The Double Dealer
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William Congreve >> The Double Dealer
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LADY PLYANT. I'll send him to them, I know where he is.
BRISK. Sir Paul, will you send Careless into the hall if you meet
him?
SIR PAUL. I will, I will, I'll go and look for him on purpose.
SCENE V.
BRISK alone.
BRISK. So now they are all gone, and I have an opportunity to
practice. Ah! My dear Lady Froth, she's a most engaging creature,
if she were not so fond of that damned coxcombly lord of hers; and
yet I am forced to allow him wit too, to keep in with him. No
matter, she's a woman of parts, and, egad, parts will carry her.
She said she would follow me into the gallery. Now to make my
approaches. Hem, hem! Ah ma- [bows.] dam! Pox on't, why should I
disparage my parts by thinking what to say? None but dull rogues
think; witty men, like rich fellows, are always ready for all
expenses; while your blockheads, like poor needy scoundrels, are
forced to examine their stock, and forecast the charges of the day.
Here she comes, I'll seem not to see her, and try to win her with a
new airy invention of my own, hem!
SCENE VI.
[To him] LADY FROTH.
BRISK [Sings, walking about.] 'I'm sick with love,' ha, ha, ha,
'prithee, come cure me. I'm sick with,' etc. O ye powers! O my
Lady Froth, my Lady Froth, my Lady Froth! Heigho! Break heart;
gods, I thank you. [Stands musing with his arms across.]
LADY FROTH. O heavens, Mr. Brisk! What's the matter?
BRISK. My Lady Froth! Your ladyship's most humble servant. The
matter, madam? Nothing, madam, nothing at all, egad. I was fallen
into the most agreeable amusement in the whole province of
contemplation: that's all--(I'll seem to conceal my passion, and
that will look like respect.) [Aside.]
LADY FROTH. Bless me, why did you call out upon me so loud?
BRISK. O Lord, I, madam! I beseech your ladyship--when?
LADY FROTH. Just now as I came in, bless me, why, don't you know
it?
BRISK. Not I, let me perish. But did I? Strange! I confess your
ladyship was in my thoughts; and I was in a sort of dream that did
in a manner represent a very pleasing object to my imagination, but-
-but did I indeed?--To see how love and murder will out. But did I
really name my Lady Froth?
LADY FROTH. Three times aloud, as I love letters. But did you talk
of love? O Parnassus! Who would have thought Mr. Brisk could have
been in love, ha, ha, ha. O heavens, I thought you could have no
mistress but the Nine Muses.
BRISK. No more I have, egad, for I adore 'em all in your ladyship.
Let me perish, I don't know whether to be splenetic, or airy upon't;
the deuce take me if I can tell whether I am glad or sorry that your
ladyship has made the discovery.
LADY FROTH. O be merry by all means. Prince Volscius in love! Ha,
ha, ha.
BRISK. O barbarous, to turn me into ridicule! Yet, ha, ha, ha.
The deuce take me, I can't help laughing myself, ha, ha, ha; yet by
heavens, I have a violent passion for your ladyship, seriously.
LADY FROTH. Seriously? Ha, ha, ha.
BRISK. Seriously, ha, ha, ha. Gad I have, for all I laugh.
LADY FROTH. Ha, ha, ha! What d'ye think I laugh at? Ha, ha, ha.
BRISK. Me, egad, ha, ha.
LADY FROTH. No, the deuce take me if I don't laugh at myself; for
hang me if I have not a violent passion for Mr. Brisk, ha, ha, ha.
BRISK. Seriously?
LADY FROTH. Seriously, ha, ha, ha.
BRISK. That's well enough; let me perish, ha, ha, ha. O
miraculous; what a happy discovery. Ah my dear charming Lady Froth!
LADY FROTH. Oh my adored Mr. Brisk! [Embrace.]
SCENE VII.
[To them] LORD FROTH.
LORD FROTH. The company are all ready. How now?
BRISK. Zoons! madam, there's my lord. [Softly to her.]
LADY FROTH. Take no notice, but observe me. Now, cast off, and
meet me at the lower end of the room, and then join hands again; I
could teach my lord this dance purely, but I vow, Mr. Brisk, I can't
tell how to come so near any other man. Oh here's my lord, now you
shall see me do it with him. [They pretend to practise part of a
country dance.]
