ACT THE SECOND.
SCENE I.—Bevil, Jun.'s Lodgings.
Enter Bevil, Jun. and Tom.
Tom. Sir, Mr. Myrtle.
Bev. Jun. Very well, do you step again, and wait for an answer to my letter. [Exit Tom.
Enter Myrtle.
Bev. Jun. Well, Charles, why so much care in thy countenance? Is there anything in this world deserves it? You, who used to be so gay, so open, so vacant!
Myrt. I think we have of late changed complexions. You, who used to be much the graver man, are now all air in your behaviour.—But the cause of my concern may, for aught I know, be the same object that gives you all this satisfaction. In a word, I am told that you are this very day—and your dress confirms me in it—to be married to Lucinda.
Bev. Jun. You are not misinformed.—Nay, put not on the terrors of a rival till you hear me out. I shall disoblige the best of fathers if I don't seem ready to marry Lucinda; and you know I have ever told you you might make use of my secret resolution never to marry her for your own service as you please; but I am now driven to the extremity of immediately refusing or complying unless you help me to escape the match.
Myrt. Escape? Sir, neither her merit or her fortune are below your acceptance—Escaping do you call it?
Bev. Jun. Dear sir, do you wish I should desire the match?
Myrt. No; but such is my humorous and sickly state of mind since it has been able to relish nothing but Lucinda, that though I must owe my happiness to your aversion to this marriage, I can't bear to hear her spoken of with levity or unconcern.
Bev. Jun. Pardon me, sir, I shall transgress that way no more. She has understanding, beauty, shape, complexion, wit——
Myrt. Nay, dear Bevil, don't speak of her as if you loved her neither.
Bev. Jun. Why, then, to give you ease at once, though I allow Lucinda to have good sense, wit, beauty, and virtue, I know another in whom these qualities appear to me more amiable than in her.
Myrt. There you spoke like a reasonable and good-natured friend. When you acknowledge her merit, and own your prepossession for another, at once you gratify my fondness and cure my jealousy.
Bev. Jun. But all this while you take no notice, you have no apprehension, of another man that has twice the fortune of either of us.
Myrt. Cimberton![127] hang him, a formal, philosophical, pedantic coxcomb; for the sot, with all these crude notions of divers things, under the direction of great vanity and very little judgment, shows his strongest bias is avarice; which is so predominant in him that he will examine the limbs of his mistress with the caution of a jockey, and pays no more compliment to her personal charms than if she were a mere breeding animal.
Bev. Jun. Are you sure that is not affected? I have known some women sooner set on fire by that sort of negligence than by——
Myrt. No, no; hang him, the rogue has no art; it is pure, simple insolence and stupidity.
Bev. Jun. Yet, with all this, I don't take him for a fool.
Myrt. I own the man is not a natural; he has a very quick sense, though very slow understanding. He says, indeed, many things that want only the circumstances of time and place to be very just and agreeable.
Bev. Jun. Well, you may be sure of me if you can disappoint him; but my intelligence says the mother has actually sent for the conveyancer to draw articles for his marriage with Lucinda, though those for mine with her are, by her father's orders, ready for signing; but it seems she has not thought fit to consult either him or his daughter in the matter.
Myrt. Pshaw! a poor troublesome woman. Neither Lucinda nor her father will ever be brought to comply with it. Besides, I am sure Cimberton can make no settlement upon her without the concurrence of his great uncle, Sir Geoffry, in the west.
Bev. Jun. Well, sir, and I can tell you that's the very point that is now laid before her counsel, to know whether a firm settlement can be made without his uncle's actual joining in it. Now, pray consider, sir, when my affair with Lucinda comes, as it soon must, to an open rupture, how are you sure that Cimberton's fortune may not then tempt her father, too, to hear his proposals?
Myrt. There you are right, indeed; that must be provided against. Do you know who are her counsel?
Bev. Jun. Yes, for your service I have found out that, too. They are Serjeant Bramble and Old Target—by the way, they are neither of them known in the family. Now, I was thinking why you might not put a couple of false counsel upon her to delay and confound matters a little; besides, it may probably let you into the bottom of her whole design against you.
Myrt. As how, pray?
Bev. Jun. Why, can't you slip on a black wig and a gown, and be Old Bramble yourself?
Myrt. Ha! I don't dislike it.—But what shall I do for a brother in the case?
Bev. Jun. What think you of my fellow, Tom? The rogue's intelligent, and is a good mimic. All his part will be but to stutter heartily, for that's old Target's case. Nay, it would be an immoral thing to mock him were it not that his impertinence is the occasion of its breaking out to that degree. The conduct of the scene will chiefly lie upon you.
Myrt. I like it of all things. If you'll send Tom to my chambers, I will give him full instructions. This will certainly give me occasion to raise difficulties, to puzzle or confound her project for a while at least.
Bev. Jun. I'll warrant you success.—So far we are right, then. And now, Charles, your apprehension of my marrying her is all you have to get over.
Myrt. Dear Bevil, though I know you are my friend, yet when I abstract myself from my own interest in the thing, I know no objection she can make to you, or you to her, and therefore hope——
Bev. Jun. Dear Myrtle, I am as much obliged to you for the cause of your suspicion, as I am offended at the effect; but, be assured, I am taking measures for your certain security, and that all things with regard to me will end in your entire satisfaction.
Myrt. Well, I'll promise you to be as easy and as confident as I can, though I cannot but remember that I have more than life at stake on your fidelity. [Going.
