Marwood, let us leave the world, and retire by ourselves and be
shepherdesses.

MRS. MAR. Let us first dispatch the affair in hand, madam. We
shall have leisure to think of retirement afterwards. Here is one
who is concerned in the treaty.

LADY. O daughter, daughter, is it possible thou shouldst be my
child, bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, and as I may say,
another me, and yet transgress the most minute particle of severe
virtue? Is it possible you should lean aside to iniquity, who have
been cast in the direct mould of virtue? I have not only been a
mould but a pattern for you, and a model for you, after you were
brought into the world.

MRS. FAIN. I don't understand your ladyship.

LADY. Not understand? Why, have you not been naught? Have you not
been sophisticated? Not understand? Here I am ruined to compound
for your caprices and your cuckoldoms. I must pawn my plate and my
jewels, and ruin my niece, and all little enough -

MRS. FAIN. I am wronged and abused, and so are you. 'Tis a false
accusation, as false as hell, as false as your friend there; ay, or
your friend's friend, my false husband.

MRS. MAR. My friend, Mrs. Fainall? Your husband my friend, what do
you mean?

MRS. FAIN. I know what I mean, madam, and so do you; and so shall
the world at a time convenient.

MRS. MAR. I am sorry to see you so passionate, madam. More temper
would look more like innocence. But I have done. I am sorry my
zeal to serve your ladyship and family should admit of
misconstruction, or make me liable to affronts. You will pardon me,
madam, if I meddle no more with an affair in which I am not
personally concerned.

LADY. O dear friend, I am so ashamed that you should meet with such
returns. You ought to ask pardon on your knees, ungrateful
creature; she deserves more from you than all your life can
accomplish. Oh, don't leave me destitute in this perplexity! No,
stick to me, my good genius.

MRS. FAIN. I tell you, madam, you're abused. Stick to you? Ay,
like a leech, to suck your best blood; she'll drop off when she's
full. Madam, you shan't pawn a bodkin, nor part with a brass
counter, in composition for me. I defy 'em all. Let 'em prove
their aspersions: I know my own innocence, and dare stand a trial.


SCENE V.


LADY WISHFORT, MRS. MARWOOD.

LADY. Why, if she should be innocent, if she should be wronged
after all, ha? I don't know what to think, and I promise you, her
education has been unexceptionable. I may say it, for I chiefly
made it my own care to initiate her very infancy in the rudiments of
virtue, and to impress upon her tender years a young odium and
aversion to the very sight of men; ay, friend, she would ha'
shrieked if she had but seen a man till she was in her teens. As
I'm a person, 'tis true. She was never suffered to play with a male
child, though but in coats. Nay, her very babies were of the
feminine gender. Oh, she never looked a man in the face but her own
father or the chaplain, and him we made a shift to put upon her for
a woman, by the help of his long garments, and his sleek face, till
she was going in her fifteen.

MRS. MAR. 'Twas much she should be deceived so long.

LADY. I warrant you, or she would never have borne to have been
catechised by him, and have heard his long lectures against singing
and dancing and such debaucheries, and going to filthy plays, and
profane music meetings, where the lewd trebles squeak nothing but
bawdy, and the basses roar blasphemy. Oh, she would have swooned at
the sight or name of an obscene play-book--and can I think after all
this that my daughter can be naught? What, a whore? And thought it
excommunication to set her foot within the door of a playhouse. O
dear friend, I can't believe it. No, no; as she says, let him prove
it, let him prove it.

MRS. MAR. Prove it, madam? What, and have your name prostituted in
a public court; yours and your daughter's reputation worried at the
bar by a pack of bawling lawyers? To be ushered in with an OH YES
of scandal, and have your case opened by an old fumbling leacher in
a quoif like a man midwife; to bring your daughter's infamy to
light; to be a theme for legal punsters and quibblers by the
statute; and become a jest, against a rule of court, where there is
no precedent for a jest in any record, not even in Doomsday Book.
To discompose the gravity of the bench, and provoke naughty
interrogatories in more naughty law Latin; while the good judge,
tickled with the proceeding, simpers under a grey beard, and fidges
off and on his cushion as if he had swallowed cantharides, or sate
upon cow-itch.

LADY. Oh, 'tis very hard!

MRS. MAR. And then to have my young revellers of the Temple take
notes, like prentices at a conventicle; and after talk it over again
in Commons, or before drawers in an eating-house.

LADY. Worse and worse.

MRS. MAR. Nay, this is nothing; if it would end here 'twere well.
But it must after this be consigned by the shorthand writers to the
public press; and from thence be transferred to the hands, nay, into
the throats and lungs, of hawkers, with voices more licentious than
the loud flounder-man's. And this you must hear till you are
stunned; nay, you must hear nothing else for some days.

