Love for Love

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

SCENE XIII.

MRS FRAIL, BEN.

BEN. All mad, I think. Flesh, I believe all the calentures of the
sea are come ashore, for my part.

MRS FRAIL. Mr Benjamin in choler!

BEN. No, I'm pleased well enough, now I have found you. Mess, I
have had such a hurricane upon your account yonder.

MRS FRAIL. My account; pray what's the matter?

BEN. Why, father came and found me squabbling with yon chitty-faced
thing as he would have me marry, so he asked what was the matter.
He asked in a surly sort of a way--it seems brother Val is gone mad,
and so that put'n into a passion; but what did I know that? what's
that to me?--so he asked in a surly sort of manner, and gad I
answered 'n as surlily. What thof he be my father, I an't bound
prentice to 'n; so faith I told 'n in plain terms, if I were minded
to marry, I'd marry to please myself, not him. And for the young
woman that he provided for me, I thought it more fitting for her to
learn her sampler and make dirt-pies than to look after a husband;
for my part I was none of her man. I had another voyage to make,
let him take it as he will.

MRS FRAIL. So, then, you intend to go to sea again?

BEN. Nay, nay, my mind run upon you, but I would not tell him so
much. So he said he'd make my heart ache; and if so be that he
could get a woman to his mind, he'd marry himself. Gad, says I, an
you play the fool and marry at these years, there's more danger of
your head's aching than my heart. He was woundy angry when I gave'n
that wipe. He hadn't a word to say, and so I left'n, and the green
girl together; mayhap the bee may bite, and he'll marry her himself,
with all my heart.

MRS FRAIL. And were you this undutiful and graceless wretch to your
father?

BEN. Then why was he graceless first? If I am undutiful and
graceless, why did he beget me so? I did not get myself.

MRS FRAIL. O impiety! How have I been mistaken! What an inhuman,
merciless creature have I set my heart upon? Oh, I am happy to have
discovered the shelves and quicksands that lurk beneath that
faithless, smiling face.

BEN. Hey toss! What's the matter now? Why, you ben't angry, be
you?

MRS FRAIL. Oh, see me no more,--for thou wert born amongst rocks,
suckled by whales, cradled in a tempest, and whistled to by winds;
and thou art come forth with fins and scales, and three rows of
teeth, a most outrageous fish of prey.

BEN. O Lord, O Lord, she's mad, poor young woman: love has turned
her senses, her brain is quite overset. Well-a-day, how shall I do
to set her to rights?

MRS FRAIL. No, no, I am not mad, monster; I am wise enough to find
you out. Hadst thou the impudence to aspire at being a husband with
that stubborn and disobedient temper? You that know not how to
submit to a father, presume to have a sufficient stock of duty to
undergo a wife? I should have been finely fobbed indeed, very
finely fobbed.

BEN. Harkee, forsooth; if so be that you are in your right senses,
d'ye see, for ought as I perceive I'm like to be finely fobbed,--if
I have got anger here upon your account, and you are tacked about
already. What d'ye mean, after all your fair speeches, and stroking
my cheeks, and kissing and hugging, what would you sheer off so?
Would you, and leave me aground?

MRS FRAIL. No, I'll leave you adrift, and go which way you will.

BEN. What, are you false-hearted, then?

MRS FRAIL. Only the wind's changed.

BEN. More shame for you,--the wind's changed? It's an ill wind
blows nobody good,--mayhap I have a good riddance on you, if these
be your tricks. What, did you mean all this while to make a fool of
me?

MRS FRAIL. Any fool but a husband.

BEN. Husband! Gad, I would not be your husband if you would have
me, now I know your mind: thof you had your weight in gold and
jewels, and thof I loved you never so well.

MRS FRAIL. Why, can'st thou love, Porpuss?

BEN. No matter what I can do; don't call names. I don't love you
so well as to bear that, whatever I did. I'm glad you show
yourself, mistress. Let them marry you as don't know you. Gad, I
know you too well, by sad experience; I believe he that marries you
will go to sea in a hen-pecked frigate--I believe that, young woman-
-and mayhap may come to an anchor at Cuckolds-Point; so there's a
dash for you, take it as you will: mayhap you may holla after me
when I won't come to.