Bev. Jun. Then depend upon it, you have no chance against you.
Myrt. Nay, no ceremony, you know I must be going. [Exit Myrt.
Bev. Jun. Well, this is another instance of the perplexities which arise, too, in faithful friendship. We must often in this life go on in our good offices, even under the displeasure of those to whom we do them, in compassion to their weaknesses and mistakes.—But all this while poor Indiana is tortured with the doubt of me. She has no support or comfort but in my fidelity, yet sees me daily pressed to marriage with another. How painful, in such a crisis, must be every hour she thinks on me! I'll let her see at least my conduct to her is not changed. I'll take this opportunity to visit her; for though the religious vow I have made to my father restrains me from ever marrying without his approbation, yet that confines me not from seeing a virtuous woman that is the pure delight of my eyes and the guiltless joy of my heart. But the best condition of human life is but a gentler misery—
To hope for perfect happiness is vain,
And love has ever its allays of pain. [Exit.
SCENE II.—Indiana's Lodgings.
Enter Isabella and Indiana.
Isab. Yes, I say 'tis artifice, dear child. I say to thee again and again 'tis all skill and management.
Ind. Will you persuade me there can be an ill design in supporting me in the condition of a woman of quality? attended, dressed, and lodged like one; in my appearance abroad and my furniture at home, every way in the most sumptuous manner, and he that does it has an artifice, a design in it?
Isab. Yes, yes.
Ind. And all this without so much as explaining to me that all about me comes from him!
Isab. Ay, ay, the more for that. That keeps the title to all you have the more in him.
Ind. The more in him! He scorns the thought——
Isab. Then he—he—he——
Ind. Well, be not so eager. If he is an ill man, let us look into his stratagems. Here is another of them. [Showing a letter.] Here's two hundred and fifty pounds in bank notes, with these words: "To pay for the set of dressing-plate which will be brought home to-morrow." Why, dear aunt, now here's another piece of skill for you, which I own I cannot comprehend; and it is with a bleeding heart I hear you say anything to the disadvantage of Mr. Bevil. When he is present I look upon him as one to whom I owe my life and the support of it; then, again, as the man who loves me with sincerity and honour. When his eyes are cast another way, and I dare survey him, my heart is painfully divided between shame and love. Oh! could I tell you——
Isab. Ah! you need not; I imagine all this for you.
Ind. This is my state of mind in his presence; and when he is absent, you are ever dinning my ears with notions of the arts of men; that his hidden bounty, his respectful conduct, his careful provision for me, after his preserving me from utmost misery, are certain signs he means nothing but to make I know not what of me.
Isab. Oh! You have a sweet opinion of him, truly.
Ind. I have, when I am with him, ten thousand things, besides my sex's natural decency and shame, to suppress my heart, that yearns to thank, to praise, to say it loves him. I say, thus it is with me while I see him; and in his absence I am entertained with nothing but your endeavours to tear this amiable image from my heart; and in its stead, to place a base dissembler, an artful invader of my happiness, my innocence, my honour.
Isab. Ah, poor soul! has not his plot taken? don't you die for him? has not the way he has taken, been the most proper with you? Oh! oh! He has sense, and has judged the thing right.
Ind. Go on then, since nothing can answer you; say what you will of him. Heigh! ho!
Isab. Heigh! ho! indeed. It is better to say so, as you are now, than as many others are. There are, among the destroyers of women, the gentle, the generous, the mild, the affable, the humble, who all, soon after their success in their designs, turn to the contrary of those characters. I will own to you, Mr. Bevil carries his hypocrisy the best of any man living, but still he is a man, and therefore a hypocrite. They have usurped an exemption from shame for any baseness, any cruelty towards us. They embrace without love; they make vows without conscience of obligation; they are partners, nay, seducers to the crime, wherein they pretend to be less guilty.
Ind. That's truly observed. [Aside.]—But what's all this to Bevil?
Isab. This it is to Bevil and all mankind. Trust not those who will think the worse of you for your confidence in them; serpents who lie in wait for doves. Won't you be on your guard against those who would betray you? Won't you doubt those who would contemn you for believing 'em? Take it from me, fair and natural dealing is to invite injuries; 'tis bleating to escape wolves who would devour you! Such is the world—[Aside.] and such (since the behaviour of one man to myself) have I believed all the rest of the sex.
Ind. I will not doubt the truth of Bevil, I will not doubt it. He has not spoke of it by an organ that is given to lying. His eyes are all that have ever told me that he was mine. I know his virtue, I know his filial piety, and ought to trust his management with a father to whom he has uncommon obligations. What have I to be concerned for? my lesson is very short. If he takes me for ever, my purpose of life is only to please him. If he leaves me (which Heaven avert) I know he'll do it nobly, and I shall have nothing to do but to learn to die, after worse than death has happened to me.
Isab. Ay, do, persist in your credulity! flatter yourself that a man of his figure and fortune will make himself the jest of the town, and marry a handsome beggar for love.
Ind. The town! I must tell you, madam, the fools that laugh at Mr. Bevil will but make themselves more ridiculous; his actions are the result of thinking, and he has sense enough to make even virtue fashionable.
Isab. O' my conscience he has turned her head.—Come, come, if he were the honest fool you take him for, why has he kept you here these three weeks, without sending you to Bristol in search of your father, your family, and your relations?