LADY. Oh 'tis insupportable. No, no, dear friend, make it up, make
it up; ay, ay, I'll compound. I'll give up all, myself and my all,
my niece and her all, anything, everything, for composition.

MRS. MAR. Nay, madam, I advise nothing, I only lay before you, as a
friend, the inconveniences which perhaps you have overseen. Here
comes Mr. Fainall; if he will be satisfied to huddle up all in
silence, I shall be glad. You must think I would rather
congratulate than condole with you.


SCENE VI.


FAINALL, LADY WISHFORT, MRS. MARWOOD.

LADY. Ay, ay, I do not doubt it, dear Marwood. No, no, I do not
doubt it.

FAIN. Well, madam, I have suffered myself to be overcome by the
importunity of this lady, your friend, and am content you shall
enjoy your own proper estate during life, on condition you oblige
yourself never to marry, under such penalty as I think convenient.

LADY. Never to marry?

FAIN. No more Sir Rowlands,--the next imposture may not be so
timely detected.

MRS. MAR. That condition, I dare answer, my lady will consent to,
without difficulty; she has already but too much experienced the
perfidiousness of men. Besides, madam, when we retire to our
pastoral solitude, we shall bid adieu to all other thoughts.

LADY. Ay, that's true; but in case of necessity, as of health, or
some such emergency -

FAIN. Oh, if you are prescribed marriage, you shall be considered;
I will only reserve to myself the power to choose for you. If your
physic be wholesome, it matters not who is your apothecary. Next,
my wife shall settle on me the remainder of her fortune, not made
over already; and for her maintenance depend entirely on my
discretion.

LADY. This is most inhumanly savage: exceeding the barbarity of a
Muscovite husband.

FAIN. I learned it from his Czarish Majesty's retinue, in a winter
evening's conference over brandy and pepper, amongst other secrets
of matrimony and policy, as they are at present practised in the
northern hemisphere. But this must be agreed unto, and that
positively. Lastly, I will be endowed, in right of my wife, with
that six thousand pound, which is the moiety of Mrs. Millamant's
fortune in your possession, and which she has forfeited (as will
appear by the last will and testament of your deceased husband, Sir
Jonathan Wishfort) by her disobedience in contracting herself
against your consent or knowledge, and by refusing the offered match
with Sir Wilfull Witwoud, which you, like a careful aunt, had
provided for her.

LADY. My nephew was NON COMPOS, and could not make his addresses.

FAIN. I come to make demands--I'll hear no objections.

LADY. You will grant me time to consider?

FAIN. Yes, while the instrument is drawing, to which you must set
your hand till more sufficient deeds can be perfected: which I will
take care shall be done with all possible speed. In the meanwhile I
will go for the said instrument, and till my return you may balance
this matter in your own discretion.


SCENE VII.


LADY WISHFORT, MRS. MARWOOD.

LADY. This insolence is beyond all precedent, all parallel. Must I
be subject to this merciless villain?

MRS. MAR. 'Tis severe indeed, madam, that you should smart for your
daughter's wantonness.

LADY. 'Twas against my consent that she married this barbarian, but
she would have him, though her year was not out. Ah! her first
husband, my son Languish, would not have carried it thus. Well,
that was my choice, this is hers; she is matched now with a witness-
-I shall be mad, dear friend; is there no comfort for me? Must I
live to be confiscated at this rebel-rate? Here come two more of my
Egyptian plagues too.


SCENE VIII.


[To them] MRS. MILLAMANT, SIR WILFULL.

SIR WIL. Aunt, your servant.

LADY. Out, caterpillar, call not me aunt; I know thee not.

SIR WIL. I confess I have been a little in disguise, as they say.
'Sheart! and I'm sorry for't. What would you have? I hope I
committed no offence, aunt--and if I did I am willing to make
satisfaction; and what can a man say fairer? If I have broke
anything I'll pay for't, an it cost a pound. And so let that
content for what's past, and make no more words. For what's to
come, to pleasure you I'm willing to marry my cousin. So, pray,
let's all be friends, she and I are agreed upon the matter before a
witness.

LADY. How's this, dear niece? Have I any comfort? Can this be
true?

MILLA. I am content to be a sacrifice to your repose, madam, and to
convince you that I had no hand in the plot, as you were
misinformed. I have laid my commands on Mirabell to come in person,
and be a witness that I give my hand to this flower of knighthood;
and for the contract that passed between Mirabell and me, I have
obliged him to make a resignation of it in your ladyship's presence.
He is without and waits your leave for admittance.