MRS FRAIL. Ha, ha, ha, no doubt on't.--MY TRUE LOVE IS GONE TO SEA.
[Sings]

SCENE XIV.

MRS FRAIL, MRS FORESIGHT.

MRS FRAIL. O sister, had you come a minute sooner, you would have
seen the resolution of a lover: --honest Tar and I are parted;--and
with the same indifference that we met. O' my life I am half vexed
at the insensibility of a brute that I despised.

MRS FORE. What then, he bore it most heroically?

MRS FRAIL. Most tyrannically; for you see he has got the start of
me, and I, the poor forsaken maid, am left complaining on the shore.
But I'll tell you a hint that he has given me: Sir Sampson is
enraged, and talks desperately of committing matrimony himself. If
he has a mind to throw himself away, he can't do it more effectually
than upon me, if we could bring it about.

MRS FORE. Oh, hang him, old fox, he's too cunning; besides, he
hates both you and me. But I have a project in my head for you, and
I have gone a good way towards it. I have almost made a bargain
with Jeremy, Valentine's man, to sell his master to us.

MRS FRAIL. Sell him? How?

MRS FORE. Valentine raves upon Angelica, and took me for her, and
Jeremy says will take anybody for her that he imposes on him. Now,
I have promised him mountains, if in one of his mad fits he will
bring you to him in her stead, and get you married together and put
to bed together; and after consummation, girl, there's no revoking.
And if he should recover his senses, he'll be glad at least to make
you a good settlement. Here they come: stand aside a little, and
tell me how you like the design.

SCENE XV.

MRS FORESIGHT, MRS FRAIL, VALENTINE, SCANDAL, FORESIGHT, and JEREMY.

SCAN. And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon him?
[To JEREMY.]

JERE. Yes, sir; he says he'll favour it, and mistake her for
Angelica.

SCAN. It may make us sport.

FORE. Mercy on us!

VAL. Husht--interrupt me not--I'll whisper prediction to thee, and
thou shalt prophesy. I am Truth, and can teach thy tongue a new
trick. I have told thee what's past,--now I'll tell what's to come.
Dost thou know what will happen to-morrow?--Answer me not--for I
will tell thee. To-morrow, knaves will thrive through craft, and
fools through fortune, and honesty will go as it did, frost-nipt in
a summer suit. Ask me questions concerning to-morrow.

SCAN. Ask him, Mr Foresight.

FORE. Pray what will be done at court?

VAL. Scandal will tell you. I am Truth; I never come there.

FORE. In the city?

VAL. Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the usual hours.
Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters, as if religion
were to be sold in every shop. Oh, things will go methodically in
the city: the clocks will strike twelve at noon, and the horned
herd buzz in the exchange at two. Wives and husbands will drive
distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy the family.
Coffee-houses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the cropt
prentice, that sweeps his master's shop in the morning, may ten to
one dirty his sheets before night. But there are two things that
you will see very strange: which are wanton wives with their legs
at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains about their necks. But
hold, I must examine you before I go further. You look
suspiciously. Are you a husband?

FORE. I am married.

VAL. Poor creature! Is your wife of Covent Garden parish?

FORE. No; St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

VAL. Alas, poor man; his eyes are sunk, and his hands shrivelled;
his legs dwindled, and his back bowed: pray, pray, for a
metamorphosis. Change thy shape and shake off age; get thee Medea's
kettle and be boiled anew; come forth with lab'ring callous hands, a
chine of steel, and Atlas shoulders. Let Taliacotius trim the
calves of twenty chairmen, and make thee pedestals to stand erect
upon, and look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha! That a man
should have a stomach to a wedding supper, when the pigeons ought
rather to be laid to his feet, ha, ha, ha!

FORE. His frenzy is very high now, Mr Scandal.

SCAN. I believe it is a spring tide.

