HELENA. Ha! the letter I copied before my aunt! then I’ve wronged him, indeed. Unheard of baseness! — Mr. Merital, perhaps my suspicions have been too ill grounded; but for your reproaches, sir —
MERITAL. Nay, if there be a mystery in it, and I am guilty of undeserved reproaches, your justice cannot, shall not pardon me, till I have atoned for it with a ten years’ service. Yet impute what I have said to the sincerity of my love; my passions sympathise with yours; and if one wild delusion has possessed us, let us partake the equal joy of its discovery.
HELENA. That discovery is too long to be made now; but there is a riddle in that letter which will surprise you.
MERITAL. Let then those lovely eyes re-assume their sweetness, and like pure gold, rise brighter from the flames.
HELENA. Well, well, you know your own terms, a ten years’ siege, and then ——
MERITAL. Ah! but will not the garrison be starved in that long time? and I shall shut it up with a very close blockade — So you had best surrender now on honourable conditions.
HELENA. Well, but you’ll allow the garrison to make a sally first. — Sir Positive, uncle, ha, ha, ha! come and help me to laugh. — The same worthy gentleman, who came after your wife last night, is now come after your niece.
SCENE V.
To them, SIR POSITIVE TRAP from the closet.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. A brave girl, a very brave girl! Why, why, why, what a pox do you want here, sir?
HELENA. Bless me, how he stares! I wonder he is not confined: I’m afraid he will take away somebody’s life.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. I believe his intention is to give somebody life: such as he oftener increase families than diminish them.
HELENA. Or perhaps the poor gentleman is an itinerant preacher. Did you come to preach to us, sir?
MERITAL. Do you take me for the Ordinary of Bedlam, madam? Was I to reason with you it should be by the doctrine of fire and faggot.
HELENA. Say you so? Nay then, I believe, uncle, he is a popish inquisitor.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. An inquisitor after fortunes, I suppose. Ah! sir, is not that your pious errand? You are one of the royal society of fortune-hunters? eh!
HELENA. I’ll secure his masquerading garb among the trophies of our family.
SCENE VI.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP, MERITAL.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Well, sir, and pray have you any pretensions to my niece? Where’s your estate, sir? what’s your title, sir? what’s your coat of arms? Does your estate lie in terra firma, or in the stocks?
MERITAL. In a stock of assurance, sir. My cash is all brass, and I carry it in my forehead, for fear of pick-pockets.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Are there no guardians to be cheated, no cuckolds to be made, but Sir Positive Trap? I’d have you know, sir, there has not been a cuckold amongst the Traps since they were a family.
MERITAL. That is, sir, I suppose, a tacit insinuation that you are the first of your family.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. You are ignorant as well as impudent. The first of my family! The whole world knows, that neither I, nor my father before me, have added one foot of land to our estate; and my grandfather smoked his pipe in the same easy chair that I do.
MERITAL. Very likely. — And what then?
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. What then! Why, then there’s the door, and then I desire you’d go out. Upstart, quotha! Sir Positive Trap an upstart! I had rather be called knave. I had rather be the first rogue of a good family, than the first honest man of a bad one.
MERITAL. Indeed!
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Ay, indeed; for do we not upbraid the son whose father was hanged; whereas many a man, who deserves to be hanged, was never upbraided in his whole life.
MERITAL. Oons! how am I jilted! — [Aside. Lookee, Sir Positive, to be plain, I did come hither with a design of inveigling your niece; but she shall now die a maid for me. I imposed on Sir Apish, as I would have done on you; but you see I have failed: so you may smoke on in your easy chair, Sir Trap.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. So, so, I began to suspect Sir Apish was in the plot; but I’m glad to find my mistake.
SCENE VII.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP, LADY TRAP.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. O, my dear lady, are you come? I have such a discovery! such a rare discovery! you will so hug me —
LADY TRAP. Not so close as you do your discovery, my dear. — But where’s Helena?
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. He, he, he! rogue! conjurer! My lady’s a conjurer! why, ‘tis about her I am going to discover. But where’s the baronet?
LADY TRAP. He waits below with his chaplain.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. His chaplain! ha, ha, ha! ‘tis a rogue in the chaplain’s habit; the wild young spark that has haunted my niece so long.
LADY TRAP. HOW!
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Ay, and he is stole off without his disguise, which the girl has secured as a trophy of her victory.
LADY TRAP. Cheated! ruined! undone!
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Ha! what?
LADY TRAP. She is gone, she is lost — without there — she’s gone, I say and we are cheated.
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. How, by the right hand of the Traps!
LADY TRAP. By the wrong head of the Traps. I thought what your discovery would be. — Where’s Sir Apish? [To a servant entering.
SERVANT. Gone out with his chaplain and another gentleman, madam.
LADY TRAP. Pursue them, pursue them!
SIR POSITIVE TRAP. Get down my broad sword and bandaliers, and Sir Gregory’s blunderbuss. Fly, fly!
SCENE VIII
The Piazza.
MALVIL meeting CATCIIIT masqued.
