MRS. USEFUL. It is very strange that a lover will not answer his mistress’s letter.
MILLAMOUR. Oh! no one writes worse than a real lover. For love, like honesty, appears generally most beautiful in the hypocrite. In painting the mind, as well as the face, art generally goes beyond nature.
MRS. USEFUL. Why, this is all cool reason. I expected nothing but imprecations, threatening, sighing, lamenting, raving.
MILLAMOUR. You are mistaken. I act on the marriage of a mistress as on the death of a friend: I strive to the utmost to prevent it. But if fate will have it so —
MRS. USEFUL. You are a wicked man. You know it hath been in your power to prevent it.
MILLAMOUR. Yes; but, my dear, I am no more resolute to give up my liberty to the one, than my life to the other; and if nothing but my marriage or my death can preserve them, agad, I believe I shall continue in statu quo, be the consequence what it will. [Knocking.
BRAZEN. Sir, here’s a lady, I don’t know whether she comes under any of the titles your honour would have admitted.
MILLAMOUR. Sirrah, — admit all ladies whatsoever.
MRS. USEFUL. I’ll be gone this moment.
MILLAMOUR. Why so?
MRS. USEFUL. Oh! I would not be seen with you for the world.
MILLAMOUR. Out of tenderness for my reputation, I suppose. But that’s safe enough with you; and as for your reputation, it is safe enough with any one. Reputation, like the small-pox, gives you but one pain in your life. When you have had the one, and lost the other, you may venture with safety where you please.
SCENE III.
MILLAMOUR, MRS. USEFUL, MRS. PLOTWELL.
MILLAMOUR. Ha!
MRS. PLOTWELL. You seem surprised, sir: I suppose this is a visit you little expected, though I see it’s no unusual thing for you to receive visits from a lady.
MRS. USEFUL. No, madam: my cousin Millamour is very happy with the ladies.
MILLAMOUR [To Plotwell]. I believe, cousin, this is a relation of ours you don’t know; give me leave to introduce you to one another. Cousin Useful, this is my Cousin Plotwell; Cousin Plotwell, this is my Cousin Useful. [The ladies salute.] But come, relations should never meet with dry lips. Here, Brazen, bring a bottle of Usquebaugh.
BOTH WOMEN. Not a drop for me.
MILLAMOUR. Come, come, it will do you no harm. Well, cousin, and how did you leave all our relations in the north? Have you brought me no letters?
MRS PLOTWELL. Only one, cousin.
MRS. USEFUL. [Aside.] Cousin! this is a sister of mine, I believe; we are both of the same trade, my life on’t.
MILLAMOUR. [To Brazen, who enters with a ‘bottle.] Sirrah fill the ladies — do you hear? [He takes a letter from Plotwell and opens it.]
“Sir, — After so many vows and protestations, I should be surprised at the falsehood of any one but so great a villain as yourself: but as I have been long since certain that you have not one virtue in your whole mind, that you are a compound of all that is bad, and that you are the greatest tyrant, and the falsest and most perjured wretch upon earth, I can expect no other. If you deserve not this and ten times worse, make haste to acquit yourself to the injured “LUCINA.”
MRS. PLOTWELL. Well, sir, what does my aunt say?
MILLAMOUR, She is very inquisitive about my health, complains of my not writing. There’s no secret in ‘t. I’ll read it for your diversion. [Reads.
MRS. PLOTWELL. For Heaven’s sake, sir, do not discover the secrets of our family.
MILLAMOUR. “My dear nephew, I suppose it impossible for so fine a gentleman, amidst the hurry of the beau monde to think of an old aunt in Northumberland; yet sure you might sometimes find an opportunity to let one know a little how the world goes.” Pshaw! I’ll read no more. These country relations think their friends in town obliged to furnish them with continual matter for the scandal of their tea-tables. Has the old lady no female acquaintance? — They would take as much pleasure in writing defamation as she in reading it. For my part, I’ll never trouble myself with others’ business till I can mind my own; nor about others’ sins till I have left off my own.
