Complete Works of William Congreve

by William Congreve

  SCAN. Nor I, faith. But Tattle does not use to bely a lady; it is contrary to his character. How one may be deceived in a woman, Valentine?

  TATT. Nay, what do you mean, gentlemen?

  SCAN. I’m resolved I’ll ask her.

  TATT. O barbarous! Why did you not tell me?

  SCAN. No; you told us.

  TATT. And bid me ask Valentine?

  VAL. What did I say? I hope you won’t bring me to confess an answer when you never asked me the question?

  TATT. But, gentlemen, this is the most inhuman proceeding —

  VAL. Nay, if you have known Scandal thus long, and cannot avoid such a palpable decoy as this was, the ladies have a fine time whose reputations are in your keeping.

  SCENE XII.

  [To them] Jeremy.

  JERE. Sir, Mrs. Frail has sent to know if you are stirring.

  VAL. Show her up when she comes.

  SCENE XIII.

  Valentine, Scandal, Tattle.

  TATT. I’ll be gone.

  VAL. You’ll meet her.

  TATT. Is there not a back way?

  VAL. If there were, you have more discretion than to give Scandal such an advantage. Why, your running away will prove all that he can tell her.

  TATT. Scandal, you will not be so ungenerous. Oh, I shall lose my reputation of secrecy for ever. I shall never be received but upon public days, and my visits will never be admitted beyond a drawing-room. I shall never see a bed-chamber again, never be locked in a closet, nor run behind a screen, or under a table: never be distinguished among the waiting-women by the name of trusty Mr. Tattle more. You will not be so cruel?

  VAL. Scandal, have pity on him; he’ll yield to any conditions.

  TATT. Any, any terms.

  SCAN. Come, then, sacrifice half a dozen women of good reputation to me presently. Come, where are you familiar? And see that they are women of quality, too — the first quality.

  TATT. ’Tis very hard. Won’t a baronet’s lady pass?

  SCAN. No, nothing under a right honourable.

  TATT. Oh, inhuman! You don’t expect their names?

  SCAN. No, their titles shall serve.

  TATT. Alas, that’s the same thing. Pray spare me their titles. I’ll describe their persons.

  SCAN. Well, begin then; but take notice, if you are so ill a painter that I cannot know the person by your picture of her, you must be condemned, like other bad painters, to write the name at the bottom.

  TATT. Well, first then —

  SCENE XIV.

  [To them] Mrs. Frail.

  TATT. Oh, unfortunate! She’s come already; will you have patience till another time? I’ll double the number.

  SCAN. Well, on that condition. Take heed you don’t fail me.

  MRS. FRAIL. I shall get a fine reputation by coming to see fellows in a morning. Scandal, you devil, are you here too? Oh, Mr. Tattle, everything is safe with you, we know.

  SCAN. Tattle —

  TATT. Mum. O madam, you do me too much honour.

  VAL. Well, Lady Galloper, how does Angelica?

  MRS. FRAIL. Angelica? Manners!

  VAL. What, you will allow an absent lover —

  MRS. FRAIL. No, I’ll allow a lover present with his mistress to be particular; but otherwise, I think his passion ought to give place to his manners.

  VAL. But what if he has more passion than manners?

  MRS. FRAIL. Then let him marry and reform.

  VAL. Marriage indeed may qualify the fury of his passion, but it very rarely mends a man’s manners.

  MRS. FRAIL. You are the most mistaken in the world; there is no creature perfectly civil but a husband. For in a little time he grows only rude to his wife, and that is the highest good breeding, for it begets his civility to other people. Well, I’ll tell you news; but I suppose you hear your brother Benjamin is landed? And my brother Foresight’s daughter is come out of the country: I assure you, there’s a match talked of by the old people. Well, if he be but as great a sea-beast as she is a land-monster, we shall have a most amphibious breed. The progeny will be all otters. He has been bred at sea, and she has never been out of the country.

  VAL. Pox take ’em, their conjunction bodes me no good, I’m sure.

  MRS. FRAIL. Now you talk of conjunction, my brother Foresight has cast both their nativities, and prognosticates an admiral and an eminent justice of the peace to be the issue male of their two bodies; ’tis the most superstitious old fool! He would have persuaded me that this was an unlucky day, and would not let me come abroad. But I invented a dream, and sent him to Artimedorus for interpretation, and so stole out to see you. Well, and what will you give me now? Come, I must have something.

  VAL. Step into the next room, and I’ll give you something.

  SCAN. Ay, we’ll all give you something.

  MRS. FRAIL. Well, what will you all give me?

  VAL. Mine’s a secret.

  MRS. FRAIL. I thought you would give me something that would be a trouble to you to keep.

  VAL. And Scandal shall give you a good name.

  MRS. FRAIL. That’s more than he has for himself. And what will you give me, Mr. Tattle?

  TATT. I? My soul, madam.

  MRS. FRAIL. Pooh! No, I thank you, I have enough to do to take care of my own. Well, but I’ll come and see you one of these mornings. I hear you have a great many pictures.

  TATT. I have a pretty good collection, at your service, some originals.

