The Way of the World
here come my pair of turtles. What, billing so sweetly? Is not
Valentine’s day over with you yet?
SCENE VIII.
[_To him_] WAITWELL, FOIBLE.
MIRA. Sirrah, Waitwell, why, sure, you think you were married for your
own recreation and not for my conveniency.
WAIT. Your pardon, sir. With submission, we have indeed been solacing
in lawful delights; but still with an eye to business, sir. I have
instructed her as well as I could. If she can take your directions as
readily as my instructions, sir, your affairs are in a prosperous way.
MIRA. Give you joy, Mrs. Foible.
FOIB. O—las, sir, I’m so ashamed.—I’m afraid my lady has been in a
thousand inquietudes for me. But I protest, sir, I made as much haste as
I could.
WAIT. That she did indeed, sir. It was my fault that she did not make
more.
MIRA. That I believe.
FOIB. But I told my lady as you instructed me, sir, that I had a
prospect of seeing Sir Rowland, your uncle, and that I would put her
ladyship’s picture in my pocket to show him, which I’ll be sure to say
has made him so enamoured of her beauty, that he burns with impatience to
lie at her ladyship’s feet and worship the original.
MIRA. Excellent Foible! Matrimony has made you eloquent in love.
WAIT. I think she has profited, sir. I think so.
FOIB. You have seen Madam Millamant, sir?
MIRA. Yes.
FOIB. I told her, sir, because I did not know that you might find an
opportunity; she had so much company last night.
MIRA. Your diligence will merit more. In the meantime—[_gives money_]
FOIB. O dear sir, your humble servant.
WAIT. Spouse—
MIRA. Stand off, sir, not a penny. Go on and prosper, Foible. The
lease shall be made good and the farm stocked, if we succeed.
FOIB. I don’t question your generosity, sir, and you need not doubt of
success. If you have no more commands, sir, I’ll be gone; I’m sure my
lady is at her toilet, and can’t dress till I come. Oh dear, I’m sure
that [_looking out_] was Mrs. Marwood that went by in a mask; if she has
seen me with you I’m sure she’ll tell my lady. I’ll make haste home and
prevent her. Your servant, Sir.—B’w’y, Waitwell.
SCENE IX.
MIRABELL, WAITWELL.
WAIT. Sir Rowland, if you please. The jade’s so pert upon her
preferment she forgets herself.
MIRA. Come, sir, will you endeavour to forget yourself—and transform
into Sir Rowland?
WAIT. Why, sir, it will be impossible I should remember myself.
Married, knighted, and attended all in one day! ’Tis enough to make any
man forget himself. The difficulty will be how to recover my
acquaintance and familiarity with my former self, and fall from my
transformation to a reformation into Waitwell. Nay, I shan’t be quite
the same Waitwell neither—for now I remember me, I’m married, and can’t
be my own man again.
Ay, there’s my grief; that’s the sad change of life:
To lose my title, and yet keep my wife.
ACT III.—SCENE I.
_A room in Lady Wishfort’s house_.
LADY WISHFORT _at her toilet_, PEG _waiting_.
LADY. Merciful! No news of Foible yet?
PEG. No, madam.
LADY. I have no more patience. If I have not fretted myself till I am
pale again, there’s no veracity in me. Fetch me the red—the red, do you
hear, sweetheart? An errant ash colour, as I’m a person. Look you how
this wench stirs! Why dost thou not fetch me a little red? Didst thou
not hear me, Mopus?
PEG. The red ratafia, does your ladyship mean, or the cherry brandy?
LADY. Ratafia, fool? No, fool. Not the ratafia, fool—grant me
patience!—I mean the Spanish paper, idiot; complexion, darling. Paint,
paint, paint, dost thou understand that, changeling, dangling thy hands
like bobbins before thee? Why dost thou not stir, puppet? Thou wooden
thing upon wires!