Ind. I am convinced he still designs it, and that nothing keeps him here, but the necessity of coming to a breach with his father in regard to the match he has proposed him. Beside, has he not writ to Bristol? and has not he advice that my father has not been heard of there almost these twenty years?
Isab. All sham, mere evasion; he is afraid, if he should carry you thither, your honest relations may take you out of his hands, and so blow up all his wicked hopes at once.
Ind. Wicked hopes! did I ever give him any such?
Isab. Has he ever given you any honest ones? Can you say, in your conscience, he has ever once offered to marry you?
Ind. No! but by his behaviour I am convinced he will offer it, the moment 'tis in his power, or consistent with his honour, to make such a promise good to me.
Isab. His honour!
Ind. I will rely upon it; therefore desire you will not make my life uneasy, by these ungrateful jealousies of one, to whom I am, and wish to be, obliged. For from his integrity alone, I have resolved to hope for happiness.
Isab. Nay, I have done my duty; if you won't see, at your peril be it!
Ind. Let it be—This is his hour of visiting me.
Isab. Oh! to be sure, keep up your form; don't see him in a bed-chamber—[Apart.] This is pure prudence, when she is liable, wherever he meets her, to be conveyed where'er he pleases.
Ind. All the rest of my life is but waiting till he comes. I live only when I'm with him. [Exit.
Isab. Well, go thy ways, thou wilful innocent!—[Aside.] I once had almost as much love for a man, who poorly left me to marry an estate; and I am now, against my will, what they call an old maid—but I will not let the peevishness of that condition grow upon me, only keep up the suspicion of it, to prevent this creature's being any other than a virgin, except upon proper terms. [Exit.
Re-enter Indiana, speaking to a Servant.
Ind. Desire Mr. Bevil to walk in—Design! impossible! A base designing mind could never think of what he hourly puts in practice. And yet, since the late rumour of his marriage, he seems more reserved than formerly—he sends in too, before he sees me, to know if I am at leisure—such new respects may cover coldness in the heart; it certainly makes me thoughtful—I'll know the worst at once; I'll lay such fair occasions in his way, that it shall be impossible to avoid an explanation, for these doubts are insupportable!—But see, he comes, and clears them all.
Enter Bevil.
Bev. Madam, your most obedient—I am afraid I broke in upon your rest last night; 'twas very late before we parted, but 'twas your own fault. I never saw you in such agreeable humour.
Ind. I am extremely glad we were both pleased; for I thought I never saw you better company.
Bev. Me, madam! you rally; I said very little.
Ind. But I am afraid you heard me say a great deal; and, when a woman is in the talking vein, the most agreeable thing a man can do, you know, is to have patience to hear her.
Bev. Then it's pity, madam, you should ever be silent, that we might be always agreeable to one another.
Ind. If I had your talent or power, to make my actions speak for me, I might indeed be silent, and you pretend to something more than the agreeable.
Bev. If I might be vain of anything in my power, madam, 'tis that my understanding, from all your sex, has marked you out as the most deserving object of my esteem.
Ind. Should I think I deserve this, 'twere enough to make my vanity forfeit the very esteem you offer me.
Bev. How so, madam?
Ind. Because esteem is the result of reason, and to deserve it from good sense, the height of human glory. Nay, I had rather a man of honour should pay me that, than all the homage of a sincere and humble love.
Bev. Jun. You certainly distinguish right, madam; love often kindles from external merit only.
Ind. But esteem rises from a higher source, the merit of the soul.
Bev. Jun. True—And great souls only can deserve it. [Bowing respectfully.
Ind. Now I think they are greater still, that can so charitably part with it.
Bey. Jun. Now, madam, you make me vain, since the utmost pride and pleasure of my life is, that I esteem you as I ought.
Ind. [Aside.] As he ought! still more perplexing! he neither saves nor kills my hope.
Bev. Jun. But, madam, we grow grave, methinks. Let's find some other subject—Pray how did you like the opera last night?
Ind. First give me leave to thank you for my tickets.
Bey. Jun. Oh! your servant, madam. But pray tell me, you now, who are never partial to the fashion, I fancy must be the properest judge of a mighty dispute among the ladies, that is, whether Crispo or Griselda[128] is the more agreeable entertainment.
Ind. With submission now, I cannot be a proper judge of this question.
Bev. How so, madam?
Ind. Because I find I have a partiality for one of them.
Bev. Jun. Pray which is that?
Ind. I do not know; there's something in that rural cottage of Griselda, her forlorn condition, her poverty, her solitude, her resignation, her innocent slumbers, and that lulling dolce sogno that's sung over her; it had an effect upon me that—in short I never was so well deceived, at any of them.
Bev. Jun. Oh! Now then, I can account for the dispute. Griselda, it seems, is the distress of an injured innocent woman, Crispo, that only of a man in the same condition; therefore the men are mostly concerned for Crispo, and, by a natural indulgence, both sexes for Griselda.
Ind. So that judgment, you think, ought to be for one, though fancy and complaisance have got ground for the other. Well! I believe you will never give me leave to dispute with you on any subject; for I own, Crispo has its charms for me too. Though in the main, all the pleasure the best opera gives us is but mere sensation. Methinks it's pity the mind can't have a little more share in the entertainment. The music's certainly fine, but, in my thoughts, there's none of your composers come up to old Shakespeare and Otway.
Bev. How, madam! why if a woman of your sense were to say this in a drawing-room——
Enter a Servant.