LORD FROTH. Oh, I see there's no harm yet, but I don't like this
familiarity. [Aside.]
LADY FROTH. Shall you and I do our close dance, to show Mr. Brisk?
LORD FROTH. No, my dear, do it with him.
LADY FROTH. I'll do it with him, my lord, when you are out of the
way.
BRISK. That's good, egad, that's good. Deuce take me, I can hardly
hold laughing in his face. [Aside.]
LORD FROTH. Any other time, my dear, or we'll dance it below.
LADY FROTH. With all my heart.
BRISK. Come, my lord, I'll wait on you. My charming witty angel!
[To her.]
LADY FROTH. We shall have whispering time enough, you know, since
we are partners.
SCENE VIII.
LADY PLYANT and CARELESS.
LADY PLYANT. Oh, Mr. Careless, Mr. Careless, I'm ruined, I'm
undone.
CARE. What's the matter, madam?
LADY PLYANT. Oh, the unluckiest accident, I'm afraid I shan't live
to tell it you.
CARE. Heaven forbid! What is it?
LADY PLYANT. I'm in such a fright; the strangest quandary and
premunire! I'm all over in a universal agitation; I dare swear
every circumstance of me trembles. O your letter, your letter! By
an unfortunate mistake I have given Sir Paul your letter instead of
his own.
CARE. That was unlucky.
LADY PLYANT. Oh, yonder he comes reading of it; for heaven's sake
step in here and advise me quickly before he sees.
SCENE IX.
SIR PAUL with the Letter.
SIR PAUL. O Providence, what a conspiracy have I discovered. But
let me see to make an end on't. [Reads.] Hum--After supper in the
wardrobe by the gallery. If Sir Paul should surprise us, I have a
commission from him to treat with you about the very matter of fact.
Matter of fact! Very pretty; it seems that I am conducting to my
own cuckoldom. Why, this is the very traitorous position of taking
up arms by my authority, against my person! Well, let me see. Till
then I languish in expectation of my adored charmer.--Dying Ned
Careless. Gads-bud, would that were matter of fact too. Die and be
damned for a Judas Maccabeus and Iscariot both. O friendship! what
art thou but a name? Henceforward let no man make a friend that
would not be a cuckold: for whomsoever he receives into his bosom
will find the way to his bed, and there return his caresses with
interest to his wife. Have I for this been pinioned, night after
night for three years past? Have I been swathed in blankets till I
have been even deprived of motion? Have I approached the marriage
bed with reverence as to a sacred shrine, and denied myself the
enjoyment of lawful domestic pleasures to preserve its purity, and
must I now find it polluted by foreign iniquity? O my Lady Plyant,
you were chaste as ice, but you are melted now, and false as water.
But Providence has been constant to me in discovering this
conspiracy; still, I am beholden to Providence. If it were not for
Providence, sure, poor Sir Paul, thy heart would break.
SCENE X.
[To him] LADY PLYANT.
LADY PLYANT. So, sir, I see you have read the letter. Well, now,
Sir Paul, what do you think of your friend Careless? Has he been
treacherous, or did you give his insolence a licence to make trial
of your wife's suspected virtue? D'ye see here? [Snatches the
letter as in anger.] Look, read it. Gads my life, if I thought it
were so, I would this moment renounce all communication with you.
Ungrateful monster! He? is it so? Ay, I see it, a plot upon my
honour; your guilty cheeks confess it. Oh, where shall wronged
virtue fly for reparation? I'll be divorced this instant.
SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, what shall I say? This is the strangest
surprise. Why, I don't know anything at all, nor I don't know
whether there be anything at all in the world, or no.
LADY PLYANT. I thought I should try you, false man. I, that never
dissembled in my life, yet to make trial of you, pretended to like
that monster of iniquity, Careless, and found out that contrivance
to let you see this letter, which now I find was of your own
inditing--I do, heathen, I do. See my face no more; I'll be
divorced presently.
SIR PAUL. O strange, what will become of me? I'm so amazed, and so
overjoyed, so afraid, and so sorry. But did you give me this letter
on purpose, he? Did you?
