Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding

by Henry Fielding

  HEARTFORT. I’m in a dream; for thou, my friend, I am sure, wilt not delude me. Madam, is it possible for me to presume to think the sufferings I have undergone, had they been ten thousand times as great, could touch your heart?

  CHARLOTTE. Hum! I thank my stars, I have it.

  HEARTFORT. I cannot be awake, nor you be mistress of such goodness, to value my little services so infinitely beyond their merit. Oh! you have been too kind. I have not done nor suffered half enough.

  MILLAMOUR. Pox take your generosity! suffer on to eternity, with all my soul.

  HEARTFORT. I deserve your pity now a thousand times more than ever. This profusion of goodness overwhelms my heart.

  MILLAMOUR. Not one bit beyond a just debt; she owes you all.

  HEARTFORT. Millamour, as thou art my friend, no more.

  CHARLOTTE. Let him proceed; I am not ashamed to own myself Mr. Heartfort’s debtor.

  MILLAMOUR. Ay!

  CHARLOTTE. And though you have somewhat exceeded your commission, and said more for me than perhaps the stubbornness of my temper might have permitted me to say, yet this I must confess, my behaviour to Mr. Heartfort hath no way answered his merits.

  MILLAMOUR. Go on, go on, madam; you never spoke half so much truth in your life.

  SCENE VII.

  MILLAMOUR, CHARLOTTE, HEARTFORT, MR. MUTABLE,

  YOUNG MUTABLE.

  MR. MUTABLE. My lord, I have been waiting for your lordship above this hour; if it had not been for Jacky here, I should never have found you.

  MILLAMOUR. A particular affair, sir, hath detained me; but I am ready now to wait on you.

  MR. MUTABLE. Jacky, is not that your former mistress, Miss Stedfast? Odso! it is she. What can she do here?

  YOUNG MUTABLE. I wish she be not come to spoil my match with my lord’s sister.

  MR. MUTABLE. You have hit it, boy. Jacky, you have it: but I’ll try that. My lord, my good lord — [They talk apart.

  HEARTFORT. This is such an excess of goodness! You judge too harshly indeed of a few slight gaieties. Women with not half your merit or beauty daily practise more. And give me leave to think, they were put on for a trial of me.

  CHARLOTTE. Ay, but what right had I to that trial, unless I had intended, which I never can, to disobey my father.

  HEARTFORT. Ha! never can!

  CHARLOTTE. Heaven forbid I should prove undutiful to him! And, Mr. Heartfort, wherefore, pray, did you understand all these apologies made, but that, after all your merit, I must obey my father in marrying this young gentleman.

  HEARTFORT. Confusion!

  MR. MUTABLE. Indeed, madam, but there are more fathers to be obeyed than one. My son, madam, is another woman’s property: and I believe I have as good a right to my son as

  MR. Stedfast has to his daughter. It’s very fine, truly, that my son must be stolen from me, and married whether I will or no!

  YOUNG MUTABLE. Ay, faith is it, madam, very hard that you will have me whether I will or no.

  CHARLOTTE. Indeed!

  MR. MUTABLE. Why truly, madam, I am very sorry it should be any disappointment to you; but my son, madam, happened to be, without my knowledge, at the time I offered him to you, engaged to my Lord Truelove’s sister. Was not he, my lord? Sure, madam, you would not rob another woman of her right.

  CHARLOTTE. Sir, if it please you, honoured sir, my good father-in-law that was to have been, a word with you.

  MR. MUTABLE. AS many as you please, madam, but no father-in-law.

  CHARLOTTE. Though in obedience to my father I had complied to accept of your son for a husband, yet I am obliged to your kind refusal, because that young gentleman, your son, sir, happons to be a person for whom, ever since I had the honour of his acquaintance, I have entertained the most surprising, invincible, and infinite contempt in the world.

  YOUNG MUTABLE. Contempt for me!

  MR. MUTABLE. Contempt for Jacky!

  CHARLOTTE. It would be therefore ungrateful to let such a benefactor as you be deceived in a point which so nearly concerns him. This gentleman, sir, is no lord, and hath no estate.