LADY. Well, I'll swear I am something revived at this testimony of
your obedience; but I cannot admit that traitor,--I fear I cannot
fortify myself to support his appearance. He is as terrible to me
as a Gorgon: if I see him I swear I shall turn to stone, petrify
incessantly.

MILLA. If you disoblige him he may resent your refusal, and insist
upon the contract still. Then 'tis the last time he will be
offensive to you.

LADY. Are you sure it will be the last time? If I were sure of
that--shall I never see him again?

MILLA. Sir Wilfull, you and he are to travel together, are you not?

SIR WIL. 'Sheart, the gentleman's a civil gentleman, aunt, let him
come in; why, we are sworn brothers and fellow-travellers. We are
to be Pylades and Orestes, he and I. He is to be my interpreter in
foreign parts. He has been overseas once already; and with proviso
that I marry my cousin, will cross 'em once again, only to bear me
company. 'Sheart, I'll call him in,--an I set on't once, he shall
come in; and see who'll hinder him. [Goes to the door and hems.]

MRS. MAR. This is precious fooling, if it would pass; but I'll know
the bottom of it.

LADY. O dear Marwood, you are not going?

MRS. MAR. Not far, madam; I'll return immediately.


SCENE IX.


LADY WISHFORT, MRS. MILLAMANT, SIR WILFULL, MIRABELL.

SIR WIL. Look up, man, I'll stand by you; 'sbud, an she do frown,
she can't kill you. Besides--harkee, she dare not frown
desperately, because her face is none of her own. 'Sheart, an she
should, her forehead would wrinkle like the coat of a cream cheese;
but mum for that, fellow-traveller.

MIRA. If a deep sense of the many injuries I have offered to so
good a lady, with a sincere remorse and a hearty contrition, can but
obtain the least glance of compassion. I am too happy. Ah, madam,
there was a time--but let it be forgotten. I confess I have
deservedly forfeited the high place I once held, of sighing at your
feet; nay, kill me not by turning from me in disdain, I come not to
plead for favour. Nay, not for pardon: I am a suppliant only for
pity:- I am going where I never shall behold you more.

SIR WIL. How, fellow-traveller? You shall go by yourself then.

MIRA. Let me be pitied first, and afterwards forgotten. I ask no
more.

SIR WIL. By'r lady, a very reasonable request, and will cost you
nothing, aunt. Come, come, forgive and forget, aunt. Why you must
an you are a Christian.

MIRA. Consider, madam; in reality you could not receive much
prejudice: it was an innocent device, though I confess it had a
face of guiltiness--it was at most an artifice which love contrived-
-and errors which love produces have ever been accounted venial. At
least think it is punishment enough that I have lost what in my
heart I hold most dear, that to your cruel indignation I have
offered up this beauty, and with her my peace and quiet; nay, all my
hopes of future comfort.

SIR WIL. An he does not move me, would I may never be o' the
quorum. An it were not as good a deed as to drink, to give her to
him again, I would I might never take shipping. Aunt, if you don't
forgive quickly, I shall melt, I can tell you that. My contract
went no farther than a little mouth-glue, and that's hardly dry; one
doleful sigh more from my fellow-traveller and 'tis dissolved.

LADY. Well, nephew, upon your account. Ah, he has a false
insinuating tongue. Well, sir, I will stifle my just resentment at
my nephew's request. I will endeavour what I can to forget, but on
proviso that you resign the contract with my niece immediately.

MIRA. It is in writing and with papers of concern; but I have sent
my servant for it, and will deliver it to you, with all
acknowledgments for your transcendent goodness.

LADY. Oh, he has witchcraft in his eyes and tongue; when I did not
see him I could have bribed a villain to his assassination; but his
appearance rakes the embers which have so long lain smothered in my
breast. [Aside.]


SCENE X.


[To them] FAINALL, MRS. MARWOOD.

FAIN. Your date of deliberation, madam, is expired. Here is the
instrument; are you prepared to sign?

LADY. If I were prepared, I am not impowered. My niece exerts a
lawful claim, having matched herself by my direction to Sir Wilfull.

FAIN. That sham is too gross to pass on me, though 'tis imposed on
you, madam.

MILLA. Sir, I have given my consent.

MIRA. And, sir, I have resigned my pretensions.

SIR WIL. And, sir, I assert my right; and will maintain it in
defiance of you, sir, and of your instrument. 'Sheart, an you talk
of an instrument sir, I have an old fox by my thigh shall hack your
instrument of ram vellum to shreds, sir. It shall not be sufficient
for a Mittimus or a tailor's measure; therefore withdraw your
instrument, sir, or, by'r lady, I shall draw mine.