LADY PLYANT. Did I? Do you doubt me, Turk, Saracen? I have a
cousin that's a proctor in the Commons; I'll go to him instantly.
SIR PAUL. Hold, stay, I beseech your ladyship. I'm so overjoyed,
stay, I'll confess all.
LADY PLYANT. What will you confess, Jew?
SIR PAUL. Why, now, as I hope to be saved, I had no hand in this
letter--nay, hear me, I beseech your ladyship. The devil take me
now if he did not go beyond my commission. If I desired him to do
any more than speak a good word only just for me; gads-bud, only for
poor Sir Paul, I'm an Anabaptist, or a Jew, or what you please to
call me.
LADY PLYANT. Why, is not here matter of fact?
SIR PAUL. Ay, but by your own virtue and continency that matter of
fact is all his own doing. I confess I had a great desire to have
some honours conferred upon me, which lie all in your ladyship's
breast, and he being a well-spoken man, I desired him to intercede
for me.
LADY PLYANT. Did you so? presumption! Oh, he comes, the Tarquin
comes; I cannot bear his sight.
SCENE XI.
CARELESS, SIR PAUL.
CARE. Sir Paul, I'm glad I've met with you, 'gad, I have said all I
could, but can't prevail. Then my friendship to you has carried me
a little farther in this matter.
SIR PAUL. Indeed; well sir, I'll dissemble with him a little.
[Aside.]
CARE. Why, faith I have in my time known honest gentlemen abused by
a pretended coyness in their wives, and I had a mind to try my
lady's virtue. And when I could not prevail for you, gad, I
pretended to be in love myself; but all in vain, she would not hear
a word upon that subject. Then I writ a letter to her; I don't know
what effects that will have, but I'll be sure to tell you when I do,
though by this light I believe her virtue is impregnable.
SIR PAUL. O Providence! Providence! What discoveries are here
made? Why, this is better and more miraculous than the rest.
CARE. What do you mean?
SIR PAUL. I can't tell you, I'm so overjoyed; come along with me to
my lady, I can't contain myself; come, my dear friend.
CARE. So, so, so, this difficulty's over. [Aside.]
SCENE XII.
MELLEFONT, MASKWELL, from different doors.
MEL. Maskwell! I have been looking for you--'tis within a quarter
of eight.
MASK. My lady is just gone into my lord's closet, you had best
steal into her chamber before she comes, and lie concealed there,
otherwise she may lock the door when we are together, and you not
easily get in to surprise us.
MEL. He? You say true.
MASK. You had best make haste, for after she has made some apology
to the company for her own and my lord's absence all this while,
she'll retire to her chamber instantly.
MEL. I go this moment. Now, fortune, I defy thee.
SCENE XIII.
MASKWELL alone.
MASK. I confess you may be allowed to be secure in your own
opinion; the appearance is very fair, but I have an after-game to
play that shall turn the tables, and here comes the man that I must
manage.
SCENE XIV.
[To him] LORD TOUCHWOOD.
LORD TOUCH. Maskwell, you are the man I wished to meet.
MASK. I am happy to be in the way of your lordship's commands.
LORD TOUCH. I have always found you prudent and careful in anything
that has concerned me or my family.
MASK. I were a villain else. I am bound by duty and gratitude, and
my own inclination, to be ever your lordship's servant.
LORD TOUCH. Enough. You are my friend; I know it. Yet there has
been a thing in your knowledge, which has concerned me nearly, that
you have concealed from me.
MASK. My lord!
LORD TOUCH. Nay, I excuse your friendship to my unnatural nephew
thus far. But I know you have been privy to his impious designs
upon my wife. This evening she has told me all. Her good nature
concealed it as long as was possible; but he perseveres so in
villainy, that she has told me even you were weary of dissuading
him, though you have once actually hindered him from forcing her.
MASK. I am sorry, my lord, I can't make you an answer; this is an
occasion in which I would not willing be silent.
LORD TOUCH. I know you would excuse him--and I know as well that
you can't.
MASK. Indeed I was in hopes it had been a youthful heat that might
have soon boiled over; but -
LORD TOUCH. Say on.
