LORD RICHLY. Then the principal thing to be considered is her cargo. To marry a woman merely for her person is buying an empty vessel: and a woman is a vessel which a man will grow cursed weary of in a long voyage.
MR. GAYWIT. My lord, I have had some experience in women, and I believe that I never could be weary of the woman I now love.
LORD RICHLY. Let me tell you, I have had some experience too, and I have been weary of forty women that I have loved.
MR. GAYWIT. And, perhaps, in all that variety you may not have found one of equal excellence with her I mean.
LORD RICHLY. And pray, who is this paragon you mean?
MR. GAYWIT. Must I, my lord, when I have painted the finest woman in the world, be obliged to write Miss Bellamant’s name to the picture?
LORD RICHLY. Miss Bellamant!
MR. GAYWIT. Yes, Miss Bellamant.
LORD RICHLY. You know Mr. Bellamant’s losses; you know what happened yesterday, which may entirely finish his ruin; and the consequence of his ruin must be the ruin of his daughter: which will certainly throw her virtue into your power; for poverty as surely brings a woman to capitulation, as scarcity of provision does a garrison.
MR. GAYWIT. I cannot take this advice, my lord: I would not take advantage from the misfortunes of any; but surely not of the woman I love.
LORD RICHLY. Well, sir, you shall ask me no more; for, if my consent to your ruin will oblige you, you have it.
MR. GAYWIT. My lord, I shall ever remember this goodness, and will be ready to sign any instrument to secure a very large fortune to Lady Charlotte when you please.
SCENE VIII.
LORD RICHLY. [SOLUS.] NOW, if he takes my consent from my own word, I may deny it afterwards, so I gain the whole estate for my daughter, and bring an entire destruction upon Bellemant and his whole family. Charming thought; that would be a revenge, indeed; nay, it may accomplish all my wishes too; Mrs. Bellamant may be mine at last.
SCENE IX.
LORD RICHLY, MR. MODERN.
MR. MODERN. My lord, I was honoured with your commands.
LORD RICHLY. I believe I shall procure the place for you, sir.
MR. MODERN. My obligations to your lordship are so infinite, that I must always be your slave.
LORD RICHLY. I am concerned for your misfortune, Mr. Modern.
MR. MODERN. It is a common misfortune, my lord, to have a bad wife. I am something happier than my brethren in the discovery.
LORD RICHLY. That, indeed, may make you amends more ways than one. I cannot dissuade you from the most rigorous prosecution; for though dear Jack Bellamant be my particular friend, yet, in cases of this nature, even friendship itself must be thrown up. Injuries of this kind are not to be forgiven.
MR. MODERN. Very true, my lord; he has robbed me of the affections of a wife whom I loved as tenderly as myself; forgive my tears, my lord — I have lost all I held dear in this world.
LORD RICHLY. I pity you, indeed; but comfort yourself with the hopes of revenge.
MR. MODERN. Alas! my lord, what revenge can equal the dishonour he has brought upon my family. Think on that, my lord; on the dishonour I must endure. I cannot name the title they will give me.
LORD RICHLY. It is shocking indeed.
MR. MODERN. My ease for ever lost, my quiet gone, my honour stained; my honour, my lord. Oh! ‘tis a tender wound.
LORD RICHLY. Laws cannot be too rigorous against offences of this nature: juries cannot give too great damages. To attempt the wife of a friend — To what wickedness will men arrive — Mr. Modern, I own I cannot blame you in pushing your revenge to the utmost extremity.
MR. MODERN. That I am resolved on. I have just received an appointment from your lordship’s nephew, Mr. Gaywit; I suppose, to give me some advice in the affair.
LORD RICHLY. [Aside.] Ha! that must be to dissuade him from the prosecution. Mr. Modern, if you please, I’ll set you down, I have some particular business with him: besides, if he knows anything that can be of service to you, my commands shall enforce the discovery. Bid the coachman pull up.
MR. MODERN. I am the most obliged of all your lordship’s slaves.
SCENE X
Another Apartment.
LADY CHARLOTTE, GAYWIT, CAPTAIN BELLAMANT and SERVANT.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. My lord gone out! then d’ye hear! I am at home to nobody.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. That’s kind, indeed, Lady Charlotte, to let me have you all to myself.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. You! you confident thing! how came you here? Don’t you remember, I bade you not to follow me?
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Yes, but it’s so long ago, that I am surprised you should remember it.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Indeed, sir, I always remember to avoid what I don’t like. I suppose you don’t know that I hate you of all things.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Not I, upon my soul! The deuce take me, if I did not think you had liked me, as well as I liked you — ha, ha.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. I like you? impossible! why, don’t you know that you are very ugly?
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Pshaw! that’s nothing; that will all go off: a month’s marriage takes off the homeliness of a husband’s face, as much as it does the beauty of a wife’s.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. And so you would insinuate that I might be your wife? O horrible! shocking thought!
