SCENE XII.
MALVIL, MERITAL.
MALVIL. Who are those fine ladies you parted from?
MERITAL. Some of Rattle’s acquaintance.
MALVIL. Was not Vermilia there?
MERITAL. She was.
MALVIL. Do you act friendly, Merital?
MERITAL. Ay, faith! and very friendly; for I have been pleading your cause with the same earnestness as if I had been your counsel in the affair. I have been a sort of proxy to you.
MALVIL. Confusion! — [Aside.
MERITAL. Why, thou art jealous, I believe. Come, do we dine together?
MALVIL. I am engaged, but will meet at five.
MERITAL. Nay, then I am engaged, and to meet a mistress.
MALVIL. A mistress at five!
MERITAL. Ay, sir, and such a mistress — But I see something has put you out of humour: so I will not expatiate on my happiness: for I know lovers are, of all creatures, the most subject to envy. So, your servant.
SCENE XIII.
MALVIL. [Alone.] And thou shalt find they are subject to rage too. Do you laugh at your successful villainy! Yet his open carriage would persuade me he has no ill design. This morning too he told me of another mistress. But that may be false, and only intended to blind my suspicions. It must be so. Vermilia’s fond expressions, her appointment, his denying her. O they are glaring proofs! and I am now convinced. Yet all these appearances may be delusions.
Well, I will once more see her. If I find her innocent, I am happy; if not, the knowing her guilt may cure my love.
But anxiety is the greatest of torments.
In doubt, as in the dark, things sad appear,
More dismal, and more horrid than they are.
ACT III.
SCENE I.
LADY MATCHLESS’S House.
MALVIL, VERMILIA.
MALVIL. How have I deserved this usage, madam? By what behaviour of mine have I provoked you to make me that despicable thing, the dangler after a woman who is carrying on an affair with another man?
VERMILIA. An affair, sir?
MALVIL. You know too well the justice of my accusation, nor am I a stranger to your soft, languishing fondness, your wanton praises of my rival, of Merital, your walking in the Park, your appointment with him,
VERMILIA. O jealousy, thou child and bane of love! Rash, dreaming madman, could you awake from your errors, and see how grossly you abuse me, if you had the least spark of humanity left, it would raise a flame of horror in your soul.
MALVIL. O, it were worse than ten thousand deaths to find I have wronged you, and I would undergo them all to prove you innocent.
VERMILIA. To think you innocent, I must think you mad. Invention cannot counterfeit any other excuse.
MALVIL. A reflection on your own conduct, madam, will justify every part of mine, but my love.
VERMILIA. Name not that noble passion. A savage is as capable of it as thou art. And do you tax me with my love to Merital. He has as many virtues as thou hast blemishes. The proudest of our sex might glory in his addresses, the meanest might be ashamed of thine. Go, curse thy fate, and nature, which has made thee an object of our scorn: but thank thy jealousy, which has discovered to thee that thou art the derision of a successful rival, and my aversion.
SCENE II.
MALVIL, CATCHIT, [Malvil stands as in amaze.]
CATCHIT. O gemini! Sir, what’s the matter? I met my mistress in the greatest rage.
MALVIL. You know enough not to have asked that. Here, take this letter, and when Merital comes to his appointment, you will find an opportunity to deliver it him. Be sure to do it before he sees your mistress; for I have contrived a scheme in it that will ruin him for ever with her. —— You will deliver it carefully?
CATCHIT. Yes, indeed, sir.
MALVIL. And learn what you can, and come to my lodgings to-morrow morning — take this kiss as an earnest of what I’ll do for you.
SCENE III.
CATCHIT. [Alone.] Methinks, I long to know what this scheme is. I must know, and I will know. ‘Tis but wafersealed. I’ll open it and read it. But here are the ladies.
SCENE IV.
LADY MATCHLESS, VERMILIA.
LADY MATCHLESS. Ha, ha, ha! and so the creature has taken a fit of jealousy into his head, and has been raving most tragically! Don’t look so dull, dear; what, because he gives himself airs, will you give yourself the vapours?
VERMILIA. I am concerned only that I should ever have favoured him in my opinion.
LADY MATCHLESS. Indeed, you have no cause: for you have revenge in your own hand, since nothing but matrimony will cure his phrenzy.
VERMILIA. Which cure when I afford him, may I —
LADY MATCHLESS. O, no oaths, no imprecations! But, if any, let it be this. When next you are inclined to forgive him, may he be so stubborn as not to ask it; that, I am sure, is curse enough.
VERMILIA. Nay, but, dear Matchless, do not rally me on that subject.
LADY MATCHLESS. Is there any subject fitter for raillery? the wise, you know, have always made a jest of love.
VERMILIA. Yes, and love has made a jest of the wise, who seem to have no other quarrel to it, but that they are the least successful in it.
LADY MATCHLESS. Nay, if you are an advocate for love, I shall think —
VERMILIA. What?
LADY MATCHLESS. That you are in love.
VERMILIA. Well, you are a censorious, ill-natured, teasing —
LADY MATCHLESS. Don’t be out of humour, child. I tell you the fellow’s your own.
