Part 6

MRS. FAIN. Yonder Sir Wilfull’s drunk, and so noisy that my mother has been forced to leave Sir Rowland to appease him; but he answers her only with singing and drinking. What they may have done by this time I know not, but Petulant and he were upon quarrelling as I came by.

MILLA. Well, if Mirabell should not make a good husband, I am a lost thing: for I find I love him violently.

MRS. FAIN. So it seems; for you mind not what’s said to you. If you doubt him, you had best take up with Sir Wilfull.

MILLA. How can you name that superannuated lubber? foh!

## SCENE VIII.

[_To them_] WITWOUD _from drinking_.

MRS. FAIN. So, is the fray made up that you have left ’em?

WIT. Left ’em? I could stay no longer. I have laughed like ten Christ’nings. I am tipsy with laughing—if I had stayed any longer I should have burst,—I must have been let out and pieced in the sides like an unsized camlet. Yes, yes, the fray is composed; my lady came in like a _noli prosequi_, and stopt the proceedings.

MILLA. What was the dispute?

WIT. That’s the jest: there was no dispute. They could neither of ’em speak for rage; and so fell a sputt’ring at one another like two roasting apples.

## SCENE IX.

[_To them_] PETULANT _drunk_.

WIT. Now, Petulant? All’s over, all’s well? Gad, my head begins to whim it about. Why dost thou not speak? Thou art both as drunk and as mute as a fish.

PET. Look you, Mrs. Millamant, if you can love me, dear Nymph, say it, and that’s the conclusion—pass on, or pass off—that’s all.

WIT. Thou hast uttered volumes, folios, in less than decimo sexto, my dear Lacedemonian. Sirrah, Petulant, thou art an epitomiser of words.

PET. Witwoud,—you are an annihilator of sense.

WIT. Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of remnants, like a maker of pincushions; thou art in truth (metaphorically speaking) a speaker of shorthand.

PET. Thou art (without a figure) just one half of an ass, and Baldwin yonder, thy half-brother, is the rest. A Gemini of asses split would make just four of you.

WIT. Thou dost bite, my dear mustard-seed; kiss me for that.

PET. Stand off—I’ll kiss no more males—I have kissed your Twin yonder in a humour of reconciliation till he [_hiccup_] rises upon my stomach like a radish.

MILLA. Eh! filthy creature; what was the quarrel?

PET. There was no quarrel; there might have been a quarrel.

WIT. If there had been words enow between ’em to have expressed provocation, they had gone together by the ears like a pair of castanets.

PET. You were the quarrel.

MILLA. Me?

PET. If I have a humour to quarrel, I can make less matters conclude premises. If you are not handsome, what then? If I have a humour to prove it? If I shall have my reward, say so; if not, fight for your face the next time yourself—I’ll go sleep.

WIT. Do, wrap thyself up like a woodlouse, and dream revenge. And, hear me, if thou canst learn to write by to-morrow morning, pen me a challenge. I’ll carry it for thee.

PET. Carry your mistress’s monkey a spider; go flea dogs and read romances. I’ll go to bed to my maid.

MRS. FAIN. He’s horridly drunk—how came you all in this pickle?

WIT. A plot, a plot, to get rid of the knight—your husband’s advice; but he sneaked off.

## SCENE X.

SIR WILFULL, _drunk_, LADY WISHFORT, WITWOUD, MRS. MILLAMANT, MRS. FAINALL.

LADY. Out upon’t, out upon’t, at years of discretion, and comport yourself at this rantipole rate!

SIR WIL. No offence, aunt.

LADY. Offence? As I’m a person, I’m ashamed of you. Fogh! How you stink of wine! D’ye think my niece will ever endure such a Borachio? You’re an absolute Borachio.

SIR WIL. Borachio?

LADY. At a time when you should commence an amour, and put your best foot foremost—

SIR WIL. ’Sheart, an you grutch me your liquor, make a bill.—Give me more drink, and take my purse. [_Sings_]:—

Prithee fill me the glass, Till it laugh in my face, With ale that is potent and mellow; He that whines for a lass Is an ignorant ass, For a bumper has not its fellow.