  MR. MUTABLE. How, Jacky, no lord!

  YOUNG MUTABLE. Yes, sir, I’ll be sworn he is.

  CHARLOTTE. And lie hath contrived, sir, to marry your ingenious son to some common slut of the town. So I leave you to make up the match, and am, gentlemen, your most humble servant.

  SCENE VIII.

  Millamour, Heartfort, Mr. Mutable, and Young Mutable.

  HEARTFORT. Millamour, I thank thee for the trouble thou hast undergone for me; but, as the affair is no longer worth my pursuit, I will release you from your troublesome title, and this gentleman from his mistake. So, sir, your son is disengaged, and you may marry him to the young lady just now gone, whenever you please.

  MILLAMOUR. Faith, sir, I am sorry I have no sister for your son, with all my heart.

  MR. MUTABLE. And are you no lord?

  MILLAMOUR. No, sir, to my sorrow.

  MR. MUTABLE. Why have I been imposed upon then? [To Young Mutable.] But how came you to join in the conspiracy? Would you cheat your father?

  YOUNG MUTABLE. Indeed, sir, not I. I was imposed on as well as you. I took him for a lord; for I don’t know a lord from another person but by his dress. You cannot blame me, sir.

  MR. MUTABLE. Nay, Jacky, I don’t desire to blame you: I know thou art a good boy, and a fine gentleman. But come, come with me. I will make one more visit to Mr. Stedfast, and try what’s to be done. If I can pacify him, all’s well yet. What had I to do with lords? We country gentlemen never get any good by them.

  SCENE IX.

  MILLAMOUR, HEARTFORT.

  MILLAMOUR. Come, Heartfort, be not grave on the matter: I will venture to affirm thy mistress is thy own.

  HEARTFORT. Damn her! do not mention her: I should despise myself equal with the fool just departed could I think myself capable of forgiving her: no, believe me, Millamour, was she to commence the lover, and take the pains I have done to win her, they would be ineffectual.

  MILLAMOUR. And art thou so incensed with a few coquette airs of youth and gaiety, which girls are taught by their mothers, and their mistresses, to practise on us to try our love, or rather our patience, when perhaps their own suffers more in the attempt?

  HEARTFORT. ‘Sdeath, sir, hath she not used me like a dog?

  MILLAMOUR. Certainly.

  HEARTFORT. Hath she not trifled with my passion beyond all sufferance?

  MILLAMOUR. Very true.

  HEARTFORT. Hath she not taken a particular delight in making me ridiculous?

  MILLAMOUR. TOO true! and since I see you can bear it, I will tell you, she hath abused you, tried with you, laughed at you, coquetted and jilted you.

  HEARTFORT. Hold, Millamour, do not accuse her unjustly neither: I cannot say she hath jilted me.

  MILLAMOUR. Damn her! think no more of her: it would be wrong in you to forgive her.

  HEARTFORT. Yes, forgive her I can: it would be rather mean not to forgive her. Yes, yes, I will forgive her.

  MILLAMOUR. Well, do; and so think no more of her.

  HEARTFORT. I will not; for it is impossible to impute so much ill usage only to the coquettish airs of youth: for could I once be brought to believe that —

  MILLAMOUR. And yet a thousand women —

  HEARTFORT. True, true, dear Millamour: a thousand women have played worse pranks with their lovers, and afterwards made excellent wives; it is the fault of their education, rather than of their natures: and a man must be a churl who would not bear a little of that behaviour in a mistress, especially in one so very young as Charlotte is, and so very pretty too. For, give me leave to tell you, we may justly ascribe several faults to the number of flatterers, which beauty never is without; besides, you must confess, there is a certain goodhumour that attends her faults, which makes it impossible for you to be angry with them.

  MILLAMOUR. Indeed, to me she appears to have no faults but what arise from her beauty, her youth, or her good humour; for whic
h reason, I think, sir, you ought to forgive them, especially if she asked it of you.