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Nay, madam, I am as much frightened at the thoughts of marriage as you can be.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Indeed, sir, you need not be under any apprehensions of that kind upon my account.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Indeed, but I am, madam; for what an unconsolable creature would you be if I should take it in my head to marry any other woman.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Well, he has such an excessive assurance, that I am not really sure whether he is not agreeable. Let me die if I am not under some sort of suspense about it — and yet I am not neither — for to be sure I don’t like the thing — and yet, methinks, I do too — and yet I do not know what I should do with him neither — Hi! hi! hi! this is the foolishest circumstance that ever I knew in my life.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Very well! sure marriage begins to run in your head at last, madam.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Apropos! do you know that t’other day Lady Betty Shuttlecock and I laid down the prettiest scheme for matrimony that ever entered into the taste of people of condition.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Oh! pray let’s hear it.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. In the first place, then, whenever she or I marry, I am resolved positively to be mistress of myself; I must have my house to myself, my coach to myself, my servants to myself, my table, time, and company to myself; nay, and sometimes, when I have a mind to be out of humour, my bed to myself.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Eight, madam; for a wife and a husband always together, are, to be sure, the flattest company in the world.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. O detestable! Then I will be sure to have my own humour in every thing; to go, come, dine, dance, play, sup at all hours, and in whatever company I have a mind to; and if ever he pretends to put on a grave face upon my ending any one of those articles, I am to burst out in his face a laughing. Won’t that be prodigious pleasant? Ha! ha, ha!
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. O, charmingly charming! Ha! ha! what a contemptible creature is a woman that never does any thing without consulting her husband?
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Nay, there you’re mistaken again, sir: for I would never do any thing without consulting my husband.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. How SO, dear madam?
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Because sometimes one may happen to be so low in spirits as not to know one’s own mind; and then, you know, if a foolish husband should happen to say a word on either side, why one determines on the contrary without any farther trouble.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Bight, madam; and a thousand to one but the happy rogue, your husband, might warm his indolent inclinations too from the same spirit of contradiction, ha! ha!
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYW
IT. Well, I am so passionately fond of my own humour that, let me die, if a husband were to insist upon my never missing any one diversion this town affords, I believe in my conscience I should go twice a day to church to avoid them.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. O fie! you could not be so unfashionable a creature!
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Ay, but I would though. I do not care what I do when I’m vexed.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Well, let me perish, this is a most delectable scheme. Don’t you think, madam, we shall be vastly happy?
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. We! what we? Pray, who do you mean, sir?
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Why, Lady Betty Shuttlecock and I: why, you must know this is the very scheme she laid down to me last night: which so vastly charmed me, that we resolved to be married upon it to-morrow morning.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. What do you mean?
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Only to take your advice, madam, by allowing my wife all the modish privileges that you seem so passionately fond of.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Your wife? why, who’s to be your wife, pray? you don’t think of me, I hope.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. One would think you thought I did: for you refuse me as oddly as if I had asked you the question: not but I suppose you would have me think, now, you have refused me in earnest.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Ha, ha, ha! that’s well enough; why, sweet sir, do you really think I am not in earnest?
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. No, faith, I can’t think you’re so silly as to refuse me in earnest, when I only asked you in jest. [Both.] Ha, ha, ha!
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Ridiculous!
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Delightful! Well, after all I am a strange creature to be so merry when I am just going to be married.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. And had you ever the assurance to think I would have you?
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Why, faith! I don’t know but I might, if I had ever made love to you — Well, Lady Charlotte, your servant. I suppose you’ll come and visit my wife, as soon as ever she seescompany.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. What do you mean?
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Seriously what I say, madam; I am just now going to my lawyer to sign my marriage articles with Lady Betty Shuttlecock.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. And are you going in earnest?
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Positively, seriously.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Then I must take the liberty to tell you, sir, you are the greatest villain that ever lived upon the face of the earth. [She bursts into tears.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Ha! what do I see? Is it possible! O my dear, dear Lady Charlotte, can I believe myself the cause of these transporting tears! O! till this instant never did I taste of happiness.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Ha! ha! nor I, upon my faith, sir! Ha! ha!
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. Hey-day! what do you mean?
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. That you are one of the silliest animals that ever opened his lips to a woman — Ha, ha! O, I shall die! Ha! ha!
Enter a SERVANT.
SERVANT. Sir, here’s a letter for you.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. So, it’s come in good time. If this does not give her a turn, egad, I shall have all my plague to go over again. Lady Charlotte, you’ll give me leave.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. O, sir! billet-doux are exempt from ceremony.