FORE. Very likely, truly. You understand these matters. Mr
Scandal, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things
which he has uttered. His sayings are very mysterious and
hieroglyphical.

VAL. Oh, why would Angelica be absent from my eyes so long?

JERE. She's here, sir.

MRS FORE. Now, sister.

MRS FRAIL. O Lord, what must I say?

SCAN. Humour him, madam, by all means.

VAL. Where is she? Oh, I see her--she comes, like riches, health,
and liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and abandoned
wretch. Oh, welcome, welcome.

MRS FRAIL. How d'ye, sir? Can I serve you?

VAL. Harkee; I have a secret to tell you: Endymion and the moon
shall meet us upon Mount Latmos, and we'll be married in the dead of
night. But say not a word. Hymen shall put his torch into a dark
lanthorn, that it may be secret; and Juno shall give her peacock
poppy-water, that he may fold his ogling tail, and Argus's hundred
eyes be shut, ha! Nobody shall know but Jeremy.

MRS FRAIL. No, no, we'll keep it secret, it shall be done
presently.

VAL. The sooner the better. Jeremy, come hither--closer--that none
may overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you news: Angelica is turned
nun, and I am turning friar, and yet we'll marry one another in
spite of the pope. Get me a cowl and beads, that I may play my
part,--for she'll meet me two hours hence in black and white, and a
long veil to cover the project, and we won't see one another's
faces, till we have done something to be ashamed of; and then we'll
blush once for all.

SCENE XVI.

[To them] TATTLE and ANGELICA.

JERE. I'll take care, and -

VAL. Whisper.

ANG. Nay, Mr Tattle, if you make love to me, you spoil my design,
for I intend to make you my confidant.

TATT. But, madam, to throw away your person--such a person!--and
such a fortune on a madman!

ANG. I never loved him till he was mad; but don't tell anybody so.

SCAN. How's this! Tattle making love to Angelica!

TATT. Tell, madam? Alas, you don't know me. I have much ado to
tell your ladyship how long I have been in love with you--but
encouraged by the impossibility of Valentine's making any more
addresses to you, I have ventured to declare the very inmost passion
of my heart. O madam, look upon us both. There you see the ruins
of a poor decayed creature--here, a complete and lively figure, with
youth and health, and all his five senses in perfection, madam, and
to all this, the most passionate lover -

ANG. O fie, for shame, hold your tongue. A passionate lover, and
five senses in perfection! When you are as mad as Valentine, I'll
believe you love me, and the maddest shall take me.

VAL. It is enough. Ha! Who's here?

FRAIL. O Lord, her coming will spoil all. [To JEREMY.]

JERE. No, no, madam, he won't know her; if he should, I can
persuade him.

VAL. Scandal, who are these? Foreigners? If they are, I'll tell
you what I think,--get away all the company but Angelica, that I may
discover my design to her. [Whisper.]

SCAN. I will--I have discovered something of Tattle that is of a
piece with Mrs Frail. He courts Angelica; if we could contrive to
couple 'em together.--Hark'ee--[Whisper.]

MRS FORE. He won't know you, cousin; he knows nobody.

FORE. But he knows more than anybody. O niece, he knows things
past and to come, and all the profound secrets of time.

TATT. Look you, Mr Foresight, it is not my way to make many words
of matters, and so I shan't say much,--but in short, d'ye see, I
will hold you a hundred pounds now, that I know more secrets than
he.

FORE. How! I cannot read that knowledge in your face, Mr Tattle.
Pray, what do you know?

TATT. Why, d'ye think I'll tell you, sir? Read it in my face? No,
sir, 'tis written in my heart; and safer there, sir, than letters
writ in juice of lemon, for no fire can fetch it out. I am no blab,
sir.

VAL. Acquaint Jeremy with it, he may easily bring it about. They
are welcome, and I'll tell 'em so myself. [To SCANDAL.] What, do
you look strange upon me? Then I must be plain. [Coming up to
them.] I am Truth, and hate an old acquaintance with a new face.
[SCANDAL goes aside with JEREMY.]

TATT. Do you know me, Valentine?

