MISS HARDCASTLE. Not in the least, sir; there’s something so agreeable and spirited in your manner, such life and force — pray, sir, go on.
MARLOW. Yes, madam. I was saying —— that there are some occasions, when a total want of courage, madam, destroys all the —— and puts us —— upon a — a — a —
MISS HARDCASTLE. I agree with you entirely; a want of courage upon some occasions assumes the appearance of ignorance, and betrays us when we most want to excel. I beg you’ll proceed.
MARLOW. Yes, madam. Morally speaking, madam — But I see Miss Neville expecting us in the next room. I would not intrude for the world.
MISS HARDCASTLE. I protest, sir, I never was more agreeably entertained in all my life. Pray go on.
MARLOW. Yes, madam, I was —— But she beckons us to join her. Madam, shall I do myself the honour to attend you?
MISS HARDCASTLE. Well, then, I’ll follow.
MARLOW. (Aside.) This pretty smooth dialogue has done for me. [Exit.]
MISS HARDCASTLE. (Alone.) Ha! ha! ha! Was there ever such a sober, sentimental interview? I’m certain he scarce looked in my face the whole time. Yet the fellow, but for his unaccountable bashfulness, is pretty well too. He has good sense, but then so buried in his fears, that it fatigues one more than ignorance. If I could teach him a little confidence, it would be doing somebody that I know of a piece of service. But who is that somebody? — That, faith, is a question I can scarce answer. [Exit.]
Enter TONY and MISS NEVILLE, followed by MRS. HARDCASTLE and HASTINGS.
TONY. What do you follow me for, cousin Con? I wonder you’re not ashamed to be so very engaging.
MISS NEVILLE. I hope, cousin, one may speak to one’s own relations, and not be to blame.
TONY. Ay, but I know what sort of a relation you want to make me, though; but it won’t do. I tell you, cousin Con, it won’t do; so I beg you’ll keep your distance, I want no nearer relationship. [She follows, coquetting him to the back scene.]
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Well! I vow, Mr. Hastings, you are very entertaining. There’s nothing in the world I love to talk of so much as London, and the fashions, though I was never there myself.
HASTINGS. Never there! You amaze me! From your air and manner, I concluded you had been bred all your life either at Ranelagh, St. James’s, or Tower Wharf.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. O! sir, you’re only pleased to say so. We country persons can have no manner at all. I’m in love with the town, and that serves to raise me above some of our neighbouring rustics; but who can have a manner, that has never seen the Pantheon, the Grotto Gardens, the Borough, and such places where the nobility chiefly resort? All I can do is to enjoy London at second-hand. I take care to know every tete-a-tete from the Scandalous Magazine, and have all the fashions, as they come out, in a letter from the two Miss Rickets of Crooked Lane. Pray how do you like this head, Mr. Hastings?
HASTINGS. Extremely elegant and degagee, upon my word, madam. Your friseur is a Frenchman, I suppose?
MRS. HARDCASTLE. I protest, I dressed it myself from a print in the Ladies’ Memorandum-book for the last year.
HASTINGS. Indeed! Such a head in a side-box at the play-house would draw as many gazers as my Lady Mayoress at a City Ball.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. I vow, since inoculation began, there is no such thing to be seen as a plain woman; so one must dress a little particular, or one may escape in the crowd.
HASTINGS. But that can never be your case, madam, in any dress. (Bowing.)
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Yet, what signifies my dressing when I have such a piece of antiquity by my side as Mr. Hardcastle: all I can say will never argue down a single button from his clothes. I have often wanted him to throw off his great flaxen wig, and where he was bald, to plaster it over, like my Lord Pately, with powder.
HASTINGS. You are right, madam; for, as among the ladies there are none ugly, so among the men there are none old.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. But what do you think his answer was? Why, with his usual Gothic vivacity, he said I only wanted him to throw off his wig, to convert it into a tete for my own wearing.
HASTINGS. Intolerable! At your age you may wear what you please, and it must become you.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Pray, Mr. Hastings, what do you take to be the most fashionable age about town?
HASTINGS. Some time ago, forty was all the mode; but I’m told the ladies intend to bring up fifty for the ensuing winter.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Seriously. Then I shall be too young for the fashion.