MRS. USEFUL. Which will not be till doomsday, I’m confident.
MILLAMOUR. Never, while I have the same mind to tempt me to sin, and the same constitution to support me in it. For sins, like places at court, we seldom resign, till we can keep them no longer.
MRS. USEFUL. And, like places at court, you often keep them when you can’t officiate in them.
MRS. PLOTWELL. But I hope you will answer my aunt’s letter.
MILLAMOUR. Not I, faith. Your aunt’s letter shall answer itself. Send it back to the old lady again, and write my duty to her on the back of it.
MRS. USEFUL. You have done your duty to her already, or I am mistaken.
SCENE IV.
MILLAMOUR, MRS. USEFUL, MRS. PLOTWELL, BRAZEN.
BRAZEN. Sir, sir.
MILLAMOUR. Well, sir; what, another cousin? Do you hear, sirrah, I am at home to no more female relations this morning.
BRAZEN. Sir, Mr. Heartfort is below.
MILLAMOUR. Desire him to walk up.
MRS. PLOTWELL. But are you resolved not to answer the letter?
MILLAMOUR. Positively. And, harkye, — tell the enraged fair one she hath made a double conquest: her beauty got the better of my reason, and now her anger hath got the better of my love. Give my humble service to her, and, when she comes to herself again, tell her I am come to myself.
MRS. PLOTWELL. You will repent of your haughtiness. I warrant you. [Exit.
MILLAMOUR. So, there’s your despatch: and now for my other cousin.
SCENE V.
MILLAMOUR, MRS. USEFUL.
MILLAMOUR. And for you, madam, give my kindest respects to Mrs. Stedfast. Tell her I will endeavour to efface the lovely idea which Clarinda had formed in my mind since she is now another’s. I will pray for her happiness, but must love her no more.
MRS. USEFUL. And is this all?
MILLAMOUR. You may carry her this again. — Tell her, I will have nothing to put me in mind of her — and this kiss, which I send her by you, shall be the last token she shall have to awaken the remembrance of me.
MRS. USEFUL. Well, you’re a barbarous man. But, suppose, now, I could procure a meeting between you; suppose I could bring her to you this very day, at your own house —
MILLAMOUR. Suppose! Oh, thou dear creature! Suppose I gave thee worlds to reward thee!
MRS. USEFUL. Well, I will suppose you a man of honour, and much may be done. Don’t be out of the way.
[Exit.
MILLAMOUR. Thus men of business despatch attendants. And in female affairs, I believe few have more business than myself. The Grand Signior is but a petty prince in love, compared to me. But, though I have disguised my uneasiness before this woman, Clarinda lies deeper in my heart than I could wish. There is something in that dear name gives me a sensation quite different from that of any other woman. The thought of seeing her another’s stings me to the very soul.
SCENE VI.
MILLAMOUR, HEARTFORT.
HEARTFORT. What, is your levée despatched? I met antiquated whores going out of your door, as thick as antiquated courtiers from the levée of a statesman, and with as disconsolate faces. I fancy thou hast done nothing for them.
MILLAMOUR. Thus it will ever be, Jack, when there are a multitude of attendants. The lover no more than the statesman can do every man’s business.
HEARTFORT. Thou dost as many people’s business as any man in town, I dare swear.
MILLAMOUR. I believe no one tastes more the sweets of love —
HEARTFORT. Nor any more its bitters than I. Oh! Millamour, I am the most unhappy of mankind — I have lost the mistress of my soul.
MILLAMOUR. Ay, — and I have lost two mistresses of my soul.
HEARTFORT. The woman I dote on to distraction is to be married this day to another.
MILLAMOUR. A reprieve, a reprieve, in comparison of my fate! The woman I dote on wa
s married this morning to another.
HEARTFORT. Thou knowest not what it is to love tenderly.