Serv. Sir, here's Signor Carbonelli[129] says he waits your commands in the next room.
Bev. Apropos! you were saying yesterday, madam, you had a mind to hear him. Will you give him leave to entertain you now?
Ind. By all means; desire the gentleman to walk in. [Exit Servant.
Bev. I fancy you will find something in this hand that is uncommon.
Ind. You are always finding ways, Mr. Bevil, to make life seem less tedious to me.
Enter Music Master.
When the gentleman pleases.
[After a Sonata is played, Bevil waits on the Master to the door, etc.]
Bev. You smile, madam, to see me so complaisant to one whom I pay for his visit. Now, I own, I think it is not enough barely to pay those whose talents are superior to our own (I mean such talents as would become our condition, if we had them). Methinks we ought to do something more than barely gratify them for what they do at our command, only because their fortune is below us.
Ind. You say I smile. I assure you it was a smile of approbation; for, indeed, I cannot but think it the distinguishing part of a gentleman to make his superiority of fortune as easy to his inferiors as he can.—Now once more to try him. [Aside.]—I was saying just now, I believed you would never let me dispute with you, and I daresay it will always be so. However, I must have your opinion upon a subject which created a debate between my aunt and me, just before you came hither; she would needs have it that no man ever does any extraordinary kindness or service for a woman, but for his own sake.
Bev. Well, madam! Indeed I can't but be of her mind.
Ind. What, though he should maintain and support her, without demanding anything of her, on her part?
Bev. Why, madam, is making an expense in the service of a valuable woman (for such I must suppose her), though she should never do him any favour, nay, though she should never know who did her such service, such a mighty heroic business?
Ind. Certainly! I should think he must be a man of an uncommon mould.
Bev. Dear madam, why so? 'tis but, at best, a better taste in expense. To bestow upon one, whom he may think one of the ornaments of the whole creation, to be conscious, that from his superfluity, an innocent, a virtuous spirit is supported above the temptations and sorrows of life! That he sees satisfaction, health, and gladness in her countenance, while he enjoys the happiness of seeing her (as that I will suppose too, or he must be too abstracted, too insensible), I say, if he is allowed to delight in that prospect; alas, what mighty matter is there in all this?
Ind. No mighty matter in so disinterested a friendship!
Bev. Disinterested! I can't think him so; your hero, madam, is no more than what every gentleman ought to be, and I believe very many are. He is only one who takes more delight in reflections than in sensations. He is more pleased with thinking than eating; that's the utmost you can say of him. Why, madam, a greater expense than all this, men lay out upon an unnecessary stable of horses.
Ind. Can you be sincere in what you say?
Bev. You may depend upon it, if you know any such man, he does not love dogs inordinately.
Ind. No, that he does not.
Bev. Nor cards, nor dice.
Ind. No.
Bev. Nor bottle companions.
Ind. No.
Bev. Nor loose women.
Ind. No, I'm sure he does not.
Bev. Take my word then, if your admired hero is not liable to any of these kind of demands, there's no such pre-eminence in this as you imagine. Nay, this way of expense you speak of is what exalts and raises him that has a taste for it; and, at the same time, his delight is incapable of satiety, disgust, or penitence.
Ind. But still I insist his having no private interest in the action, makes it prodigious, almost incredible.
Bev. Dear madam, I never knew you more mistaken. Why, who can be more a usurer than he who lays out his money in such valuable purchases? If pleasure be worth purchasing, how great a pleasure is it to him, who has a true taste of life, to ease an aching heart; to see the human countenance lighted up into smiles of joy, on the receipt of a bit of ore which is superfluous and otherwise useless in a man's own pocket? What could a man do better with his cash? This is the effect of a human disposition, where there is only a general tie of nature and common necessity. What then must it be when we serve an object of merit, of admiration!
Ind. Well! the more you argue against it the more I shall admire the generosity.
Bev. Nay, nay—Then, madam, 'tis time to fly, after a declaration that my opinion strengthens my adversary's argument. I had best hasten to my appointment with Mr. Myrtle, and begone while we are friends, and before things are brought to an extremity. [Exit, carelessly.
Enter Isabella.
Isab. Well, madam, what think you of him now, pray?
Ind. I protest, I begin to fear he is wholly disinterested in what he does for me. On my heart, he has no other view but the mere pleasure of doing it, and has neither good or bad designs upon me.
Isab. Ah! dear niece! don't be in fear of both! I'll warrant you, you will know time enough that he is not indifferent.
Ind. You please me when you tell me so; for, if he has any wishes towards me, I know he will not pursue them but with honour.
Isab. I wish I were as confident of one as t'other. I saw the respectful downcast of his eye, when you caught him gazing at you during the music. He, I warrant, was surprised, as if he had been taken stealing your watch. Oh! the undissembled guilty look!
Ind. But did you observe any such thing, really? I thought he looked most charmingly graceful! How engaging is modesty in a man, when one knows there is a great mind within. So tender a confusion! and yet, in other respects, so much himself, so collected, so dauntless, so determined!
Isab. Ah! niece! there is a sort of bashfulness which is the best engine to carry on a shameless purpose. Some men's modesty serves their wickedness, as hypocrisy gains the respect due to piety. But I will own to you, there is one hopeful symptom, if there could be such a thing as a disinterested lover. But it's all a perplexity—till—till—till——
Ind. Till what?