MASK. I have nothing more to say, my lord; but to express my
concern; for I think his frenzy increases daily.
LORD TOUCH. How! Give me but proof of it, ocular proof, that I may
justify my dealing with him to the world, and share my fortunes.
MASK. O my lord! consider; that is hard. Besides, time may work
upon him. Then, for me to do it! I have professed an everlasting
friendship to him.
LORD TOUCH. He is your friend; and what am I?
MASK. I am answered.
LORD TOUCH. Fear not his displeasure; I will put you out of his,
and fortune's power, and for that thou art scrupulously honest, I
will secure thy fidelity to him, and give my honour never to own any
discovery that you shall make me. Can you give me a demonstrative
proof? Speak.
MASK. I wish I could not. To be plain, my lord, I intended this
evening to have tried all arguments to dissuade him from a design
which I suspect; and if I had not succeeded, to have informed your
lordship of what I knew.
LORD TOUCH. I thank you. What is the villain's purpose?
MASK. He has owned nothing to me of late, and what I mean now, is
only a bare suspicion of my own. If your lordship will meet me a
quarter of an hour hence there, in that lobby by my lady's bed-
chamber, I shall be able to tell you more.
LORD TOUCH. I will.
MASK. My duty to your lordship makes me do a severe piece of
justice.
LORD TOUCH. I will be secret, and reward your honesty beyond your
hopes.
SCENE XV.
Scene opening, shows Lady Touchwood's chamber.
MELLEFONT solus.
MEL. Pray heaven my aunt keep touch with her assignation. O that
her lord were but sweating behind this hanging, with the expectation
of what I shall see. Hist, she comes. Little does she think what a
mine is just ready to spring under her feet. But to my post. [Goes
behind the hangings.]
SCENE XVI.
LADY TOUCHWOOD.
LADY TOUCH. 'Tis eight o'clock; methinks I should have found him
here. Who does not prevent the hour of love, outstays the time; for
to be dully punctual is too slow. I was accusing you of neglect.
SCENE XVII.
LADY TOUCHWOOD, MASKWELL, MELLEFONT absconding.
MASK. I confess you do reproach me when I see you here before me;
but 'tis fit I should be still behindhand, still to be more and more
indebted to your goodness.
LADY TOUCH. You can excuse a fault too well, not to have been to
blame. A ready answer shows you were prepared.
MASK. Guilt is ever at a loss, and confusion waits upon it; when
innocence and bold truth are always ready for expression.
LADY TOUCH. Not in love: words are the weak support of cold
indifference; love has no language to be heard.
MASK. Excess of joy has made me stupid! Thus may my lips be ever
closed. [Kisses her.] And thus--O who would not lose his speech,
upon condition to have joys above it?
LADY TOUCH. Hold, let me lock the door first. [Goes to the door.]
MASK. [Aside.] That I believed; 'twas well I left the private
passage open.
LADY TOUCH. So, that's safe.
MASK. And so may all your pleasures be, and secret as this kiss -
MEL. And may all treachery be thus discovered. [Leaps out.]
LADY TOUCH. Ah! [Shrieks.]
MEL. Villain! [Offers to draw.]
MASK. Nay, then, there's but one way. [Runs out.]
SCENE XVIII.
LADY TOUCHWOOD, MELLEFONT.
MEL. Say you so, were you provided for an escape? Hold, madam, you
have no more holes to your burrow; I'll stand between you and this
sally-port.
LADY TOUCH. Thunder strike thee dead for this deceit, immediate
lightning blast thee, me, and the whole world! Oh! I could rack
myself, play the vulture to my own heart, and gnaw it piecemeal, for
not boding to me this misfortune.
MEL. Be patient.
LADY TOUCH. Be damned.
MEL. Consider, I have you on the hook; you will but flounder
yourself a-weary, and be nevertheless my prisoner.
LADY TOUCH. I'll hold my breath and die, but I'll be free.
MEL. O madam, have a care of dying unprepared, I doubt you have
some unrepented sins that may hang heavy, and retard your flight.
LADY TOUCH. O! what shall I do? say? Whither shall I turn? Has
hell no remedy?