MILLAMOUR. No, faith; not very tenderly — not without a great deal of discretion. Here lies the difference between us: you, Heartfort, have discretion in every thing but love: I have discretion in nothing else. Mine is a true English heart; it is an equal stranger to the heat of the equator and the frost of the pole. Love still nourishes it with a temperate heat, as the sun doth our climate; and beauties rise after beauties in the one, just as fruits do in the other.
HEARTFORT. Is it impossible to engage thee to be serious a moment?
MILLAMOUR. Faith, I believe it would on this subject, if I did not know thy temper.
HEARTFORT. The loss of a mistress may indeed seem trifling to thee, who hast lost a thousand.
MILLAMOUR. The devil take me if I have. — I have found it always much easier to get mistresses, than to lose them. Women would be charming things, Heartfort, if, like clothes, we could lay them by when we are weary of them; since, like clothes, we are often weary of them before they are worn out. But this curse attends a multiplicity of amours, that a man is sometimes forced to support his whole wardrobe on his back at once.
HEARTFORT. My passion, sir, will not bear raillery.
MILLAMOUR. I am sorry for it. Raillery is a sort of test to our passions: when they will not bear that, they are dangerous indeed. Therefore I’ll indulge your infirmity, and for your sake will be grave on a subject which I could never be serious on for my own. So, lay open your wound, and I’ll give you the best advice I can.
HEARTFORT. I am enough acquainted with your temper, Millamour, to know my obligations to you for this compliance. And after all, perhaps my case requires rather your pity than advice; for the last word I had from my mistress was, that she hated me of all men living.
MILLAMOUR. Hum! — Faith, I think your case requires neither pity nor advice.
HEARTFORT. But this is not the most terrible, or time might alter her inclination.
MILLAMOUR. Hardly, if it be so violent.
HEARTFORT. I take this violence to be a reason for its change; but I have a better from experience, for she formerly has told me that she loved me of all men living.
MILLAMOUR. And what has caused this great revolution in her temper?
HEARTFORT. Oh! I defy all philosophy to account for one of her actions. You might easier solve all the phenomena of nature than of her mind. All the insight you can get into her future thoughts by her present is, that what she says to-day she will infallibly contradict to-morrow.
MILLAMOUR. So, if she promised your rival yesterday, you may depend upon her discarding him to-day.
HEARTFORT. But then she has a father, whose resolution is immovable as the predestinarian’s fate, who has given me as positive a denial as his daughter, and is this day determined to bestow her on another, whom he has preferred to me.
MILLAMOUR. For the old reason, I suppose, — because he is richer?
HEARTFORT. No, upon my word; for a very new reason, because he is a greater rake. For you must know, that this mighty unalterable will, which is as fixed as the Persian laws, is determined with as little reason as resolutions of some countries which are less stable. In short, sir, he hath laid it down as a maxim, that all men are wild at one period of life or another; so he resolved never to marry his daughter but to one who hath already passed that period. At last, the young lady’s good stars, and his great wisdom, have led him to the choice of Mr. Mutable.
MILLAMOUR. What, our Mutable!
HEARTFORT. The very same — though I have reason to believe she hath as great an aversion for him as for me. There is some other, Millamour, hath supplanted me in her heart, whom I have not yet been able to discover; for to this match she is compelled by her father.
MILLAMOUR. So you are a stranger to the man she loves; you have only discovered her husband.
HEARTFORT. Ten thousand horrors are in that name!
MILLAMOUR. Hum! — faith, to him I think there may; but if the possession of your mistress’s person be all you desire, I can’t see how you are a whit the farther from that by this match; and, as to the first favour, I should not be much concerned about that. If a man would keep a coach for my use, I think it is but a small indulgence to let him take the first airing in it.