SCENE V.
To them, RATTLE.
RATTLE. Ladies, your humble servant.
LADY MATCHLESS. O, you are most opportunely come, for poor Vermilia is horridly in the vapours, and you are, we know, a skilful physician.
RATTLE. But what signifies the skill of a physician, when the patient will not take his advice?
VERMILIA. When he mistakes the disease, his advice is not like to be safe. And, I assure you, I never was less in the vapours than now.
LADY MATCHLESS. That’s a dangerous symptom: for when a sick lady thinks herself well, her fever must be very high.
RATTLE. Pox take her! would she was dead! for she’s always in my way. [Aside.
VERMILIA. This is acting physicians, indeed, to persuade me into a distemper.
RATTLE. I believe, madam, you are in very little danger. But, widow, the whole town wonders you are not surfeited with so much courtship.
VERMILIA. Courtship, Mr. Rattle, is a dish adapted to the palate of our sex.
RATTLE. But there is a second course more agreeable, and better adapted to a lady’s palate. Courtship is but a long, dull grace to a rich entertainment, both equally banes to sharp-set appetite, and equally out of fashion; the beaumonde say only Benedicite, and then fall on.
LADY MATCHLESS. No; courtship is to marriage, like a fine avenue to an old falling mansion beautified with a painted front; but no sooner is the door shut on us, than we discover an old, shabby, out-of-fashioned hall, whose only ornaments are a set of branching stag’s horns — lamentable emblems of matrimony.
SCENE VI.
LADY MATCHLESS, LORD FORMAL, VERMILIA, RATTLE.
LORD FORMAL. Ladies, I am your most obedient and obsequious humble servant. Mr. Rattle, I am your devoted.
RATTLE. That’s an over-strained compliment, my lord: we all know you are entirely devoted to the ladies.
LADY MATCHLESS. That’s an over-strained compliment to us; for we must be all proud of so elegant a devoté!
LORD FORMAL. Your ladyship has infused more pride into the ingredients of my nature by that one word than ever was in them since their first mingling into man znd if my title, or the opinion which the world has (I will not say justly) conceived of me can render me agreeable to the fountain of beauty, I would, with pleasure, throw off all other canals, and let the pure current of my joys flow from her alone.
LADY MATCHLESS. That were to draw the envy of the whole world on me;
and would be as unreasonable as a desire to monopolise the light of the sun.
LORD FORMAL. AS your ladyship says, I have been compared to the sun. But the comparison will break, if pursued; for the sun shines on all alike; whereas my influence would be strictly confined to one centre.
RATTLE. Methinks my lord, you who profess good-breeding, should be less particular before ladies.
VERMILIA. O, we may excuse particularity in a lover; besides, Lord Formal is so perfect a master of good-breeding, that if he launched a little out of the common road, the world would esteem it a precedent, and not an error.
LADY MATCHLESS. O, we shall never outshine the court of France, till Lord Formal is at the head of les affaires de beau-monde.
LORD FORMAL. Your ladyship’s compliments are such an inundation, that they hurry the weak return of mine down their stream. But, really, I have been at some pains to inculcate principles of good-breeding, and laid down some rules concerning distance, submission, ceremonies, laughing, sighing, ogling, visits, affronts, respect, pride, love.
VERMILIA. Has your lordship published this book? It must be mightily read, for it promises much — And then the name of the author —
BATTLE. [Aside.] Promises nothing.
LORD FORMAL. Why, I am not determined to print it at all: for there are an ill-bred set of people called critics, whom I have no great notion of encountering.
SCENE VII.
To them, SIR POSITIVE TRAP, SIR APISH SIMPLE, HELENA.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Ladies, your humble servant; your servant, gentlemen.
LADY MATCHLESS. You are a great stranger, Sir Positive.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Ay, cousin, you must not take our not visiting you oftener amiss, for I am full of business, and she there, poor girl, is never easy but when she is at home. The Traps are no gadding family, our women stay at home and do business.
RATTLE. [Aside.] Their husbands’ business, I believe.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. They are none of our fidgeting, flirting, flaunting lasses, that sleep all the morning, dress all the afternoon, and card it all night. Our daughters rise before the sun, and go to bed with him: The Traps are housewives, cousin. We teach our daughters to make a pie instead of a curtsey, and that good old English art of clear-starching, instead of that heathenish gambol called dancing.
LORD FORMAL. Sir, give me leave to presume to ask your pardon.
SIR APISH SIMPLE. Why, sir father of mine, you will not speak against dancing before the ladies. Clear-starching, indeed! you will pardon him, madam? Sir Positive is a little à la campagne.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Dancing begets warmth, which is the parent of wantonness. It is, sir, the great grandfather of cuckoldom.
LORD FORMAL. O, inhuman! it is the most glorious invention that has been conceived by the imagination of mankind, and the most perfect mark that distinguishes us from the brules.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Ay, sir, it may serve some, perhaps; but the Traps have always had reason to distinguish them.