MALVIL. So, I find she’s exact to her assignation. — Well encountered, madam: what, I suppose I am not the game you look for. O thou perfidious, false, dissembling woman! Nay, do not offer to stir, for you are betrayed, and by all the powers of love you’ve wronged, I will expose you. Come, unmasque, unmasque this instant, or —
CATCHIT. [Unmasquing.] I protest you are very rude,
MR. Malvil; I would not be seen here for the world.
MALVIL. Ha! now I thank my stars indeed. Thou vile intriguer, forge some lie to excuse thyself in an instant, or it shall be thy last.
CATCHIT. O lud! you will frighten me into fits.
MALVIL. Come, confess how you came here? by what means did Wisemore get my letter? Confess all; and if I find you faltering in one syllable, I’ll cram it down your throat with my sword.
CATCHIT. O lud! I I — I —
MALVIL. What, you belied Vermilia in all you said? Speak — you belied her, I say?
CATCHIT. O! O! But will you pardon me then?
MALVIL. Speak the truth, I will pardon you; but if I ever discover the least falsehood in what you now tell me, if you had a thousand lives you should forfeit them.
CATCHIT. Why, then, indeed, it was all false: she never said a kind thing of Mr. Merital in her life — and — and, so, when you gave me the letter, I suspected what it was, and so I carried it to my mistress; and Lady “Matchless being by, she took it, and sealed, and set it to Mr. , and so, my lady and she went into the park this morning: and Lady Matchless made an appointment in her name, and would have had her kept it, and she would not — and so I was sent.
MALVIL. And how! — how did the devil tempt you to belie her to me?
CATCHIT. O lud! sir, it was not the devil indeed; you had often teased and promised me if I would discover your rival; and, heaven knows, you have none in the world.
MALVIL. But on what embassy was you sent hither?
CATCHIT. Here’s a letter which, I believe, will tell you. But pray don’t keep me, for we are all very busy; my Lady Matchless is to be married in a day or two to my Lord Formal.
MALVIL. HOW! to my Lord Formal?
CATCHIT. Yes, sir.
MALVIL. Well, tell her you delivered the letter as you was ordered. Don’t mention a word of me. — Be trusty now, and I’ll forgive the past.
CATCHIT. I will, indeed, sir. — O lud! I sh
all not recover it this week.
SCENE IX.
MALVIL, WISEMORE.
MALVIL. Wisemore most opportunely arrived. I find you are more concerned in this assignation than I imagined, as this will explain to you.
WISEMORE TAkes the letter, and reads — “Sir. — You will be surprised at the news of so sudden a conquest; but, I hope, that surprise will be an agreeable one, when you know it is over a woman of a considerable fortune: and if seven thousand a year can make me as acceptable to Mr. Wisemore as his virtue renders him lovely to me, I shall meet with a favourable answer; for which the messenger who brings you this will attend an hour after the delivery. Yours till then, — INCOGNITA.
“P.S. I am glad I can inform you that my rival is this day to be married to another.”
How received you this letter?
MALVIL. From the very person who conveyed you mine.
WISEMORE. O Malvil, I find myself concerned indeed, and, I fear, fatally.
MALVIL. I am sorry to be the messenger of ill news — but I just now heard your mistress is carrying on a treaty with one of the greatest coxcombs in town.
WISEMORE. There is but one way, and I must beg your immediate assistance. I have contrived a stratagem to convince her of the mercenary views of her pretended admirers.
MALVIL. But do you draw any of your fears from that letter? For I have very good reason to believe it came from Lady Matchless.
WISEMORE. Impossible!
MALVIL. I am confident it did.
WISEMORE. By heaven, thou hast revived a spark of hope.
MALVIL. And lovers must nurse up feeble, infant hopes, till they grow big, and ripen into certain joys.
WISEMORE. I will do so: for I have always looked on love as on a sea, whose latitude no one ever discovered; and therefore,
Like mariners, without the compass tost,
We may be near our port when we esteem it lost.
SCENE X
LADY MATCHLESS’S House.
LADY MATCHLESS, LORD FORMAL, SIR APISH SIMPLE, VERMILIA AND RATTLE.
LADY MATCHLESS. I hope the sincerity which I have discovered in your lordship’s passion, and the glorious character you bear in the world, will excuse my easy consent.
LORD FORMAL. I would not be so ill-bred as to blush; but your ladyship’s compliments have really raised an inordinate flushing in my cheeks.
VERMILIA. Why, my dear, this will be a surprise to the town, indeed.
RATTLE. I’m sure it is no agreeable one to me. [Aside. Why, widow, do you intend to leave me in the lurch?
SIR APISH SIMPLE. And me in the lurch, too, madam? I assure you, I have refused a great fortune on your account. Has your ladyship forgot your declaration yesterday?
LADY MATCHLESS. Yesterday! O unpolite! are you so conversant in the beau-monde, and don’t know that women, like quicksilver, are never fixed till they are dead?
RATTLE. Agad, they are more like gold, I think; for they are never fixed but by dross. [Aside.
SCENE XI.