But if you would have me marry my cousin, say the word, and I’ll do’t. Wilfull will do’t, that’s the word. Wilfull will do’t, that’s my crest,—my motto I have forgot.

LADY. My nephew’s a little overtaken, cousin, but ’tis drinking your health. O’ my word, you are obliged to him—

SIR WIL. _In vino veritas_, aunt. If I drunk your health to-day, cousin,—I am a Borachio.—But if you have a mind to be married, say the word and send for the piper; Wilfull will do’t. If not, dust it away, and let’s have t’other round. Tony—ods-heart, where’s Tony?—Tony’s an honest fellow, but he spits after a bumper, and that’s a fault.

We’ll drink and we’ll never ha’ done, boys, Put the glass then around with the sun, boys, Let Apollo’s example invite us; For he’s drunk every night, And that makes him so bright, That he’s able next morning to light us.

The sun’s a good pimple, an honest soaker, he has a cellar at your antipodes. If I travel, aunt, I touch at your antipodes—your antipodes are a good rascally sort of topsy-turvy fellows. If I had a bumper I’d stand upon my head and drink a health to ’em. A match or no match, cousin with the hard name; aunt, Wilfull will do’t. If she has her maidenhead let her look to ’t; if she has not, let her keep her own counsel in the meantime, and cry out at the nine months’ end.

MILLA. Your pardon, madam, I can stay no longer. Sir Wilfull grows very powerful. Egh! how he smells! I shall be overcome if I stay. Come, cousin.

## SCENE XI.

LADY WISHFORT, SIR WILFULL WITWOUD, MR. WITWOUD, FOIBLE.

LADY. Smells? He would poison a tallow-chandler and his family. Beastly creature, I know not what to do with him. Travel, quotha; ay, travel, travel, get thee gone, get thee but far enough, to the Saracens, or the Tartars, or the Turks—for thou art not fit to live in a Christian commonwealth, thou beastly pagan.

SIR WIL. Turks? No; no Turks, aunt. Your Turks are infidels, and believe not in the grape. Your Mahometan, your Mussulman is a dry stinkard. No offence, aunt. My map says that your Turk is not so honest a man as your Christian—I cannot find by the map that your Mufti is orthodox, whereby it is a plain case that orthodox is a hard word, aunt, and [_hiccup_] Greek for claret. [_Sings_]:—

To drink is a Christian diversion, Unknown to the Turk or the Persian. Let Mahometan fools Live by heathenish rules, And be damned over tea-cups and coffee. But let British lads sing, Crown a health to the King, And a fig for your Sultan and Sophy.

Ah, Tony! [FOIBLE _whispers_ LADY W.]

LADY. Sir Rowland impatient? Good lack! what shall I do with this beastly tumbril? Go lie down and sleep, you sot, or as I’m a person, I’ll have you bastinadoed with broomsticks. Call up the wenches with broomsticks.

SIR WIL. Ahey! Wenches? Where are the wenches?

LADY. Dear Cousin Witwoud, get him away, and you will bind me to you inviolably. I have an affair of moment that invades me with some precipitation.—You will oblige me to all futurity.

WIT. Come, knight. Pox on him, I don’t know what to say to him. Will you go to a cock-match?

SIR WIL. With a wench, Tony? Is she a shake-bag, sirrah? Let me bite your cheek for that.

WIT. Horrible! He has a breath like a bagpipe. Ay, ay; come, will you march, my Salopian?

SIR WIL. Lead on, little Tony. I’ll follow thee, my Anthony, my Tantony. Sirrah, thou shalt be my Tantony, and I’ll be thy pig.

And a fig for your Sultan and Sophy.

LADY. This will never do. It will never make a match,—at least before he has been abroad.

## SCENE XII.

LADY WISHFORT, WAITWELL _disguised as for_ SIR ROWLAND.

LADY. Dear Sir Rowland, I am confounded with confusion at the retrospection of my own rudeness,—I have more pardons to ask than the pope distributes in the year of jubilee. But I hope where there is likely to be so near an alliance, we may unbend the severity of decorum, and dispense with a little ceremony.