MEL. None; hell has served you even as heaven has done, left you to
yourself.--You're in a kind of Erasmus paradise, yet if you please
you may make it a purgatory; and with a little penance and my
absolution all this may turn to good account.
LADY TOUCH. [Aside.] Hold in my passion, and fall, fall a little,
thou swelling heart; let me have some intermission of this rage, and
one minute's coolness to dissemble. [She weeps.]
MEL. You have been to blame. I like those tears, and hope they are
of the purest kind,--penitential tears.
LADY TOUCH. O the scene was shifted quick before me,--I had not
time to think. I was surprised to see a monster in the glass, and
now I find 'tis myself; can you have mercy to forgive the faults I
have imagined, but never put in practice?--O consider, consider how
fatal you have been to me, you have already killed the quiet of this
life. The love of you was the first wandering fire that e'er misled
my steps, and while I had only that in view, I was betrayed into
unthought of ways of ruin.
MEL. May I believe this true?
LADY TOUCH. O be not cruelly incredulous.--How can you doubt these
streaming eyes? Keep the severest eye o'er all my future conduct,
and if I once relapse, let me not hope forgiveness; 'twill ever be
in your power to ruin me. My lord shall sign to your desires; I
will myself create your happiness, and Cynthia shall be this night
your bride. Do but conceal my failings, and forgive.
MEL. Upon such terms I will be ever yours in every honest way.
SCENE XIX.
MASKWELL softly introduces LORD TOUCHWOOD, and retires.
MASK. I have kept my word, he's here, but I must not be seen.
SCENE XX.
LADY TOUCHWOOD, LORD TOUCHWOOD, MELLEFONT.
LORD TOUCH. Hell and amazement, she's in tears.
LADY TOUCH. [Kneeling.] Eternal blessings thank you.--Ha! my lord
listening! O fortune has o'erpaid me all, all! all's my own!
[Aside.]
MEL. Nay, I beseech you rise.
LADY TOUCH. [Aloud.] Never, never! I'll grow to the ground, be
buried quick beneath it, e'er I'll be consenting to so damned a sin
as incest! unnatural incest!
MEL. Ha!
LADY TOUCH. O cruel man, will you not let me go? I'll forgive all
that's past. O heaven, you will not ravish me?
MEL. Damnation!
LORD TOUCH. Monster, dog! your life shall answer this! [Draws and
runs at MELLEFONT, is held by LADY TOUCHWOOD.]
LADY TOUCH. O heavens, my lord! Hold, hold, for heaven's sake.
MEL. Confusion, my uncle! O the damned sorceress.
LADY TOUCH. Moderate your rage, good my lord! He's mad, alas, he's
mad. Indeed he is, my lord, and knows not what he does. See how
wild he looks.
MEL. By heaven, 'twere senseless not to be mad, and see such
witchcraft.
LADY TOUCH. My lord, you hear him, he talks idly.
LORD TOUCH. Hence from my sight, thou living infamy to my name;
when next I see that face, I'll write villain in't with my sword's
point.
MEL. Now, by my soul, I will not go till I have made known my
wrongs. Nay, till I have made known yours, which, if possible, are
greater,--though she has all the host of hell her servants.
LADY TOUCH. Alas, he raves! Talks very poetry! For heaven's sake
away, my lord, he'll either tempt you to extravagance, or commit
some himself.
MEL. Death and furies, will you not hear me?--Why by heaven she
laughs, grins, points to your back; she forks out cuckoldom with her
fingers, and you're running horn-mad after your fortune. [As she is
going she turns back and smiles at him.]
LORD TOUCH. I fear he's mad indeed.--Let's send Maskwell to him.
MEL. Send him to her.
LADY TOUCH. Come, come, good my lord, my heart aches so, I shall
faint if I stay.
SCENE XXI.
MELLEFONT alone.
MEL. Oh, I could curse my stars, fate, and chance; all causes and
accidents of fortune in this life! But to what purpose? Yet,
'sdeath, for a man to have the fruit of all his industry grow full
and ripe, ready to drop into his mouth, and just when he holds out
his hand to gather it, to have a sudden whirlwind come, tear up tree
and all, and bear away the very root and foundation of his hopes:-
what temper can contain? They talk of sending Maskwell to me; I
never had more need of him. But what can he do? Imagination cannot
form a fairer and more plausible design than this of his which has
miscarried. O my precious aunt, I shall never thrive without I deal
with the devil, or another woman.