To them, MERITAL, HELENA.
HELENA. Dear cousin Matchless!
LADY MATCHLESS. My dear, this is very kind; being earlier with me than my expectation is a double favour.
MERITAL. It may be called a double favour, madam, for you are partly obliged for it to your humble servant.
LADY MATCHLESS. How’s this, Helena?
HELENA. I don’t know, cousin; I was weary of my old guardian, I think, and so I chose a new one.
MERITAL. Yes, madam, and so we preferred the church to the chancery, to save expenses.
LADY MATCHLESS. O, it was a most commendable prudence. So you are married. — Well, give you joy, good people. — But, methinks you should not have made your guardian your heir. [To Helena.] No wise person ever suffered an heir to be trustee to his own estate.
MERITAL. Not till at years of discretion, madam; and I’m sure, the men should be that when they marry.
LADY MATCHLESS. And the women too, or they never will.
HELENA. Why so, cousin?
LADY MATCHLESS. Because it is probable they may soon after run mad. You see, my lord, I have not the highest notions of a married state; therefore, you may be sensible how high an opinion I must entertain of your merit, which can persuade me to it.
MERITAL. Do you intend to follow our example. Lady Matchless?
RATTLE. I can bear no longer. Lookee, my lord, if matrimony be your play, fighting must be your prologue. [Apart to Lord Formal.
LORD FORMAL. He, he, he! Mr. Rattle, fighting is more commonly the epilogue to that play.
RATTLE. Damn your joke, sir, either walk out with me, or I shall use you ill. [Apart.
LORD FORMAL. Then you will show your ill-breeding, and give me an opportunity of displaying my gallantry, by sacrificing the affront to the presence of the ladies.
MERITAL. Fie, fie, gentlemen, let us have no quarrels, pray.
RATTLE. ‘Sdeath! sir, but we will: I will not resign my mistress, sir.
SIR APISH SIMPLE. Nor I neither; and so, madam, if you don’t stand to your promise, I hope you’ll give me leave to sue you for it.
LADY MATCHLESS. I have told you already, that a lady’s promise is an insect which naturally dies almost as soon as it is born.
SCENE XII.
To them, Wisemore, in a Serjeant’s gown, his hat over his ears.
WISEMORE. Pray, which is the Lady Matchless?
LADY MATCHLESS. Have you any business with me, sir?
LORD FORMAL. This must be a very ill-bred gentleman, or he would not come before so much good company with his hat on. [Aside.
WISEMORE. It concerns an affair, madam, which will be soon so public that I may declare it openly. There is one Mr. John Matchless, who, being heir at law to your ladyship’s late husband, intends to prosecute his right, which, as his counsel, out of a particular regard to your ladyship, I shall farther let you know, I am persuaded we shall make good — and, I’m afraid, it will touch you very sensibly.
LADY MATCHLESS. My cousin John Matchless heir at law to Sir William! I would not have you be under any apprehension on my account, good sir; I am afraid he has a better right to Bedlam than my estate.
MERITAL. Be not concerned, madam; a declaration of a title is not always a proof.
VERMILIA and HELENA. We condole you heartily, my dear, on this bad news.
LADY MATCHLESS. Ladies, I thank you for your kind concern; but do assure you, it gives me none.
WISEMORE. I am sensible you will find your error; my clerk will be here immediately with the ejectment.
LORD FORMAL. I perceive the reason of her ladyship’s haste to be married. [Aside.
LADY MATCHLESS. What can this mean! I know my title to be secure; it must be some trumped-up cheat; and I’ll try to divert the chagrin of my friends by a trial of my lovers, whom, I already know, I shall find guilty. [Aside.] — Well, as most misfortunes bring their allay with them, so this dispute of my estate will give me an opportunity to distinguish the sincerity of a lover. [Looks on Formal.
LORD FORMAL. He, he, he! it has always been my good fortune to conduce to the entertainment of the ladies, and I find your ladyship has a most inexhaustible vein of raillery.
LADY MATCHLESS. Raillery, my lord!
LORD FORMAL. Ah, madam, it were an unpardonable vanity in me to esteem it otherwise. It would be contrary to all the rules of good manners for me to offer myself up at the shrine of your beauty. Ah! ‘tis a sacrifice worthy a higher title than mine. Indeed, I have some thoughts of purchasing, which, when I do, I shall throw myself at your feet in raptures; but till then I am, with the greatest distance, madam, your ladyship’s most obsequious humble Servant.
RATTLE. Why, indeed, I think all raillery is unseasonable on so serious an occasion; therefore, to drop the jest, dear widow, I do assure you, all that has passed between us has been mere gallantry; for I have been long since engaged to a widow lady in the city.
SIR APISH SIMPLE. And to show you, madam, that no sligh
ts from you can lessen my affection, I do entirely relinquish all pretensions to any promise whatsoever.
SCENE XIII.
To them, MALVIL.
MALVIL. Whore’s, where’s my injured mistress? where’s Vermilia? O, see at your feet the most miserable of mankind!
Complete Fictional Works of Henry Fielding Page 238