  SCAN. Hang him, he has nothing but the Seasons and the Twelve Cæsars — paltry copies — and the Five Senses, as ill-represented as they are in himself, and he himself is the only original you will see there.

  MRS. FRAIL. Ay, but I hear he has a closet of beauties.

  SCAN. Yes; all that have done him favours, if you will believe him.

  MRS. FRAIL. Ay, let me see those, Mr. Tattle.

  TATT. Oh, madam, those are sacred to love and contemplation. No man but the painter and myself was ever blest with the sight.

  MRS. FRAIL. Well, but a woman —

  TATT. Nor woman, till she consented to have her picture there too — for then she’s obliged to keep the secret.

  SCAN. No, no; come to me if you’d see pictures.

  MRS. FRAIL. You?

  SCAN. Yes, faith; I can shew you your own picture, and most of your acquaintance to the life, and as like as at Kneller’s.

  MRS. FRAIL. O lying creature! Valentine, does not he lie? I can’t believe a word he says.

  VAL. No indeed, he speaks truth now. For as Tattle has pictures of all that have granted him favours, he has the pictures of all that have refused him: if satires, descriptions, characters, and lampoons are pictures.

  SCAN. Yes; mine are most in black and white. And yet there are some set out in their true colours, both men and women. I can shew you pride, folly, affectation, wantonness, inconstancy, covetousness, dissimulation, malice and ignorance, all in one piece. Then I can shew you lying, foppery, vanity, cowardice, bragging, lechery, impotence, and ugliness in another piece; and yet one of these is a celebrated beauty, and t’other a professed beau. I have paintings too, some pleasant enough.

  MRS. FRAIL. Come, let’s hear ’em.

  SCAN. Why, I have a beau in a bagnio, cupping for a complexion, and sweating for a shape.

  MRS. FRAIL. So.

  SCAN. Then I have a lady burning brandy in a cellar with a hackney coachman.

  MRS. FRAIL. O devil! Well, but that story is not true.

  SCAN. I have some hieroglyphics too; I have a lawyer with a hundred hands, two heads, and but one face; a divine with two faces, and one head; and I have a soldier with his brains in his belly, and his heart where his head should be.

  MRS. FRAIL. And no head?

  SCAN. No head.

  MRS. FRAIL. Pooh, this is all invention. Have you never a poet?

  SCAN. Yes, I have a poet weighing words, and selling praise for praise, and a critic picking his pocket. I have another large piece too, representing a school,
where there are huge proportioned critics, with long wigs, laced coats, Steinkirk cravats, and terrible faces; with cat-calls in their hands, and horn-books about their necks. I have many more of this kind, very well painted, as you shall see.

  MRS. FRAIL. Well, I’ll come, if it be but to disprove you.

  SCENE XIV.

  [To them] Jeremy.

  JERE. Sir, here’s the steward again from your father.

  VAL. I’ll come to him — will you give me leave? I’ll wait on you again presently.

  MRS. FRAIL. No; I’ll be gone. Come, who squires me to the Exchange? I must call my sister Foresight there.

  SCAN. I will: I have a mind to your sister.

  MRS. FRAIL. Civil!

  TATT. I will: because I have a tendre for your ladyship.

  MRS. FRAIL. That’s somewhat the better reason, to my opinion.

  SCAN. Well, if Tattle entertains you, I have the better opportunity to engage your sister.

  VAL. Tell Angelica I am about making hard conditions to come abroad, and be at liberty to see her.

  SCAN. I’ll give an account of you and your proceedings. If indiscretion be a sign of love, you are the most a lover of anybody that I know: you fancy that parting with your estate will help you to your mistress. In my mind he is a thoughtless adventurer

  Who hopes to purchase wealth by selling land;

  Or win a mistress with a losing hand.

  ACT II. — SCENE I.

  A room in Foresight’s house.

  Foresight and Servant.

  FORE. Hey day! What, are all the women of my family abroad? Is not my wife come home? Nor my sister, nor my daughter?

  SERV. No, sir.

  FORE. Mercy on us, what can be the meaning of it? Sure the moon is in all her fortitudes. Is my niece Angelica at home?

  SERV. Yes, sir.

  FORE. I believe you lie, sir.

  SERV. Sir?

  FORE. I say you lie, sir. It is impossible that anything should be as I would have it; for I was born, sir, when the crab was ascending, and all my affairs go backward.

  SERV. I can’t tell indeed, sir.

  FORE. No, I know you can’t, sir: but I can tell, and foretell, sir.

  SCENE II.

  [To them] Nurse.

  FORE. Nurse, where’s your young mistress?

  NURSE. Wee’st heart, I know not, they’re none of ’em come home yet. Poor child, I warrant she’s fond o’ seeing the town. Marry, pray heaven they ha’ given her any dinner. Good lack-a-day, ha, ha, ha, Oh, strange! I’ll vow and swear now, ha, ha, ha, marry, and did you ever see the like!

  FORE. Why, how now, what’s the matter?

  NURSE. Pray heaven send your worship good luck, marry, and amen with all my heart, for you have put on one stocking with the wrong side outward.