Women, like flames, have a destroying power,
Ne'er to be quenched, till they themselves devour.
ACT V.--SCENE I.
LADY TOUCHWOOD and MASKWELL.
LADY TOUCH. Was't not lucky?
MASK. Lucky! Fortune is your own, and 'tis her interest so to be.
By heaven I believe you can control her power, and she fears it:
though chance brought my lord, 'twas your own art that turned it to
advantage.
LADY TOUCH. 'Tis true it might have been my ruin. But yonder's my
lord. I believe he's coming to find you: I'll not be seen.
SCENE II.
MASKWELL alone.
MASK. So; I durst not own my introducing my lord, though it
succeeded well for her, for she would have suspected a design which
I should have been puzzled to excuse. My lord is thoughtful. I'll
be so too; yet he shall know my thoughts: or think he does.
SCENE III.
[To him] LORD TOUCHWOOD.
MASK. What have I done?
LORD TOUCH. Talking to himself!
MASK. 'Twas honest--and shall I be rewarded for it? No, 'twas
honest, therefore I shan't. Nay, rather therefore I ought not; for
it rewards itself.
LORD TOUCH. Unequalled virtue! [Aside.]
MASK. But should it be known, then I have lost a friend! He was an
ill man, and I have gained; for half myself I lent him, and that I
have recalled: so I have served myself, and what is yet better, I
have served a worthy lord to whom I owe myself.
LORD TOUCH. Excellent man! [Aside.]
MASK. Yet I am wretched. Oh, there is a secret burns within this
breast, which, should it once blaze forth, would ruin all, consume
my honest character, and brand me with the name of villain.
LORD TOUCH. Ha!
MASK. Why do I love! Yet heaven and my waking conscience are my
witnesses, I never gave one working thought a vent, which might
discover that I loved, nor ever must. No, let it prey upon my
heart; for I would rather die, than seem once, barely seem,
dishonest. Oh, should it once be known I love fair Cynthia, all
this that I have done would look like rival's malice, false
friendship to my lord, and base self-interest. Let me perish first,
and from this hour avoid all sight and speech, and, if I can, all
thought of that pernicious beauty. Ha! But what is my distraction
doing? I am wildly talking to myself, and some ill chance might
have directed malicious ears this way. [Seems to start, seeing my
lord.]
LORD TOUCH. Start not; let guilty and dishonest souls start at the
revelation of their thoughts, but be thou fixed, as is thy virtue.
MASK. I am confounded, and beg your Lordship's pardon for those
free discourses which I have had with myself.
LORD TOUCH. Come, I beg your pardon that I overheard you, and yet
it shall not need. Honest Maskwell! Thy and my good genius led me
hither. Mine, in that I have discovered so much manly virtue;
thine, in that thou shalt have due reward of all thy worth. Give me
thy hand. My nephew is the alone remaining branch of all our
ancient family: him I thus blow away, and constitute thee in his
room to be my heir -
MASK. Now heaven forbid -
LORD TOUCH. No more--I have resolved. The writings are ready
drawn, and wanted nothing but to be signed, and have his name
inserted. Yours will fill the blank as well. I will have no reply.
Let me command this time; for 'tis the last in which I will assume
authority. Hereafter, you shall rule where I have power.
MASK. I humbly would petition -
LORD TOUCH. Is't for yourself? [MASKWELL pauses.] I'll hear of
nought for anybody else.
MASK. Then witness heaven for me, this wealth and honour was not of
my seeking, nor would I build my fortune on another's ruin. I had
but one desire -
LORD TOUCH. Thou shalt enjoy it. If all I'm worth in wealth or
interest can purchase Cynthia, she is thine. I'm sure Sir Paul's
consent will follow fortune. I'll quickly show him which way that
is going.
MASK. You oppress me with bounty. My gratitude is weak, and
shrinks beneath the weight, and cannot rise to thank you. What,
enjoy my love! Forgive the transports of a blessing so unexpected,
so unhoped for, so unthought of!
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