PEG. Lord, madam, your ladyship is so impatient.—I cannot come at the
paint, madam: Mrs. Foible has locked it up, and carried the key with her.
LADY. A pox take you both.—Fetch me the cherry brandy then.
SCENE II.
LADY WISHFORT.
I’m as pale and as faint, I look like Mrs. Qualmsick, the curate’s wife,
that’s always breeding. Wench, come, come, wench, what art thou doing?
Sipping? Tasting? Save thee, dost thou not know the bottle?
SCENE III.
LADY WISHFORT, PEG _with a bottle and china cup_.
PEG. Madam, I was looking for a cup.
LADY. A cup, save thee, and what a cup hast thou brought! Dost thou
take me for a fairy, to drink out of an acorn? Why didst thou not bring
thy thimble? Hast thou ne’er a brass thimble clinking in thy pocket with
a bit of nutmeg? I warrant thee. Come, fill, fill. So, again. See who
that is. [_One knocks_.] Set down the bottle first. Here, here, under
the table:—what, wouldst thou go with the bottle in thy hand like a
tapster? As I’m a person, this wench has lived in an inn upon the road,
before she came to me, like Maritornes the Asturian in Don Quixote. No
Foible yet?
PEG. No, madam; Mrs. Marwood.
LADY. Oh, Marwood: let her come in. Come in, good Marwood.
SCENE IV.
[_To them_] MRS. MARWOOD.
MRS. MAR. I’m surprised to find your ladyship in _déshabillé_ at this
time of day.
LADY. Foible’s a lost thing; has been abroad since morning, and never
heard of since.
MRS. MAR. I saw her but now, as I came masked through the park, in
conference with Mirabell.
LADY. With Mirabell? You call my blood into my face with mentioning
that traitor. She durst not have the confidence. I sent her to
negotiate an affair, in which if I’m detected I’m undone. If that
wheedling villain has wrought upon Foible to detect me, I’m ruined. O my
dear friend, I’m a wretch of wretches if I’m detected.
MRS. MAR. O madam, you cannot suspect Mrs. Foible’s integrity.
LADY. Oh, he carries poison in his tongue that would corrupt integrity
itself. If she has given him an opportunity, she has as good as put her
integrity into his hands. Ah, dear Marwood, what’s integrity to an
opportunity? Hark! I hear her. Dear friend, retire into my closet,
that I may examine her with more freedom—you’ll pardon me, dear friend, I
can make bold with you—there are books over the chimney—Quarles and Pryn,
and the _Short View of the Stage_, with Bunyan’s works to entertain
you.—Go, you thing, and send her in. [_To_ PEG.]
SCENE V.
LADY WISHFORT, FOIBLE.
LADY. O Foible, where hast thou been? What hast thou been doing?
FOIB. Madam, I have seen the party.
LADY. But what hast thou done?
FOIB. Nay, ’tis your ladyship has done, and are to do; I have only
promised. But a man so enamoured—so transported! Well, if worshipping
of pictures be a sin—poor Sir Rowland, I say.
LADY. The miniature has been counted like. But hast thou not betrayed
me, Foible? Hast thou not detected me to that faithless Mirabell? What
hast thou to do with him in the park? Answer me, has he got nothing out
of thee?
FOIB. So, the devil has been beforehand with me; what shall I say?—Alas,
madam, could I help it, if I met that confident thing? Was I in fault?
If you had heard how he used me, and all upon your ladyship’s account,
I’m sure you would not suspect my fidelity. Nay, if that had been the
worst I could have borne: but he had a fling at your ladyship too, and
then I could not hold; but, i’faith I gave him his own.
LADY. Me? What did the filthy fellow say?