  HEARTFORT. Asked it of me! Oh! Millamour, could I deny any thing she asked of me?

  MILLAMOUR. Well, well, that we shall bring her to; or at least to look as if she asked it of you; and you know looks are the language of love.

  HEARTFORT. But pray how came she to your lodgings this afternoon?

  MILLAMOUR. Ha! Truepenny, art thou jealous?

  HEARTFORT. No, faith: your sending for me prevents that, though I was never so much inclined.

  MILLAMOUR. Let us go and take one bottle together, and I will tell you, though perhaps I must be obliged to trust a lady’s secret with you (and I could trust any but your own mistress’s). Courage, Heartfort: what are thy evils compared with mine, who have a husband to contend with; a damned legal tyrant, who can ravish a woman with the law on his side? All my hope and comfort lie in his age: and yet it vexes me, that my blooming fruit must be mumbled by an old rascal, who hath no teeth to come at the kernel.

  ACT V.

  SCENE I.

  LUCINDA’S Apartment.

  LUCINA. [With a letter.] Shall I write once more to this perjured man? But what can it avail? Can I upbraid him more than I have already done in that which he hath scornfully sent back? Perhaps I was too severe. Let me revise it. Ha! what do I see? — A letter from another woman. Clarinda Stedfast! O villain! doth he think I yet want testimonies of his falsehood?

  SCENE II.

  LUCINA, MRS. PLOTWELL.

  LUCINA. Oh! Plotwell, such new discoveries! The letter you brought me back was not my own, but a rival’s, a rival as unhappy as myself.

  MRS. PLOTWELL. And now I bring you news of a rival more happy than yourself, if the possession of a rake be happiness. In short, Mr. Millamour is to be married to the daughter of Mr. Stedfast.

  LUCINA. Ha! that was the name I heard when at his lodgings. He hath debauched his wife, and would marry his daughter. This is an opportunity of revenge I hardly could have wished. But how, how, dear Plotwell, art thou apprised of this?

  MRS. PLOTWELL. When you sent me back to Millamour while I was disputing with his servant, who denied me admission, a fine young lady whipped by me into a chair: I then bribed his servant with a guinea, who discovered to me that her name was Stedfast; that she was a great fortune, and to be married to his master; and that she lived in Grosvenor Street.

  LUCINA. Shall I beg you would add one obligation more to those I have already received from you, and deliver her this letter? It may prevent the ruin of a young creature.

  MRS. PLOTWELL. One of Millamour’s letters to you, I suppose. But it will have no effect, unless it recommends him the more to her, by giving her an opportunity of triumphing over a rival.

  LUCINA. No matter: To caution the unexperienced traveller from the rocks we split on is our duty; if that be ineffectual, his rashness be his punishment.

  MRS. PLOTWELL. Pray take my advice, and resolve to think no more of him.

  LUCINA. AS a lover I never will. Oblige me in this, and then I will retire with you to the cloister you shall choose, and never more have converse with that traitorous sex.

  MRS. PLOTWELL. On condition you think no more of Millamour, I will undertake it, though it is an ungrateful office.

  LUCINA. Come in with me, while I enclose it under seal, that you may securely affirm you are ignorant of the contents. Come, my faithful Plotwell, believe me, I both hate and despise mankind; and from this hour I will entertain no passion but our friendship in my soul.

  Friendship and love by heaven were both designed,

  That to ennoble, this debase the mind.

  Friendship’s pure joys in life’s last hour remain:

  By love, the cheating lottery, we gain

  A moment’s bliss, bought with an age of pain.

  SCENE III

  A Tavern.

  MILLAMOUR, HEARTFORT.

  MILLAMOUR. And now, dear George, I hope I have satisfied your jealousy.

  HEARTFORT. I wish I could say you had as well satisfied me with your behaviour to this young lady — to Clarinda.

  MILLAMOUR. What wouldst thou have me do?

  HEARTFORT. Why, faith, to be sincere, not what thou hast done; however, since that’s past, all the reparation now in thy power to make, is to see her no more.