  FORE. Ha, how? Faith and troth I’m glad of it; and so I have: that may be good luck in troth, in troth it may, very good luck. Nay, I have had some omens: I got out of bed backwards too this morning, without premeditation; pretty good that too; but then I stumbled coming down stairs, and met a weasel; bad omens those: some bad, some good, our lives are chequered. Mirth and sorrow, want and plenty, night and day, make up our time. But in troth I am pleased at my stocking; very well pleased at my stocking. Oh, here’s my niece! Sirrah, go tell Sir Sampson Legend I’ll wait on him if he’s at leisure:— ’tis now three o’clock, a very good hour for business: Mercury governs this hour.

  SCENE III.

  Angelica, Foresight, Nurse.

  ANG. Is it not a good hour for pleasure too, uncle? Pray lend me your coach; mine’s out of order.

  FORE. What, would you be gadding too? Sure, all females are mad to-day. It is of evil portent, and bodes mischief to the master of a family. I remember an old prophecy written by Messahalah the Arabian, and thus translated by a reverend Buckinghamshire bard: —

  ‘When housewives all the house forsake,

  And leave goodman to brew and bake,

  Withouten guile, then be it said,

  That house doth stand upon its head;

  And when the head is set in grond,

  Ne marl, if it be fruitful fond.’

  Fruitful, the head fruitful, that bodes horns; the fruit of the head is horns. Dear niece, stay at home — for by the head of the house is meant the husband; the prophecy needs no explanation.

  ANG. Well, but I can neither make you a cuckold, uncle, by going abroad, nor secure you from being one by staying at home.

  FORE. Yes, yes; while there’s one woman left, the prophecy is not in full force.

  ANG. But my inclinations are in force; I have a mind to go abroad, and if you won’t lend me your coach, I’ll take a hackney or a chair, and leave you to erect a scheme, and find who’s in conjunction with your wife. Why don’t you keep her at home, if you’re jealous of her when she’s abroad? You know my aunt is a little retrograde (as you call it) in her nature. Uncle, I’m afraid you are not lord of the ascendant, ha, ha, ha!

  FORE. Well, Jill-flirt, you are very pert, and always ridiculing that celestial science.

  ANG. Nay, uncle, don’t be angry — if you are, I’ll reap up all your false prophecies, ridiculous dreams, and idle divinations. I’ll swear you are a nuisance to the neighbourhood. What a bustle did you keep against the last invisible eclipse, laying in provision as ‘twere for a siege. What a world of fire and candle, matches and tinder-boxes did you purchase! One would have thought we were ever after to live under ground, or at least making a voyage to Greenland, to inhabit there all the dark season.

  FORE. Why, you malapert slut —

  ANG. Will you lend me your coach, or I’ll go on — nay, I’ll declare how you prophesied popery was coming only because the butler had mislaid some of the apostle spoons, and thought they were lost. Away went religion and spoon-meat together. Indeed, uncle, I’ll indite you for a wizard.

  FORE. How, hussy! Was there ever such a provoking minx?

  NURSE. O merciful father, how she talks!

  ANG. Yes, I can make oath of your unlawful midnight practices, you and the old nurse there —

  NURSE. Marry, heaven defend! I at midnight practices? O Lord, what’s here to do? I in unlawful doings with my master’s worship — why, did you ever hear the like now? Sir, did ever I do anything of your midnight concerns but warm your bed, and tuck you up, and set the candle and your tobacco-box and your urinal by you, and now and then rub the soles of your feet? O Lord, I!

  ANG. Yes, I saw you together through the key-hole of the closet one night, like Saul and the witch of Endor, turning the sieve and shears, and pricking your thumbs, to write poor innocent servants’ names in blood, about a little nutmeg grater which she had forgot in the caudle-cup. Nay, I know something worse, if I would speak of it.

  FORE. I defy you, hussy; but I’ll remember this, I’ll be revenged on you, cockatrice. I’ll hamper you. You have your fortune in your own hands, but I’ll find a way to make your lover, your prodigal spendthrift gallant, Valentine, pay for all, I will.

  ANG. Will you? I care not, but all shall out then. Look to it, nurse: I can bring witness that you have a great unnatural teat under your left arm, and he another; and that you suckle a young devil in the shape of a tabby-cat, by turns, I can.

  NURSE. A teat, a teat — I an unnatural teat! Oh, the false, slanderous thing; feel, feel here, if I have anything but like another Christian. [Crying.]

  FORE. I will have patience, since it is the will of the stars I should be thus tormented. This is the effect of the malicious conjunctions and oppositions in the third house of my nativity; there the curse of kindred was foretold. But I will have my doors locked up; — I’ll punish you: not a man shall enter my house.

  ANG. Do, uncle, lock ’em up quickly before my aunt come home. You’ll have a letter for alimony to-morrow morning. But let me be gone first, and then let no mankind come near the house, but converse with spirits and the celestial signs, the bull and the ram and the goat. Bless me! There are a great many horned bea
sts among the twelve signs, uncle. But cuckolds go to heaven.

  FORE. But there’s but one virgin among the twelve signs, spitfire, but one virgin.

  ANG. Nor there had not been that one, if she had had to do with anything but astrologers, uncle. That makes my aunt go abroad.