VAL. You? Who are you? No, I hope not.

TATT. I am Jack Tattle, your friend.

VAL. My friend, what to do? I am no married man, and thou canst
not lie with my wife. I am very poor, and thou canst not borrow
money of me. Then what employment have I for a friend?

TATT. Ha! a good open speaker, and not to be trusted with a secret.

ANG. Do you know me, Valentine?

VAL. Oh, very well.

ANG. Who am I?

VAL. You're a woman. One to whom heav'n gave beauty, when it
grafted roses on a briar. You are the reflection of heav'n in a
pond, and he that leaps at you is sunk. You are all white, a sheet
of lovely, spotless paper, when you first are born; but you are to
be scrawled and blotted by every goose's quill. I know you; for I
loved a woman, and loved her so long, that I found out a strange
thing: I found out what a woman was good for.

TATT. Ay, prithee, what's that?

VAL. Why, to keep a secret.

TATT. O Lord!

VAL. Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret; for though she should
tell, yet she is not to be believed.

TATT. Hah! good again, faith.

VAL. I would have music. Sing me the song that I like.

SONG

Set by MR FINGER.

I tell thee, Charmion, could I time retrieve,
And could again begin to love and live,
To you I should my earliest off'ring give;
I know my eyes would lead my heart to you,
And I should all my vows and oaths renew,
But to be plain, I never would be true.

II.

For by our weak and weary truth, I find,
Love hates to centre in a point assign'd?
But runs with joy the circle of the mind.
Then never let us chain what should be free,
But for relief of either sex agree,
Since women love to change, and so do we.

No more, for I am melancholy. [Walks musing.]

JERE. I'll do't, sir. [To SCANDAL.]

SCAN. Mr Foresight, we had best leave him. He may grow outrageous,
and do mischief.

FORE. I will be directed by you.

JERE. [To MRS FRAIL.] You'll meet, madam? I'll take care
everything shall be ready.

MRS FRAIL. Thou shalt do what thou wilt; in short, I will deny thee
nothing.

TATT. Madam, shall I wait upon you? [To ANGELICA.]

ANG. No, I'll stay with him; Mr Scandal will protect me. Aunt, Mr
Tattle desires you would give him leave to wait on you.

TATT. Pox on't, there's no coming off, now she has said that.
Madam, will you do me the honour?

MRS FORE. Mr Tattle might have used less ceremony.

SCENE XVII.

ANGELICA, VALENTINE, SCANDAL.

SCAN. Jeremy, follow Tattle.

ANG. Mr Scandal, I only stay till my maid comes, and because I had
a mind to be rid of Mr Tattle.

SCAN. Madam, I am very glad that I overheard a better reason which
you gave to Mr Tattle; for his impertinence forced you to
acknowledge a kindness for Valentine, which you denied to all his
sufferings and my solicitations. So I'll leave him to make use of
the discovery, and your ladyship to the free confession of your
inclinations.

ANG. O heav'ns! You won't leave me alone with a madman?

SCAN. No, madam; I only leave a madman to his remedy.

SCENE XVIII.

ANGELICA, VALENTINE.

VAL. Madam, you need not be very much afraid, for I fancy I begin
to come to myself.

ANG. Ay, but if I don't fit you, I'll be hanged. [Aside.]

VAL. You see what disguises love makes us put on. Gods have been
in counterfeited shapes for the same reason; and the divine part of
me, my mind, has worn this mask of madness and this motley livery,
only as the slave of love and menial creature of your beauty.

ANG. Mercy on me, how he talks! Poor Valentine!

VAL. Nay, faith, now let us understand one another, hypocrisy
apart. The comedy draws toward an end, and let us think of leaving
acting and be ourselves; and since you have loved me, you must own I
have at length deserved you should confess it.

ANG. [Sighs.] I would I had loved you--for heav'n knows I pity
you, and could I have foreseen the bad effects, I would have
striven; but that's too late. [Sighs.]