  MILLAMOUR. That would be a pretty reparation indeed! and perhaps she would not thank you for giving me that advice.

  HEARTFORT. Perhaps not; but I am sure her husband would.

  MILLAMOUR. Her husband! Damn the old rascal: the teasing such a cuckold is half the pleasure of making him one.

  HEARTFORT. How! what privilege dost thou perceive in thyself to invade and destroy the happiness of another? Besides, though shame may first reach the husband, it doth not always end there: the wife is always liable, and often is involved in the ruin of the gallant. The person who deserves chiefly to be exposed to shame is the only person who escapes without it.

  MILLAMOUR. Hey-day! thou art not turning hypocrite, I hope. Thou dost not pretend to lead a life equal to this doctrine?

  HEARTFORT. My practice, perhaps, is not equal to my theory; but I pretend to sin with as little mischief as I can to others: and this I can lay my hand on my heart and affirm, that I never seduced a young woman to her own ruin, nor a married one to the misery of her husband. Nay, and I know thee to be so good-natured a fellow, that what thou dost of this kind arises from thy not considering the consequence of thy actions; and if any woman can lay her ruin on thee, thou canst lay it on custom.

  MILLAMOUR. Why, indeed, if we consider it in a serious way —

  HEARTFORT. And why should we not? Custom may lead a man into many errors, but it justifies none; nor are any of its laws more absurd and unjust than those relating to the commerce between the sexes: for what can be more ridiculous than to make it infamous for women to grant what it is honourable for us to solicit, nay, to ensnare and almost compel them into; to make a whore a scandalous, a whoremaster a reputable appellation! Whereas, in reality, there is no more mischievous character than a public debaucher of women.

  MILLAMOUR. No more, dear George; now you begin to pierce to the quick.

  HEARTFORT. I have done: I am glad you can feel; it is a sure sign of no mortification.

  MILLAMOUR. Yes, I can feel, and too much, that I have been in the wrong to a woman, who hath no fault but foolishly loving me. ‘Sdeath! thou hast raised a devil in me that will sufficiently revenge her quarrel. Oh! Heartfort, how was it possible for me to be guilty of so much barbarity without knowing it, and of doing her so many wrongs without seeing them till this moment, till it is too late, till I can make her no reparation?

  HEARTFORT. Resolve to see her no more; that’s the best in your power.

  MILLAMOUE. Well, I will resolve it, and wish I could do more.

  SCENE IV.

  MILLAMOUR, HEARTFORT, MRS. USEFUL.

  MRS. USEFUL. Oh! Mr. Millamour, oh!

  MILLAMOUR. What news?

  MRS. USEFUL. Oh! I am dead.

  HEARTFORT. Drunk, I believe. What’s the meaning of this?

  MRS. USEFUL. Give me a glass of wine, for I am quite out of breath.

  MILLAMOUR. Help! Heartfort, help!

  MRS. USEFUL. I am come — Give me another glass.

  HEARTFORT. You have no reason to complain of your breath, for I think you drink two glasses in the same.

  MRS. USEFUL. Well, then, now I am a little come to myself, I can tell you I have charming news for you; Clarinda continues still in the same dangerous way, and her husband — but mum — what have I said? — I forgot we were not alone.

  HEARTFORT. Oh! madam, I will withdraw. [Retires to another part of the stage.

  MRS. USEFUL. Well then, her husband hath sent me to fetch you to her.

  MILLAMOUR. He hath sent too late; for I have resolved to see her no more.

  MRS. USEFUL. What do you mean?

  MILLAMOUR. Seriously as I say —

  MRS. USE
FUL. You will never see her more?

  MILLAMOUR. Never.

  MRS. USEFUL. You will see her no more! [Passionately.

  MILLAMOUR. NO: I have considered it as the only reparation I can possibly make her.

  MRS. USEFUL. Indeed! If that be the only reparation you can make her, you are a very pretty fellow. But it is false; you are not such a sort of a man. If I had known you to be such a sort of a man, the devil should have had you, before I should have troubled my head about your affairs.