Isab. Till I know whether Mr. Myrtle and Mr. Bevil are really friends or foes.—And that I will be convinced of before I sleep; for you shall not be deceived.
Ind. I'm sure I never shall, if your fears can guard me. In the meantime I'll wrap myself up in the integrity of my own heart, nor dare to doubt of his.
As conscious honour all his actions steers,
So conscious innocence dispels my fears. [Exeunt.
ACT THE THIRD.[130]
SCENE.—Sealand's House.
Enter Tom, meeting Phillis.
Tom. Well, Phillis! What, with a face as if you had never seen me before!—What a work have I to do now? She has seen some new visitant at their house whose airs she has caught, and is resolved to practise them upon me. Numberless are the changes she'll dance through before she'll answer this plain question: videlicet, have you delivered my master's letter to your lady? Nay, I know her too well to ask an account of it in an ordinary way; I'll be in my airs as well as she. [Aside.]—Well, madam, as unhappy as you are at present pleased to make me, I would not, in the general, be any other than what I am. I would not be a bit wiser, a bit richer, a bit taller, a bit shorter than I am at this instant. [Looking steadfastly at her.
Phil. Did ever anybody doubt, Master Thomas, but that you were extremely satisfied with your sweet self?
Tom. I am, indeed. The thing I have least reason to be satisfied with is my fortune, and I am glad of my poverty. Perhaps if I were rich I should overlook the finest woman in the world, that wants nothing but riches to be thought so.
Phil. How prettily was that said! But I'll have a great deal more before I'll say one word. [Aside.
Tom. I should, perhaps, have been stupidly above her had I not been her equal; and by not being her equal, never had opportunity of being her slave. I am my master's servant for hire—I am my mistress's from choice, would she but approve my passion.
Phil. I think it's the first time I ever heard you speak of it with any sense of the anguish, if you really do suffer any.
Tom. Ah, Phillis! can you doubt, after what you have seen?
Phil. I know not what I have seen, nor what I have heard; but since I am at leisure, you may tell me when you fell in love with me; how you fell in love with me; and what you have suffered or are ready to suffer for me.
Tom. Oh, the unmerciful jade! when I am in haste about my master's letter. But I must go through it. [Aside.]—Ah![131] too well I remember when, and how, and on what occasion I was first surprised. It was on the 1st of April, 1715, I came into Mr. Sealand's service; I was then a hobbledehoy, and you a pretty little tight girl, a favourite handmaid of the housekeeper. At that time we neither of us knew what was in us. I remember I was ordered to get out of the window, one pair of stairs, to rub the sashes clean; the person employed on the inner side was your charming self, whom I had never seen before.
Phil. I think I remember the silly accident. What made ye, you oaf, ready to fall down into the street?
Tom. You know not, I warrant you—you could not guess what surprised me. You took no delight when you immediately grew wanton in your conquest, and put your lips close, and breathed upon the glass, and when my lips approached, a dirty cloth you rubbed against my face, and hid your beauteous form! When I again drew near, you spit, and rubbed, and smiled at my undoing.
Phil. What silly thoughts you men have!
Tom. We were Pyramus and Thisbe—but ten times harder was my fate. Pyramus could peep only through a wall; I saw her, saw my Thisbe in all her beauty, but as much kept from her as if a hundred walls between—for there was more: there was her will against me. Would she but yet relent! O Phillis! Phillis! shorten my torment, and declare you pity me.
Phil. I believe it's very sufferable; the pain is not so exquisite but that you may bear it a little longer.
Tom. Oh! my charming Phillis, if all depended on my fair one's will, I could with glory suffer—but, dearest creature, consider our miserable state.
Phil. How! Miserable!
Tom. We are miserable to be in love, and under the command of others than those we love; with that generous passion in the heart, to be sent to and fro on errands, called, checked, and rated for the meanest trifles. Oh, Phillis! you don't know how many china cups and glasses my passion for you has made me break. You have broke my fortune as well as my heart.
Phil. Well, Mr. Thomas, I cannot but own to you that I believe your master writes and you speak the best of any men in the world. Never was woman so well pleased with a letter as my young lady was with his; and this is an answer to it. [Gives him a letter.
Tom. This was well done, my dearest; consider, we must strike out some pretty livelihood for ourselves by closing their affairs. It will be nothing for them to give us a little being of our own, some small tenement, out of their large possessions. Whatever they give us, it will be more than what they keep for themselves. One acre with Phillis would be worth a whole county without her.
Phil. O, could I but believe you!
Tom. If not the utterance, believe the touch of my lips. [Kisses her.
Phil. There's no contradicting you. How closely you argue, Tom!
Tom. And will closer, in due time. But I must hasten with this letter, to hasten towards the possession of you. Then, Phillis, consider how I must be revenged, look to it, of all your skittishness, shy looks, and at best but coy compliances.
Phil. Oh, Tom, you grow wanton, and sensual, as my lady calls it; I must not endure it. Oh! foh! you are a man—an odious, filthy, male creature—you should behave, if you had a right sense or were a man of sense, like Mr. Cimberton, with distance and indifference; or, let me see, some other becoming hard word, with seeming in-in-inadvertency, and not rush on one as if you were seizing a prey.—But hush! the ladies are coming.—Good Tom, don't kiss me above once, and be gone. Lard, we have been fooling and toying, and not considered the main business of our masters and mistresses.