CAPTAIN BELLAMANT. [After reading to himself.] Ha, ha! Well, my dear Lady Charlotte, I am vastly glad to see you so easy. Upon my soul, I was afraid you was really in love with me; but, since I need have no farther apprehensions of it, I know you won’t take it ill if I obey the summons of my wife that is to be — Lady Betty has sent for me. You’ll excuse me if I am confined a week or two with my wife for the present: when that’s over, you and I will laugh and sing, and coquette as much as ever we did; and so, dear Lady Charlotte, your humble servant. [Exit.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. What can the creature mean? I know not what to think of him! Sure it can’t be true! But if it should be true — I can’t believe it true — And yet it may be true too — I am resolved to be satisfied — Here, who’s there? Will nobody hear? Who’s there, I say?
Enter SERVANT. Desire Captain Bellamant to step back again.
SERVANT. He’s just gone out madam.
LADY CHARLOTTE GAYWIT. Then it’s certainly true. — Get me a chair this moment — this instant — Go, run, fly! I am in such a hurry, I don’t know what I do. O, hideous! I look horribly frightful — but I’ll follow him just as I am — I’ll go to Lady Betty’s — If I find him there I shall certainly faint. — I must take a little hartshorn with me. [Exit.
SCENE XI.
MR. GAYWIT, MRS. MODERN, meeting in his lodgings.
MR. GAYWIT. This is exactly the time I appointed her to meet me here. Ha! she comes. You are punctual as a young lover to his first appointment.
MRS. MODERX. Women commonly begin to be most punctual when men leave it off: our passions seldom reach their meridian before yours set.
MR. GAYWIT. We can no more help the decrease of our passions than you the increase of yours; and though like the sun I was obliged to quit your hemisphere, I have left you a moon to shine in it.
MRS. MODERN. What do you mean?
MR. GAYWIT. I suppose you are by this no stranger to the fondness of the gentleman I introduced to you; nor will you shortly be to his generosity. He is one who has more money than brains, and more generosity than money.
MRS. MODERX. Oh, Gaywit! I am undone: you will too soon know how; will hear it perhaps with pleasure, since it is too plain, by betraying me to your friend, I have no longer any share in your love.
MR. GAYWIT. Blame not my inconstancy, but your own.
MRS. MODERX. By all our joys, I never loved another.
MR. GAYWIT. Nay, will you deny what conviction has long since constrained you to own? Will you deny your favours to Lord Richly?
MRS. MODERX. He had indeed my person, but you alone my heart.
MR. GAYWIT. I always take a woman’s person to be the strongest assurance of her heart. I think the love of a mistress who gives up her person, is no more to be doubted, than the love of a friend who gives you his purse.
MRS. MODERN. By Heavens, I hate and despise him equal with my husband: and as I was forced to marry the latter by the commands of my parents, so I was given up to the former by the entreaties of my husband.
MR. GAYWIT. By the entreaties of your husband! —
MRS. MODEEX. Hell and his blacker soul doth know the truth of what I say — That he betrayed me first, and has ever since been the pander of our amour: to you my own inclinations led me. Lord Richly has paid for his pleasures: to you they have still been free, He was my husband’s choice; but you alone were mine.
MR. GAYWIT. And have you not complied with Bellamant too?
MRS. MODEEX. Oh! blame not my necessities; he is, indeed, that generous creature you have spoke him.
MR. GAYWIT. And have you not betrayed this generous creature to a wretch?
MRS. MODEEX. I see you know it all. By Heavens, I have not: it was his own jealousy, not my design: nay, he importuned me to have discovered Lord Richly in the same manner. Oh! think not any hopes could have prevailed on me to blast my fame. No reward could make me amends for that loss. Thou shalt see by my retirement I have a soul too great to encounter shame.
MR. GAYWIT. I will try to make that retirement easy to yon; and call me not ungrateful for attempting to discomfit your husband’s purpose, and preserve my friend.
MRS. MODEEX. I myself will preserve him: if my husband pursue his intentions, my woman will swear that the servant owned he was hired to be a false evidence against us.
MR. GAYWIT. Then, since the story is already public, forgive this last blush I am obliged to put you to.
MRS. MODERX. What do you mean?
MR. GAYWIT. These witnesses must inform you.
SCENE XII.
MR. GAYWIT, MR. BELLAMANT, MRS. BELLAMANT, MRS. MODERN, EMILIA, CAPTAIN MERIT.
MRS. MODERN. Distraction! tortures!
MR. GAYWIT. I have with difficulty brought myself to give you this shock; which nothing but the preservation of the best of friends could have extorted, and which you shall be made amends for.
MR. BELLAMANT. Be not shocked, madam; it shall be your husband’s fault if you are farther uneasy on this account.
MR. GAYWIT. Come, madam, you may yourself reap a benefit from what I have done, since it may prevent your being exposed in another place.
MRS. MODERN. All places to me are equal, except this.
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 287