HEARTFORT. Oh! do not trifle. An hour, a minute, a moment’s delay may be my ruin. Could I but see her before the marriage, this compulsion of her father’s might throw her into my arms. But he is resolved she shall be married on the same day with himself, and he hath this morning taken a second wife. Oh! Millamour, thou hast a lively imagination. Set it at work for thy friend: for, by Heaven, I never can have any happiness but in Miss Stedfast’s arms.
MILLAMOUR. Miss Stedfast! — and her father married this morning! Oh! my friend, if I don’t invent for thee, may I never be happy in Mrs. Stedfast’s arms.
HEARTFORT. What do you mean?
MILLAMOUR. It is as fixed as your father-in-law’s most confirmed will but that he is to be the cuckold of your humble servant. Take courage; the d — l’s in ‘t if he robs us both of our mistresses in one day. Mine he has got already, — and much good may she do him.
HEARTFORT. Is it possible?
MILLAMOUR. Ay, faith. This father-in-law of yours that was to be, and that shall be too, hath outstript me in the race, and is gotten to the goal before me.
HEARTFORT. You are a happy man, Millamour, who can be so easy in the loss of your mistress.
MILLAMOUR. Ay, and of a mistress thou hast heard me toast so often, and talk so tenderly, so fondly of — in the loss of Clarinda.
HEARTFORT. The d — l? was Miss Lovely your Clarinda?
MILLAMOUR. Ay, sir, Miss Lovely, Mrs. Stedfast now, was my Clarinda, and is my Clarinda; — and Miss Stedfast shall be yours.
HEARTFORT. Keep but your word there, Millamour.
MILLAMOUR. Lookye, Heartfort, if she hath a mind to see you, I’ll send for an engine that shall convey you thither, in spite of all the fathers in Europe.
HEARTFORT. But the time —
MILLAMOUR. If you will step in with me while I dress, Brazen shall fetch the person immediately. Come, be not dejected: we shall be too hard for all, I warrant you.
HEARTFORT. Yet how do I know but every moment may be the cursed period of my ruin? Perhaps this instant gives her to another.
MILLAMOUR. It cannot give her inclinations; and, as I have heard thee say, thy mistress hath wit and beauty, depend upon it these qualities will never be confined in the arms of a man she doth not like. Pursue her, and she must fall. Decency may guard her a honeymoon or two, but she will be yours at last. Never think a celebrated beauty, when she is married, is deceased for ever. No, rather imagine her setting in her husband’s bed, as poets make the Sun do in that of Thetis;
Which from our sight retires a while, and then
Rises and shines o’er all the world again.
ACT II.
SCENE I.
LUCINA’S Lodging.
Lucina and Mrs. Plotwell.
LUCINA. Distraction! Send me back my letter! Is not falsehood enough! must he add insult to it? Oh! may eternal furies haunt him! may all the horrors of despair attend his guilt! may he be so wretched that hell itself may sicken with revenge!
MRS. PLOTWELL. And may you be so happy as to have nothing to do with him! or rather, so wise as not to desire it.
LUCINA. Sure it is impossible. He could not be so great a villain. You never carried him my letter. He, that has sworn so many vows of constancy —
MRS. PLOTWELL. Ha, ha, ha! vows of constancy! that any woman after eighteen should think of these. Vows in love have just the same meaning as compliments in conversation; and it is as ridiculous to believe the man who swears eternal constancy, as to believe him who assures you he is your most obedient humble servant.
LUCINA. Oh! Plotwell, had I but known thee sooner! had I but known a friend like you, who could have armed my unexperienced sou
l against the wicked arts of this deceitful man —
MRS. PLOTWELL. Then you would have followed my advice, just as you have done since we were acquainted. Could any one have armed you against the protesting dying lover, who was breathing out daily raptures at your feet, when it is not in your power to prevail against him, even when he has discovered his falsehood?
LUCLNA. Believe me, I could never assure myself of it till now; the whole long year that I expected his return to Paris, though it made me fear his falsehood, still left me room to hope his truth.
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 355