HASTINGS. No lady begins now to put on jewels till she’s past forty. For instance, Miss there, in a polite circle, would be considered as a child, as a mere maker of samplers.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. And yet Mrs. Niece thinks herself as much a woman, and is as fond of jewels, as the oldest of us all.
HASTINGS. Your niece, is she? And that young gentleman, a brother of yours, I should presume?
MRS. HARDCASTLE. My son, sir. They are contracted to each other. Observe their little sports. They fall in and out ten times a day, as if they were man and wife already. (To them.) Well, Tony, child, what soft things are you saying to your cousin Constance this evening?
TONY. I have been saying no soft things; but that it’s very hard to be followed about so. Ecod! I’ve not a place in the house now that’s left to myself, but the stable.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Never mind him, Con, my dear. He’s in another story behind your back.
MISS NEVILLE. There’s something generous in my cousin’s manner. He falls out before faces to be forgiven in private.
TONY. That’s a damned confounded — crack.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Ah! he’s a sly one. Don’t you think they are like each other about the mouth, Mr. Hastings? The Blenkinsop mouth to a T. They’re of a size too. Back to back, my pretties, that Mr. Hastings may see you. Come, Tony.
TONY. You had as good not make me, I tell you. (Measuring.)
MISS NEVILLE. O lud! he has almost cracked my head.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. O, the monster! For shame, Tony. You a man, and behave so!
TONY. If I’m a man, let me have my fortin. Ecod! I’ll not be made a fool of no longer.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Is this, ungrateful boy, all that I’m to get for the pains I have taken in your education? I that have rocked you in your cradle, and fed that pretty mouth with a spoon! Did not I work that waistcoat to make you genteel? Did not I prescribe for you every day, and weep while the receipt was operating?
TONY. Ecod! you had reason to weep, for you have been dosing me ever since I was born. I have gone through every receipt in the Complete Huswife ten times over; and you have thoughts of coursing me through Quincy next spring. But, ecod! I tell you, I’ll not be made a fool of no longer.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Wasn’t it all for your good, viper? Wasn’t it all for your good?
TONY. I wish you’d let me and my good alone, then. Snubbing this way when I’m in spirits. If I’m to have any good, let it come of itself; not to keep dinging it, dinging it into one so.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. That’s false; I never see you when you’re in spirits. No, Tony, you then go to the alehouse or kennel. I’m never to be delighted with your agreeable wild notes, unfeeling monster!
TONY. Ecod! mamma, your own notes are the wildest of the two.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Was ever the like? But I see he wants to break my heart, I see he does.
HASTINGS. Dear madam, permit me to lecture the young gentleman a little. I’m certain I can persuade him to his duty.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Well, I must retire. Come, Constance, my love. You see, Mr. Hastings, the wretchedness of my situation: was ever poor woman so plagued with a dear sweet, pretty, provoking, undutiful boy? [Exeunt MRS. HARDCASTLE and MISS NEVILLE.]
TONY. (Singing.) “There was a young man riding by, and fain would have his will. Rang do didlo dee.” —— Don’t mind her. Let her cry. It’s the comfort of her heart. I have seen her and sister cry over a book for an hour together; and they said they liked the book th
e better the more it made them cry.
HASTINGS. Then you’re no friend to the ladies, I find, my pretty young gentleman?
TONY. That’s as I find ‘um.
HASTINGS. Not to her of your mother’s choosing, I dare answer? And yet she appears to me a pretty well-tempered girl.
TONY. That’s because you don’t know her as well as I. Ecod! I know every inch about her; and there’s not a more bitter cantankerous toad in all Christendom.
HASTINGS. (Aside.) Pretty encouragement this for a lover!
TONY. I have seen her since the height of that. She has as many tricks as a hare in a thicket, or a colt the first day’s breaking.
HASTINGS. To me she appears sensible and silent.
TONY. Ay, before company. But when she’s with her playmate, she’s as loud as a hog in a gate.
HASTINGS. But there is a meek modesty about her that charms me.
TONY. Yes, but curb her never so little, she kicks up, and you’re flung in a ditch.
HASTINGS. Well, but you must allow her a little beauty. — Yes, you must allow her some beauty.