WAIT. My impatience, madam, is the effect of my transport; and till I have the possession of your adorable person, I am tantalised on the rack, and do but hang, madam, on the tenter of expectation.

LADY. You have excess of gallantry, Sir Rowland, and press things to a conclusion with a most prevailing vehemence. But a day or two for decency of marriage—

WAIT. For decency of funeral, madam! The delay will break my heart—or if that should fail, I shall be poisoned. My nephew will get an inkling of my designs and poison me—and I would willingly starve him before I die—I would gladly go out of the world with that satisfaction. That would be some comfort to me, if I could but live so long as to be revenged on that unnatural viper.

LADY. Is he so unnatural, say you? Truly I would contribute much both to the saving of your life and the accomplishment of your revenge. Not that I respect myself; though he has been a perfidious wretch to me.

WAIT. Perfidious to you?

LADY. O Sir Rowland, the hours that he has died away at my feet, the tears that he has shed, the oaths that he has sworn, the palpitations that he has felt, the trances and the tremblings, the ardours and the ecstasies, the kneelings and the risings, the heart-heavings and the hand-gripings, the pangs and the pathetic regards of his protesting eyes!—Oh, no memory can register.

WAIT. What, my rival? Is the rebel my rival? A dies.

LADY. No, don’t kill him at once, Sir Rowland: starve him gradually, inch by inch.

WAIT. I’ll do’t. In three weeks he shall be barefoot; in a month out at knees with begging an alms; he shall starve upward and upward, ’till he has nothing living but his head, and then go out in a stink like a candle’s end upon a save-all.

LADY. Well, Sir Rowland, you have the way,—you are no novice in the labyrinth of love,—you have the clue. But as I am a person, Sir Rowland, you must not attribute my yielding to any sinister appetite or indigestion of widowhood; nor impute my complacency to any lethargy of continence. I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials?

WAIT. Far be it from me—

LADY. If you do, I protest I must recede, or think that I have made a prostitution of decorums, but in the vehemence of compassion, and to save the life of a person of so much importance—

WAIT. I esteem it so—

LADY. Or else you wrong my condescension—

WAIT. I do not, I do not—

LADY. Indeed you do.

WAIT. I do not, fair shrine of virtue.

LADY. If you think the least scruple of causality was an ingredient—

WAIT. Dear madam, no. You are all camphire and frankincense, all chastity and odour.

LADY. Or that—

## SCENE XIII.

[_To them_] FOIBLE.

FOIB. Madam, the dancers are ready, and there’s one with a letter, who must deliver it into your own hands.

LADY. Sir Rowland, will you give me leave? Think favourably, judge candidly, and conclude you have found a person who would suffer racks in honour’s cause, dear Sir Rowland, and will wait on you incessantly.

## SCENE XIV.

WAITWELL, FOIBLE.

WAIT. Fie, fie! What a slavery have I undergone; spouse, hast thou any cordial? I want spirits.

FOIB. What a washy rogue art thou, to pant thus for a quarter of an hour’s lying and swearing to a fine lady?

WAIT. Oh, she is the antidote to desire. Spouse, thou wilt fare the worse for’t. I shall have no appetite to iteration of nuptials—this eight-and-forty hours. By this hand I’d rather be a chairman in the dog-days than act Sir Rowland till this time to-morrow.

## SCENE XV.

[_To them_] LADY _with a letter_.

LADY. Call in the dancers; Sir Rowland, we’ll sit, if you please, and see the entertainment. [_Dance_.] Now, with your permission, Sir Rowland, I will peruse my letter. I would open it in your presence, because I would not make you uneasy. If it should make you uneasy, I would burn it—speak if it does—but you may see, the superscription is like a woman’s hand.

FOIB. By heaven! Mrs. Marwood’s, I know it,—my heart aches—get it from her! [_To him_.]

WAIT. A woman’s hand? No madam, that’s no woman’s hand: I see that already. That’s somebody whose throat must be cut.

LADY. Nay, Sir Rowland, since you give me a proof of your passion by your jealousy, I promise you I’ll make a return by a frank communication. You shall see it—we’ll open it together. Look you here. [_Reads_.] _Madam_, _though unknown to you_ (look you there, ’tis from nobody that I know.) _I have that honour for your character_, _that I think myself obliged to let you know you are abused_. _He who pretends to be Sir Rowland is a cheat and a rascal_. O heavens! what’s this?