LORD FORMAL. You seem to have misunderstood me, sir; I mean the polite world from the savage.
LADY MATCHLESS. Have you seen the new opera, cousin Helena?
HELENA. I never saw an opera, cousin; and, indeed, I have a great curiosity —
LORD FORMAL. May I presume on the honour of waiting on you? Sir POSITIVE TRAP. Sir, sir, my niece has an antipathy to music, it always makes her head ache.
SIR APISH SIMPLE. Ha, ha, ha! music makes a lady’s head ache!
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Ay, and her husband’s heart ache too, by the right hand of the Traps.
LORD FORMAL. Pray, sir, who are the Traps?
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Why, sir, the Traps are a venerable family. We have had, at least, fifty knights of the shire, deputy lieutenants, and colonels of the militia in it. Perhaps the Grand Mogul has not a nobler coat of arms. It is, sir, a lion rampant, with a wolf couchant, and a cat courant, in a field gules.
LORD FORMAL. It wants nothing but supporters to be very noble, truly.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Supporters, sir! it has six thousand a year to support its nobility, and six thousand years to support its antiquity.
LORD FORMAL. You will give me leave to presume, sir, with all the deference imaginable to your superiority of judgment, to doubt whether it be practicable to confer the title of noble on any coat of arms that labours under the deplorable deficiency of a coronet.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. How, sir! do you detract from the nobility of my coat of arms? If you do, sir, I must tell you, you labour under a deficiency of common sense.
LADY MATCHLESS. O fie, Sir Positive! you are too severe on his lordship.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. He is a lord then! and what of that? An old English baronet is above a lord. A title of yesterday! an innovation! who were lords, I wonder, in the time of Sir Julius Cæsar? And it is plain he was a baronet, by his being called by his Christian name.
VERMILIA. Christened name! I apprehend, sir, that Cæsar lived before the time of Christianity.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. And what then, madam? he might be a baronet without being a Christian, I hope. But I don’t suppose our antiquity will recommend us to you: for women love upstarts, by the right hand of the Traps.
SCENE VIII.
To them, Wisemore.
WISEMORE. Ha! grant me patience, Heaven. Madam, if five months’ absence has not effaced the remembrance of what has passed between us, you will recollect me with blushing cheeks. Not to blush now were to forsake your sex.
LADY MATCHLESS. You have forsaken your humanity, sir, to affront me thus publicly.
WISEMORE. How was I deceived by my opinion of your good sense! but London would seduce a saint. A widow no sooner comes to this vile town, than she keeps open house for all guests. All, all are welcome. Your hatchments wore at first intended to repel visitants; but they are now hung out for the same hospitable end as the bills, “Lodgings to let;” with this difference only, that the one invites to a mercenary, the other to a free tenement.
RATTLE. This behaviour, sir, will not be suffered here.
SIR APISH SIMPLE. No, sir, this behaviour, sir, will not be suffered here, sir.
LORD FORMAL. Upon my title, it is not altogether consonant to the rules of consummate good-breeding.
LADY MATCHLESS. Pray, gentlemen, take no notice.
WISEMORE. Madam, I may have been too rude; I hope you’ll pardon me. The sudden surprise of such a sight hurried away my senses, as if I sympathised with the objects I beheld. But I have recovered them. My reason cools, and I can now paint out your errors. Start not at that word, nor be offended that I do it before so many of your admirers: for tho’ my colours be never so lively, the weak eye of their understanding is too dim to distinguish them. They will take them for beauties: they will adore you for them. You may have a coronet, doubtless. A large jointure is as good a title to a lord, as a coronet is to a fine lady.
LADY MATCHLESS. Ha, ha, ha! witty, I protest, and true; for, in my opinion, a lord is the prettiest thing in the world.
LORD FORMAL. And your ladyship may make him the happiest thing in the world.
WISEMORE. O nature, nature, why didst thou form woman, in beauty the masterpiece of creation, and give her a soul capable of being caught with the tinsel outside of such a fop as this! this empty, gaudy, nameless thing!
LORD FORMAL. Lot me presume to tell you, that nameless thing will be agreeable to the ladies, in spite of your envy.
WISEMORE. Madam, by all that’s heavenly, I love you more than life; would I might not say, than wisdom. If it be not in my power to merit a return, let me obtain this grant, that you would banish from you these knaves, these vultures; wolves are more merciful than they. What is their desire, but to riot in your plenty? to sacrifice your boundless stores to their licentious appetites? to pay their desponding creditors with your gold? to ravage you, ruin you; nay, to make you curse that auspicious day which gave you birth!
LORD FORMAL. This is the rudest gentleman that ever offended my ears si
nce they first enjoyed the faculty of hearing. [Aside.
VERMILIA. This is very unaccountable, methinks.
LADY MATCHLESS. Lord, my dear, don’t you know he has been formerly a beau? and was, indeed, very well received in his time; till going down into the country, and shutting himself up in a study among a set of papcr-philosophers, he, who went in a butterfly, came out a book-worm. Ha, ha, ha!
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 234