TONY. Bandbox! She’s all a made-up thing, mun. Ah! could you but see Bet Bouncer of these parts, you might then talk of beauty. Ecod, she has two eyes as black as sloes, and cheeks as broad and red as a pulpit cushion. She’d make two of she.
HASTINGS. Well, what say you to a friend that would take this bitter bargain off your hands?
TONY. Anon.
HASTINGS. Would you thank him that would take Miss Neville, and leave you to happiness and your dear Betsy?
TONY. Ay; but where is there such a friend, for who would take her?
HASTINGS. I am he. If you but assist me, I’ll engage to whip her off to France, and you shall never hear more of her.
TONY. Assist you! Ecod I will, to the last drop of my blood. I’ll clap a pair of horses to your chaise that shall trundle you off in a twinkling, and may he get you a part of her fortin beside, in jewels, that you little dream of.
HASTINGS. My dear ‘squire, this looks like a lad of spirit.
TONY. Come along, then, and you shall see more of my spirit before you have done with me.
(Singing.) “We are the boys That fears no noise Where the thundering cannons roar.” [Exeunt.]
ACT THE THIRD.
Enter HARDCASTLE, alone.
HARDCASTLE. What could my old friend Sir Charles mean by recommending his son as the modestest young man in town? To me he appears the most impudent piece of brass that ever spoke with a tongue. He has taken possession of the easy chair by the fire-side already. He took off his boots in the parlour, and desired me to see them taken care of. I’m desirous to know how his impudence affects my daughter. She will certainly be shocked at it.
Enter MISS HARDCASTLE, plainly dressed.
HARDCASTLE. Well, my Kate, I see you have changed your dress, as I bade you; and yet, I believe, there was no great occasion.
MISS HARDCASTLE. I find such a pleasure, sir, in obeying your commands, that I take care to observe them without ever debating their propriety.
HARDCASTLE. And yet, Kate, I sometimes give you some cause, particularly when I recommended my modest gentleman to you as a lover to-day.
MISS HARDCASTLE. You taught me to expect something extraordinary, and I find the original exceeds the description.
HARDCASTLE. I was never so surprised in my life! He has quite confounded all my faculties!
MISS HARDCASTLE. I never saw anything like it: and a man of the world too!
HARDCASTLE. Ay, he learned it all abroad — what a fool was I, to think a young man could learn modesty by travelling. He might as soon learn wit at a masquerade.
MISS HARDCASTLE. It seems all natural to him.
HARDCASTLE. A good deal assisted by bad company and a French dancing-master.
MISS HARDCASTLE. Sure you mistake, papa! A French dancing-master could never have taught him that timid look — that awkward address — that bashful manner —
HARDCASTLE. Whose look? whose manner, child?
MISS HARDCASTLE. Mr. Marlow’s: his mauvaise honte, his timidity, struck me at the first sight.
HARDCASTLE. Then your first sight deceived you; for I think him one of the most brazen first sights that ever astonished my senses.
MISS HARDCASTLE. Sure, sir, you rally! I never saw any one so modest.
HARDCASTLE. And can you be serious? I never saw such a bouncing, swaggering puppy since I was born. Bully Dawson was but a fool to him.
MISS HARDCASTLE. Surprising! He met me with a respectful bow, a stammering voice, and a look fixed on the ground.
HARDCASTLE. He met me with a loud voice, a lordly air, and a familiarity that made my blood freeze again.
MISS HARDCASTLE. He treated me with diffidence and respect; censured the manners of the age; admired the prudence of girls that never laughed; tired me with apologies for being tiresome; then left the room with a bow, and “Madam, I would not for the world detain you.”
HARDCASTLE. He spoke to me as if he knew me all his life before; asked twenty questions, and never waited for an answer; interrupted my best remarks with some silly pun; and when I was in my best story of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, he asked if I had not a good hand at making punch. Yes, Kate, he asked your father if he was a maker of punch!
MISS HARDCASTLE. One of us must certainly be mistaken.
HARDCASTLE. If he be what he has shown himself, I’m determined he shall never have my consent.
MISS HARDCASTLE. And if he be the sullen thing I take him, he shall never have mine.