VAL. What sad effects?--what's too late? My seeming madness has
deceived my father, and procured me time to think of means to
reconcile me to him, and preserve the right of my inheritance to his
estate; which otherwise, by articles, I must this morning have
resigned. And this I had informed you of to-day, but you were gone
before I knew you had been here.

ANG. How! I thought your love of me had caused this transport in
your soul; which, it seems, you only counterfeited, for mercenary
ends and sordid interest.

VAL. Nay, now you do me wrong; for if any interest was considered
it was yours, since I thought I wanted more than love to make me
worthy of you.

ANG. Then you thought me mercenary. But how am I deluded by this
interval of sense to reason with a madman?

VAL. Oh, 'tis barbarous to misunderstand me longer.

SCENE XIX.

[To them] JEREMY.

ANG. Oh, here's a reasonable creature--sure he will not have the
impudence to persevere. Come, Jeremy, acknowledge your trick, and
confess your master's madness counterfeit.

JERE. Counterfeit, madam! I'll maintain him to be as absolutely
and substantially mad as any freeholder in Bethlehem; nay, he's as
mad as any projector, fanatic, chymist, lover, or poet in Europe.

VAL. Sirrah, you be; I am not mad.

ANG. Ha, ha, ha! you see he denies it.

JERE. O Lord, madam, did you ever know any madman mad enough to own
it?

VAL. Sot, can't you apprehend?

ANG. Why, he talked very sensibly just now.

JERE. Yes, madam; he has intervals. But you see he begins to look
wild again now.

VAL. Why, you thick-skulled rascal, I tell you the farce is done,
and I will be mad no longer. [Beats him.]

ANG. Ha, ha, ha! is he mad or no, Jeremy?

JERE. Partly, I think,--for he does not know his own mind two
hours. I'm sure I left him just now in the humour to be mad, and I
think I have not found him very quiet at this present. Who's there?
[One knocks.]

VAL. Go see, you sot.--I'm very glad that I can move your mirth
though not your compassion.

ANG. I did not think you had apprehension enough to be exceptions.
But madmen show themselves most by over-pretending to a sound
understanding, as drunken men do by over-acting sobriety. I was
half inclining to believe you, till I accidently touched upon your
tender part: but now you have restored me to my former opinion and
compassion.

JERE. Sir, your father has sent to know if you are any better yet.
Will you please to be mad, sir, or how?

VAL. Stupidity! You know the penalty of all I'm worth must pay for
the confession of my senses; I'm mad, and will be mad to everybody
but this lady.

JERE. So--just the very backside of truth,--but lying is a figure
in speech that interlards the greatest part of my conversation.
Madam, your ladyship's woman.

SCENE XX.

VALENTINE, ANGELICA, JENNY.

ANG. Well, have you been there?--Come hither.

JENNY. Yes, madam; Sir Sampson will wait upon you presently.
[Aside to ANGELICA.]

VAL. You are not leaving me in this uncertainty?

ANG. Would anything but a madman complain of uncertainty?
Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an
insipid thing, and the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers
the folly of the chase. Never let us know one another better, for
the pleasure of a masquerade is done when we come to show our faces;
but I'll tell you two things before I leave you: I am not the fool
you take me for; and you are mad and don't know it.

SCENE XXI.

VALENTINE, JEREMY.

VAL. From a riddle you can expect nothing but a riddle. There's my
instruction and the moral of my lesson.

JERE. What, is the lady gone again, sir? I hope you understood one
another before she went?

VAL. Understood! She is harder to be understood than a piece of
Egyptian antiquity or an Irish manuscript: you may pore till you
spoil your eyes and not improve your knowledge.

JERE. I have heard 'em say, sir, they read hard Hebrew books
backwards; maybe you begin to read at the wrong end.

VAL. They say so of a witch's prayer, and dreams and Dutch almanacs
are to be understood by contraries. But there's regularity and
method in that; she is a medal without a reverse or inscription, for
indifference has both sides alike. Yet, while she does not seem to
hate me, I will pursue her, and know her if it be possible, in spite
of the opinion of my satirical friend, Scandal, who says -

That women are like tricks by sleight of hand,
Which, to admire, we should not understand.