Tom. Why, their business is to be fooling and toying as soon as the parchments are ready.
Phil. Well remembered, parchments; my lady, to my knowledge, is preparing writings between her coxcomb cousin, Cimberton, and my mistress, though my master has an eye to the parchments already prepared between your master, Mr. Bevil, and my mistress; and, I believe, my mistress herself has signed and sealed, in her heart, to Mr. Myrtle.—Did I not bid you kiss me but once, and be gone? But I know you won't be satisfied.
Tom. No, you smooth creature, how should I? [Kissing her hand.
Phil. Well, since you are so humble, or so cool, as to ravish my hand only, I'll take my leave of you like a great lady, and you a man of quality. [They salute formally.
Tom. Pox of all this state. [Offers to kiss her more closely.
Phil. No, prithee, Tom, mind your business. We must follow that interest which will take, but endeavour at that which will be most for us, and we like most. Oh, here is my young mistress! [Tom taps her neck behind, and kisses his fingers.] Go, ye liquorish fool. [Exit Tom.
Enter Lucinda.
Luc. Who was that you were hurrying away?
Phil. One that I had no mind to part with.
Luc. Why did you turn him away then?
Phil. For your ladyship's service—to carry your ladyship's letter to his master. I could hardly get the rogue away.
Luc. Why, has he so little love for his master?
Phil. No; but he hath so much love for his mistress.
Luc. But I thought I heard him kiss you. Why did you suffer that?
Phil. Why, madam, we vulgar take it to be a sign of love—We servants, we poor people, that have nothing but our persons to bestow or treat for, are forced to deal and bargain by way of sample, and therefore as we have no parchments or wax necessary in our agreements, we squeeze with our hands and seal with our lips, to ratify vows and promises.
Luc. But can't you trust one another without such earnest down?
Phil. We don't think it safe, any more than you gentry, to come together without deeds executed.
Luc. Thou art a pert merry hussy.
Phil. I wish, madam, your lover and you were as happy as Tom and your servant are.
Luc. You grow impertinent.
Phil. I have done, madam; and I won't ask you what you intend to do with Mr. Myrtle, what your father will do with Mr. Bevil, nor what you all, especially my lady, mean by admitting Mr. Cimberton as particularly here as if he were married to you already; nay, you are married actually as far as people of quality are.
Luc. How is that?
Phil. You have different beds in the same house.
Luc. Pshaw! I have a very great value for Mr. Bevil, but have absolutely put an end to his pretensions in the letter I gave you for him. But my father, in his heart, still has a mind to him, were it not for this woman they talk of; and I am apt to imagine he is married to her, or never designs to marry at all.
Phil. Then Mr. Myrtle——
Luc. He had my parents' leave to apply to me, and by that he has won me and my affections; who is to have this body of mine without them, it seems, is nothing to me. My mother says 'tis indecent for me to let my thoughts stray about the person of my husband; nay, she says a maid, rigidly virtuous, though she may have been where her lover was a thousand times, should not have made observations enough to know him from another man when she sees him in a third place.
Phil. That is more than the severity of a nun, for not to see when one may is hardly possible; not to see when one can't is very easy. At this rate, madam, there are a great many whom you have not seen who——
Luc. Mamma says the first time you see your husband should be at that instant he is made so. When your father, with the help of the minister, gives you to him, then you are to see him; then you are to observe and take notice of him; because then you are to obey him.
Phil. But does not my lady remember you are to love as well as obey?
Luc. To love is a passion, it is a desire, and we must have no desires.—Oh, I cannot endure the reflection! With what insensibility on my part, with what more than patience have I been exposed and offered to some awkward booby or other in every county of Great Britain!
Phil. Indeed, madam, I wonder I never heard you speak of it before with this indignation.
Luc. Every corner of the land has presented me with a wealthy coxcomb. As fast as one treaty has gone off, another has come on, till my name and person have been the tittle-tattle of the whole town. What is this world come to?—no shame left—to be bartered for like the beasts of the field, and that in such an instance as coming together to an entire familiarity and union of soul and body. Oh! and this without being so much as well-wishers to each other, but for increase of fortune.
Phil. But, madam, all these vexations will end very soon in one for all. Mr. Cimberton is your mother's kinsman, and three hundred years an older gentleman than any lover you ever had; for which reason, with that of his prodigious large estate, she is resolved on him, and has sent to consult the lawyers accordingly; nay, has (whether you know it or no) been in treaty with Sir Geoffry, who, to join in the settlement, has accepted of a sum to do it, and is every moment expected in town for that purpose.
Luc. How do you get all this intelligence?
Phil. By an art I have, I thank my stars, beyond all the waiting-maids in Great Britain—the art of listening, madam, for your ladyship's service.
Luc. I shall soon know as much as you do; leave me, leave me, Phillis, begone. Here, here! I'll turn you out. My mother says I must not converse with my servants, though I must converse with no one else. [Exit Phil.]—How unhappy are we who are born to great fortunes! No one looks at us with indifference, or acts towards us on the foot of plain dealing; yet, by all I have been heretofore offered to or treated for I have been used with the most agreeable of all abuses—flattery. But now, by this phlegmatic fool I'm used as nothing, or a mere thing. He, forsooth, is too wise, too learned to have any regard for desires, and I know not what the learned oaf calls sentiments of love and passion—Here he comes with my mother—It's much if he looks at me, or if he does, takes no more notice of me than of any other movable in the room.