FOIB. Unfortunate; all’s ruined.

WAIT. How, how, let me see, let me see. [_Reading_.] _A rascal_, _and disguised and suborned for that imposture_—O villainy! O villainy!—_by the contrivance of_—

LADY. I shall faint, I shall die. Oh!

FOIB. Say ’tis your nephew’s hand. Quickly, his plot, swear, swear it! [_To him_.]

WAIT. Here’s a villain! Madam, don’t you perceive it? Don’t you see it?

LADY. Too well, too well. I have seen too much.

WAIT. I told you at first I knew the hand. A woman’s hand? The rascal writes a sort of a large hand: your Roman hand.—I saw there was a throat to be cut presently. If he were my son, as he is my nephew, I’d pistol him.

FOIB. O treachery! But are you sure, Sir Rowland, it is his writing?

WAIT. Sure? Am I here? Do I live? Do I love this pearl of India? I have twenty letters in my pocket from him in the same character.

LADY. How?

FOIB. Oh, what luck it is, Sir Rowland, that you were present at this juncture! This was the business that brought Mr. Mirabell disguised to Madam Millamant this afternoon. I thought something was contriving, when he stole by me and would have hid his face.

LADY. How, how? I heard the villain was in the house indeed; and now I remember, my niece went away abruptly when Sir Wilfull was to have made his addresses.

FOIB. Then, then, madam, Mr. Mirabell waited for her in her chamber; but I would not tell your ladyship to discompose you when you were to receive Sir Rowland.

WAIT. Enough, his date is short.

FOIB. No, good Sir Rowland, don’t incur the law.

WAIT. Law? I care not for law. I can but die, and ’tis in a good cause. My lady shall be satisfied of my truth and innocence, though it cost me my life.

LADY. No, dear Sir Rowland, don’t fight: if you should be killed I must never show my face; or hanged,—oh, consider my reputation, Sir Rowland. No, you shan’t fight: I’ll go in and examine my niece; I’ll make her confess. I conjure you, Sir Rowland, by all your love not to fight.

WAIT. I am charmed, madam; I obey. But some proof you must let me give you: I’ll go for a black box, which contains the writings of my whole estate, and deliver that into your hands.

LADY. Ay, dear Sir Rowland, that will be some comfort; bring the black box.

WAIT. And may I presume to bring a contract to be signed this night? May I hope so far?

LADY. Bring what you will; but come alive, pray come alive. Oh, this is a happy discovery.

WAIT. Dead or alive I’ll come—and married we will be in spite of treachery; ay, and get an heir that shall defeat the last remaining glimpse of hope in my abandoned nephew. Come, my buxom widow:

E’er long you shall substantial proof receive That I’m an arrant knight—

FOIB. Or arrant knave.

## ACT V.—SCENE I.

_Scene continues_.

LADY WISHFORT _and_ FOIBLE.

LADY. Out of my house, out of my house, thou viper, thou serpent that I have fostered, thou bosom traitress that I raised from nothing! Begone, begone, begone, go, go; that I took from washing of old gauze and weaving of dead hair, with a bleak blue nose, over a chafing-dish of starved embers, and dining behind a traver’s rag, in a shop no bigger than a bird-cage. Go, go, starve again, do, do!

FOIB. Dear madam, I’ll beg pardon on my knees.

LADY. Away, out, out, go set up for yourself again, do; drive a trade, do, with your threepennyworth of small ware, flaunting upon a packthread, under a brandy-seller’s bulk, or against a dead wall by a balladmonger. Go, hang out an old frisoneer-gorget, with a yard of yellow colberteen again, do; an old gnawed mask, two rows of pins, and a child’s fiddle; a glass necklace with the beads broken, and a quilted night-cap with one ear. Go, go, drive a trade. These were your commodities, you treacherous trull; this was the merchandise you dealt in, when I took you into my house, placed you next myself, and made you governant of my whole family. You have forgot this, have you, now you have feathered your nest?

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.