ACT V.--SCENE I.

A room in Foresight's house.

ANGELICA and JENNY.

ANG. Where is Sir Sampson? Did you not tell me he would be here
before me?

JENNY. He's at the great glass in the dining-room, madam, setting
his cravat and wig.

ANG. How! I'm glad on't. If he has a mind I should like him, it's
a sign he likes me; and that's more than half my design.

JENNY. I hear him, madam.

ANG. Leave me; and, d'ye hear, if Valentine should come, or send, I
am not to be spoken with.

SCENE II.

ANGELICA, SIR SAMPSON.

SIR SAMP. I have not been honoured with the commands of a fair lady
a great while,--odd, madam, you have revived me,--not since I was
five-and-thirty.

ANG. Why, you have no great reason to complain, Sir Sampson, that
is not long ago.

SIR SAMP. Zooks, but it is, madam, a very great while: to a man
that admires a fine woman as much as I do.

ANG. You're an absolute courtier, Sir Sampson.

SIR SAMP. Not at all, madam,--odsbud, you wrong me,--I am not so
old neither, to be a bare courtier, only a man of words. Odd, I
have warm blood about me yet, and can serve a lady any way. Come,
come, let me tell you, you women think a man old too soon, faith and
troth you do. Come, don't despise fifty; odd, fifty, in a hale
constitution, is no such contemptible age.

ANG. Fifty a contemptible age! Not at all; a very fashionable age,
I think. I assure you, I know very considerable beaus that set a
good face upon fifty. Fifty! I have seen fifty in a side box by
candle-light out-blossom five-and-twenty.

SIR SAMP. Outsides, outsides; a pize take 'em, mere outsides. Hang
your side-box beaus; no, I'm none of those, none of your forced
trees, that pretend to blossom in the fall, and bud when they should
bring forth fruit: I am of a long-lived race, and inherit vigour;
none of my ancestors married till fifty, yet they begot sons and
daughters till fourscore: I am of your patriarchs, I, a branch of
one of your antedeluvian families, fellows that the flood could not
wash away. Well, madam, what are your commands? Has any young
rogue affronted you, and shall I cut his throat? Or -

ANG. No, Sir Sampson, I have no quarrel upon my hands. I have more
occasion for your conduct than your courage at this time. To tell
you the truth, I'm weary of living single and want a husband.

SIR SAMP. Odsbud, and 'tis pity you should. Odd, would she would
like me, then I should hamper my young rogues. Odd, would she
would; faith and troth she's devilish handsome. [Aside.] Madam,
you deserve a good husband, and 'twere pity you should be thrown
away upon any of these young idle rogues about the town. Odd,
there's ne'er a young fellow worth hanging--that is a very young
fellow. Pize on 'em, they never think beforehand of anything; and
if they commit matrimony, 'tis as they commit murder, out of a
frolic, and are ready to hang themselves, or to be hanged by the
law, the next morning. Odso, have a care, madam.

ANG. Therefore I ask your advice, Sir Sampson. I have fortune
enough to make any man easy that I can like: if there were such a
thing as a young agreeable man, with a reasonable stock of good
nature and sense--for I would neither have an absolute wit nor a
fool.

SIR SAMP. Odd, you are hard to please, madam: to find a young
fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye
of the world, is a very hard task. But, faith and troth, you speak
very discreetly; for I hate both a wit and a fool.

ANG. She that marries a fool, Sir Sampson, forfeits the reputation
of her honesty or understanding; and she that marries a very witty
man is a slave to the severity and insolent conduct of her husband.
I should like a man of wit for a lover, because I would have such an
one in my power; but I would no more be his wife than his enemy.
For his malice is not a more terrible consequence of his aversion
than his jealousy is of his love.

SIR SAMP. None of old Foresight's sibyls ever uttered such a truth.
Odsbud, you have won my heart; I hate a wit: I had a son that was
spoiled among 'em, a good hopeful lad, till he learned to be a wit;
and might have risen in the state. But, a pox on't, his wit run him
out of his money, and now his poverty has run him out of his wits.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8