Enter Mrs. Sealand, and Mr. Cimberton.
Mrs. Seal. How do I admire this noble, this learned taste of yours, and the worthy regard you have to our own ancient and honourable house in consulting a means to keep the blood as pure and as regularly descended as may be.
Cim. Why, really, madam, the young women of this age are treated with discourses of such a tendency, and their imaginations so bewildered in flesh and blood, that a man of reason can't talk to be understood. They have no ideas of happiness, but what are more gross than the gratification of hunger and thirst.
Luc. With how much reflection he is a coxcomb! [Aside.
Cim. And in truth, madam, I have considered it as a most brutal custom that persons of the first character in the world should go as ordinarily, and with as little shame, to bed as to dinner with one another. They proceed to the propagation of the species as openly as to the preservation of the individual.
Luc. She that willingly goes to bed to thee must have no shame, I'm sure. [Aside.
Mrs. Seal. Oh, cousin Cimberton! cousin Cimberton! how abstracted, how refined is your sense of things! But, indeed, it is too true there is nothing so ordinary as to say, in the best governed families, my master and lady have gone to bed; one does not know but it might have been said of one's self. [Hiding her face with her fan.
Cim. Lycurgus, madam, instituted otherwise; among the Lacedæmonians the whole female world was pregnant, but none but the mothers themselves knew by whom; their meetings were secret, and the amorous congress always by stealth; and no such professed doings between the sexes as are tolerated among us under the audacious word, marriage.
Mrs. Seal. Oh, had I lived in those days and been a matron of Sparta, one might with less indecency have had ten children, according to that modest institution, than one, under the confusion of our modern, barefaced manner.
Luc. And yet, poor woman, she has gone through the whole ceremony, and here I stand a melancholy proof of it. [Aside.
Mrs. Seal. We will talk then of business. That girl walking about the room there is to be your wife. She has, I confess, no ideas, no sentiments, that speak her born of a thinking mother.
Cimb. I have observed her; her lively look, free air, and disengaged countenance speak her very——
Luc. Very what?
Cimb. If you please, madam—to set her a little that way.
Mrs. Seal. Lucinda, say nothing to him, you are not a match for him; when you are married, you may speak to such a husband when you're spoken to. But I am disposing of you above yourself every way.
Cimb. Madam, you cannot but observe the inconveniences I expose myself to, in hopes that your ladyship will be the consort of my better part. As for the young woman, she is rather an impediment than a help to a man of letters and speculation. Madam, there is no reflection, no philosophy, can at all times subdue the sensitive life, but the animal shall sometimes carry away the man. Ha! ay, the vermilion of her lips.
Luc. Pray, don't talk of me thus.
Cimb. The pretty enough—pant of her bosom.
Luc. Sir! madam, don't you hear him?
Cimb. Her forward chest.
Luc. Intolerable!
Cimb. High health.
Luc. The grave, easy impudence of him!
Cimb. Proud heart.
Luc. Stupid coxcomb!
Cimb. I say, madam, her impatience, while we are looking at her, throws out all attractions—her arms—her neck—what a spring in her step!
Luc. Don't you run me over thus, you strange unaccountable!
Cimb. What an elasticity in her veins and arteries!
Luc. I have no veins, no arteries.
Mrs. Seal. Oh, child! hear him, he talks finely; he's a scholar, he knows what you have.
Cimb. The speaking invitation of her shape, the gathering of herself up, and the indignation you see in the pretty little thing—Now, I am considering her, on this occasion, but as one that is to be pregnant.
Luc. The familiar, learned, unseasonable puppy! [Aside.
Cimb. And pregnant undoubtedly she will be yearly. I fear I shan't, for many years, have discretion enough to give her one fallow season.
Luc. Monster! there's no bearing it. The hideous sot! there's no enduring it, to be thus surveyed like a steed at sale.
Cimb. At sale! She's very illiterate—But she's very well limbed too; turn her in; I see what she is. [Exit Lucinda, in a rage.
Mrs. Seal. Go, you creature, I am ashamed of you.
Cimb. No harm done—you know, madam, the better sort of people, as I observed to you, treat by their lawyers of weddings [Adjusting himself at the glass.]—and the woman in the bargain, like the mansion house in the sale of the estate, is thrown in, and what that is, whether good or bad, is not at all considered.
Mrs. Seal. I grant it; and therefore make no demand for her youth and beauty, and every other accomplishment, as the common world think 'em, because she is not polite.
Cimb. Madam, I know your exalted understanding, abstracted, as it is, from vulgar prejudices, will not be offended, when I declare to you, I marry to have an heir to my estate, and not to beget a colony, or a plantation. This young woman's beauty and constitution will demand provision for a tenth child at least.
Mrs. Seal. With all that wit and learning, how considerate! What an economist! [Aside.]—Sir, I cannot make her any other than she is; or say she is much better than the other young women of this age, or fit for much besides being a mother; but I have given directions for the marriage settlements, and Sir Geoffry Cimberton's counsel is to meet ours here, at this hour, concerning this joining in the deed, which, when executed, makes you capable of settling what is due to Lucinda's fortune. Herself, as I told you, I say nothing of.
Cimb. No, no, no, indeed, madam, it is not usual; and I must depend upon my own reflection and philosophy not to overstock my family.
Mrs. Seal. I cannot help her, cousin Cimberton; but she is, for aught I see, as well as the daughter of anybody else.