FOIB. O madam, ’tis a shame to say what he said, with his taunts and his
fleers, tossing up his nose. Humh, says he, what, you are a-hatching
some plot, says he, you are so early abroad, or catering, says he,
ferreting for some disbanded officer, I warrant. Half pay is but thin
subsistence, says he. Well, what pension does your lady propose? Let me
see, says he, what, she must come down pretty deep now, she’s
superannuated, says he, and—
LADY. Ods my life, I’ll have him—I’ll have him murdered. I’ll have him
poisoned. Where does he eat? I’ll marry a drawer to have him poisoned
in his wine. I’ll send for Robin from Locket’s—immediately.
FOIB. Poison him? Poisoning’s too good for him. Starve him, madam,
starve him; marry Sir Rowland, and get him disinherited. Oh, you would
bless yourself to hear what he said.
LADY. A villain; superannuated?
FOIB. Humh, says he, I hear you are laying designs against me too, says
he, and Mrs. Millamant is to marry my uncle (he does not suspect a word
of your ladyship); but, says he, I’ll fit you for that, I warrant you,
says he, I’ll hamper you for that, says he, you and your old frippery
too, says he, I’ll handle you—
LADY. Audacious villain! Handle me? Would he durst? Frippery? Old
frippery? Was there ever such a foul-mouthed fellow? I’ll be married
to-morrow, I’ll be contracted to-night.
FOIB. The sooner the better, madam.
LADY. Will Sir Rowland be here, say’st thou? When, Foible?
FOIB. Incontinently, madam. No new sheriff’s wife expects the return of
her husband after knighthood with that impatience in which Sir Rowland
burns for the dear hour of kissing your ladyship’s hand after dinner.
LADY. Frippery? Superannuated frippery? I’ll frippery the villain;
I’ll reduce him to frippery and rags, a tatterdemalion!—I hope to see him
hung with tatters, like a Long Lane pent-house, or a gibbet thief. A
slander-mouthed railer! I warrant the spendthrift prodigal’s in debt as
much as the million lottery, or the whole court upon a birthday. I’ll
spoil his credit with his tailor. Yes, he shall have my niece with her
fortune, he shall.
FOIB. He? I hope to see him lodge in Ludgate first, and angle into
Blackfriars for brass farthings with an old mitten.
LADY. Ay, dear Foible; thank thee for that, dear Foible. He has put me
out of all patience. I shall never recompose my features to receive Sir
Rowland with any economy of face. This wretch has fretted me that I am
absolutely decayed. Look, Foible.
FOIB. Your ladyship has frowned a little too rashly, indeed, madam.
There are some cracks discernible in the white vernish.
LADY. Let me see the glass. Cracks, say’st thou? Why, I am arrantly
flayed: I look like an old peeled wall. Thou must repair me, Foible,
before Sir Rowland comes, or I shall never keep up to my picture.
FOIB. I warrant you, madam: a little art once made your picture like
you, and now a little of the same art must make you like your picture.
Your picture must sit for you, madam.
LADY. But art thou sure Sir Rowland will not fail to come? Or will a
not fail when he does come? Will he be importunate, Foible, and push?
For if he should not be importunate I shall never break decorums. I
shall die with confusion if I am forced to advance—oh no, I can never
advance; I shall swoon if he should expect advances. No, I hope Sir
Rowland is better bred than to put a lady to the necessity of breaking
her forms. I won’t be too coy neither—I won’t give him despair. But a
little disdain is not amiss; a little scorn is alluring.
FOIB. A little scorn becomes your ladyship.
LADY. Yes, but tenderness becomes me best—a sort of a dyingness. You
see that picture has a sort of a—ha, Foible? A swimmingness in the eyes.
Yes, I’ll look so. My niece affects it; but she wants features. Is Sir
Rowland handsome? Let my toilet be removed—I’ll dress above. I’ll
receive Sir Rowland here. Is he handsome? Don’t answer me. I won’t
know; I’ll be surprised. I’ll be taken by surprise.
FOIB. By storm, madam. Sir Rowland’s a brisk man.
LADY. Is he? Oh, then, he’ll importune, if he’s a brisk man. I shall
save decorums if Sir Rowland importunes. I have a mortal terror at the