HARDCASTLE. In one thing then we are agreed — to reject him.
MISS HARDCASTLE. Yes: but upon conditions. For if you should find him less impudent, and I more presuming — if you find him more respectful, and I more importunate — I don’t know — the fellow is well enough for a man — Certainly, we don’t meet many such at a horse-race in the country.
HARDCASTLE. If we should find him so —— But that’s impossible. The first appearance has done my business. I’m seldom deceived in that.
MISS HARDCASTLE. And yet there may be many good qualities under that first appearance.
HARDCASTLE. Ay, when a girl finds a fellow’s outside to her taste, she then sets about guessing the rest of his furniture. With her, a smooth face stands for good sense, and a genteel figure for every virtue.
MISS HARDCASTLE. I hope, sir, a conversation begun with a compliment to my good sense, won’t end with a sneer at my understanding?
HARDCASTLE. Pardon me, Kate. But if young Mr. Brazen can find the art of reconciling contradictions, he may please us both, perhaps.
MISS HARDCASTLE. And as one of us must be mistaken, what if we go to make further discoveries?
HARDCASTLE. Agreed. But depend on’t I’m in the right.
MISS HARDCASTLE. And depend on’t I’m not much in the wrong. [Exeunt.]
Enter Tony, running in with a casket.
TONY. Ecod! I have got them. Here they are. My cousin Con’s necklaces, bobs and all. My mother shan’t cheat the poor souls out of their fortin neither. O! my genus, is that you?
Enter HASTINGS.
HASTINGS. My dear friend, how have you managed with your mother? I hope you have amused her with pretending love for your cousin, and that you are willing to be reconciled at last? Our horses will be refreshed in a short time, and we shall soon be ready to set off.
TONY. And here’s something to bear your charges by the way (giving the casket); your sweetheart’s jewels. Keep them: and hang those, I say, that would rob you of one of them.
HASTINGS. But how have you procured them from your mother?
TONY. Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no fibs. I procured them by the rule of thumb. If I had not a key to every drawer in mother’s bureau, how could I go to the alehouse so often as I do? An honest man may rob himself of his own at any time.
HASTINGS. Thousands do it every day. But to be plain with you; Miss Neville is endeavouring to pr
ocure them from her aunt this very instant. If she succeeds, it will be the most delicate way at least of obtaining them.
TONY. Well, keep them, till you know how it will be. But I know how it will be well enough; she’d as soon part with the only sound tooth in her head.
HASTINGS. But I dread the effects of her resentment, when she finds she has lost them.
TONY. Never you mind her resentment, leave ME to manage that. I don’t value her resentment the bounce of a cracker. Zounds! here they are. Morrice! Prance! [Exit HASTINGS.]
Enter MRS. HARDCASTLE and MISS NEVILLE.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Indeed, Constance, you amaze me. Such a girl as you want jewels! It will be time enough for jewels, my dear, twenty years hence, when your beauty begins to want repairs.
MISS NEVILLE. But what will repair beauty at forty, will certainly improve it at twenty, madam.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Yours, my dear, can admit of none. That natural blush is beyond a thousand ornaments. Besides, child, jewels are quite out at present. Don’t you see half the ladies of our acquaintance, my Lady Kill-daylight, and Mrs. Crump, and the rest of them, carry their jewels to town, and bring nothing but paste and marcasites back.
MISS NEVILLE. But who knows, madam, but somebody that shall be nameless would like me best with all my little finery about me?
MRS. HARDCASTLE. Consult your glass, my dear, and then see if, with such a pair of eyes, you want any better sparklers. What do you think, Tony, my dear? does your cousin Con. want any jewels in your eyes to set off her beauty?
TONY. That’s as thereafter may be.
MISS NEVILLE. My dear aunt, if you knew how it would oblige me.
MRS. HARDCASTLE. A parcel of old-fashioned rose and table-cut things. They would make you look like the court of King Solomon at a puppet-show. Besides, I believe, I can’t readily come at them. They may be missing, for aught I know to the contrary.
TONY. (Apart to MRS. HARDCASTLE.) Then why don’t you tell her so at once, as she’s so longing for them? Tell her they’re lost. It’s the only way to quiet her. Say they’re lost, and call me to bear witness.
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