Cimb. That is very true, madam.
Enter a Servant, who whispers Mrs. Sealand.
Mrs. Seal. The lawyers are come, and now we are to hear what they have resolved as to the point whether it's necessary that Sir Geoffry should join in the settlement, as being what they call in the remainder. But, good cousin, you must have patience with 'em. These lawyers, I am told, are of a different kind; one is what they call a chamber counsel, the other a pleader. The conveyancer is slow, from an imperfection in his speech, and therefore shunned the bar, but extremely passionate and impatient of contradiction. The other is as warm as he; but has a tongue so voluble, and a head so conceited, he will suffer nobody to speak but himself.
Cimb. You mean old Serjeant Target and Counsellor Bramble? I have heard of 'em.
Mrs. Seal. The same. Show in the gentlemen. [Exit Servant.
Re-enter Servant, introducing Myrtle and Tom disguised as Bramble and Target.
Mrs. Seal. Gentlemen, this is the party concerned, Mr. Cimberton; and I hope you have considered of the matter.
Tar. Yes, madam, we have agreed that it must be by indent——dent——dent——dent——
Bram. Yes, madam, Mr. Serjeant and myself have agreed, as he is pleased to inform you, that it must be an indenture tripartite,[132] and tripartite let it be, for Sir Geoffry must needs be a party; old Cimberton, in the year 1619, says, in that ancient roll in Mr. Serjeant's hands, as recourse thereto being had, will more at large appear——
Tar. Yes, and by the deeds in your hands, it appears that——
Bram. Mr. Serjeant, I beg of you to make no inferences upon what is in our custody; but speak to the titles in your own deeds. I shall not show that deed till my client is in town.
Cimb. You know best your own methods.
Mrs. Seal. The single question is, whether the entail is such that my cousin, Sir Geoffry, is necessary in this affair?
Bram. Yes, as to the lordship of Tretriplet, but not as to the messuage of Grimgribber.
Tar. I say that Gr—gr—that Gr—gr—Grimgribber, Grimgribber is in us; that is to say the remainder thereof, as well as that of Tr—tr—Triplet.
Bram. You go upon the deed of Sir Ralph, made in the middle of the last century, precedent to that in which old Cimberton made over the remainder, and made it pass to the heirs general, by which your client comes in; and I question whether the remainder even of Tretriplet is in him—But we are willing to waive that, and give him a valuable consideration. But we shall not purchase what is in us for ever, as Grimgribber is, at the rate, as we guard against the contingent of Mr. Cimberton having no son—Then we know Sir Geoffry is the first of the collateral male line in this family—yet——
Tar. Sir, Gr——gr——ber is——
Bram. I apprehend you very well, and your argument might be of force, and we would be inclined to hear that in all its parts—But, sir, I see very plainly what you are going into. I tell you, it is as probable a contingent that Sir Geoffry may die before Mr. Cimberton, as that he may outlive him.
Tar. Sir, we are not ripe for that yet, but I must say——
Bram. Sir, I allow you the whole extent of that argument; but that will go no farther than as to the claimants under old Cimberton. I am of opinion that, according to the instruction of Sir Ralph, he could not dock the entail, and then create a new estate for the heirs general.
Tar. Sir, I have not patience to be told that, when Gr——gr——ber——
Bram. I will allow it you, Mr. Serjeant; but there must be the word heirs for ever, to make such an estate as you pretend.
Cimb. I must be impartial, though you are counsel for my side of the question. Were it not that you are so good as to allow him what he has not said, I should think it very hard you should answer him without hearing him—But, gentlemen, I believe you have both considered this matter, and are firm in your different opinions. 'Twere better, therefore, you proceeded according to the particular sense of each of you, and gave your thoughts distinctly in writing. And do you see, sirs, pray let me have a copy of what you say in English.
Bram. Why, what is all we have been saying? In English! Oh! but I forget myself, you're a wit. But, however, to please you, sir, you shall have it, in as plain terms as the law will admit of.
Cimb. But I would have it, sir, without delay.
Bram. That, sir, the law will not admit of. The Courts are sitting at Westminster, and I am this moment obliged to be at every one of them, and 'twould be wrong if I should not be in the hall to attend one of 'em at least; the rest would take it ill else. Therefore, I must leave what I have said to Mr. Serjeant's consideration, and I will digest his arguments on my part, and you shall hear from me again, sir. [Exit Bramble.
Tar. Agreed, agreed.
Cimb. Mr. Bramble is very quick; he parted a little abruptly.
Tar. He could not bear my argument; I pinched him to the quick about that Gr——gr——ber.
Mrs. Seal. I saw that, for he durst not so much as hear you. I shall send to you, Mr. Serjeant, as soon as Sir Geoffry comes to town, and then I hope all may be adjusted.
Tar. I shall be at my chambers, at my usual hours. [Exit.
Cimb. Madam, if you please, I'll now attend you to the tea table, where I shall hear from your ladyship reason and good sense, after all this law and gibberish.
Mrs. Seal. 'Tis a wonderful thing, sir, that men of professions do not study to talk the substance of what they have to say in the language of the rest of the world. Sure, they'd find their account in it.
Cimb. They might, perhaps, madam, with people of your good sense; but with the generality 'twould never do. The vulgar would have no respect for truth and knowledge, if they were exposed to naked view.
Truth is too simple, of all art bereaved:
Since the world will—why let it be deceived.
[Exeunt.