LADY. Hold, nephew, hold.

MILLA. Good Sir Wilfull, respite your valour.

FAIN. Indeed? Are you provided of your guard, with your single
beef-eater there? But I'm prepared for you, and insist upon my
first proposal. You shall submit your own estate to my management,
and absolutely make over my wife's to my sole use, as pursuant to
the purport and tenor of this other covenant. I suppose, madam,
your consent is not requisite in this case; nor, Mr. Mirabell, your
resignation; nor, Sir Wilfull, your right. You may draw your fox if
you please, sir, and make a bear-garden flourish somewhere else; for
here it will not avail. This, my Lady Wishfort, must be subscribed,
or your darling daughter's turned adrift, like a leaky hulk to sink
or swim, as she and the current of this lewd town can agree.

LADY. Is there no means, no remedy, to stop my ruin? Ungrateful
wretch! Dost thou not owe thy being, thy subsistance, to my
daughter's fortune?

FAIN. I'll answer you when I have the rest of it in my possession.

MIRA. But that you would not accept of a remedy from my hands--I
own I have not deserved you should owe any obligation to me; or
else, perhaps, I could devise -

LADY. Oh, what? what? To save me and my child from ruin, from
want, I'll forgive all that's past; nay, I'll consent to anything to
come, to be delivered from this tyranny.

MIRA. Ay, madam; but that is too late, my reward is intercepted.
You have disposed of her who only could have made me a compensation
for all my services. But be it as it may, I am resolved I'll serve
you; you shall not be wronged in this savage manner.

LADY. How? Dear Mr. Mirabell, can you be so generous at last? But
it is not possible. Harkee, I'll break my nephew's match; you shall
have my niece yet, and all her fortune, if you can but save me from
this imminent danger.

MIRA. Will you? I take you at your word. I ask no more. I must
have leave for two criminals to appear.

LADY. Ay, ay, anybody, anybody.

MIRA. Foible is one, and a penitent.


SCENE XI.


[To them] MRS. FAINALL, FOIBLE, MINCING.

MRS. MAR. O my shame! [MIRABELL and LADY go to MRS. FAINALL and
FOIBLE.] These currupt things are brought hither to expose me. [To
FAINALL.]

FAIN. If it must all come out, why let 'em know it, 'tis but the
way of the world. That shall not urge me to relinquish or abate one
tittle of my terms; no, I will insist the more.

FOIB. Yes, indeed, madam; I'll take my bible-oath of it.

MINC. And so will I, mem.

LADY. O Marwood, Marwood, art thou false? My friend deceive me?
Hast thou been a wicked accomplice with that profligate man?

MRS. MAR. Have you so much ingratitude and injustice to give
credit, against your friend, to the aspersions of two such mercenary
trulls?

MINC. Mercenary, mem? I scorn your words. 'Tis true we found you
and Mr. Fainall in the blue garret; by the same token, you swore us
to secrecy upon Messalinas's poems. Mercenary? No, if we would
have been mercenary, we should have held our tongues; you would have
bribed us sufficiently.

FAIN. Go, you are an insignificant thing. Well, what are you the
better for this? Is this Mr. Mirabell's expedient? I'll be put off
no longer. You, thing, that was a wife, shall smart for this. I
will not leave thee wherewithal to hide thy shame: your body shall
be naked as your reputation.

MRS. FAIN. I despise you and defy your malice. You have aspersed
me wrongfully--I have proved your falsehood. Go, you and your
treacherous--I will not name it, but starve together. Perish.

FAIN. Not while you are worth a groat, indeed, my dear. Madam,
I'll be fooled no longer.

LADY. Ah, Mr. Mirabell, this is small comfort, the detection of
this affair.

MIRA. Oh, in good time. Your leave for the other offender and
penitent to appear, madam.


SCENE XII.


[To them] WAITWELL with a box of writings.

LADY. O Sir Rowland! Well, rascal?

WAIT. What your ladyship pleases. I have brought the black box at
last, madam.

MIRA. Give it me. Madam, you remember your promise.

LADY. Ay, dear sir.

MIRA. Where are the gentlemen?

WAIT. At hand, sir, rubbing their eyes,--just risen from sleep.

FAIN. 'Sdeath, what's this to me? I'll not wait your private
concerns.


SCENE XIII.


[To them] PETULANT, WITWOUD.

PET. How now? What's the matter? Whose hand's out?

WIT. Hey day! What, are you all got together, like players at the
end of the last act?

MIRA. You may remember, gentlemen, I once requested your hands as
witnesses to a certain parchment.

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