The Way of the World - William Congreve (free ereaders txt) 📗

sort of a large hand; your Roman hand⁠—I saw there was a throat to be cut presently. If he were my son, as he is my nephew, I’d pistol him! Foible O treachery!⁠—But are you sure, Sir Rowland, it is his writing? Waitwell Sure? Am I here? Do I live? Do I love this pearl of India? I have twenty letters in my pocket from him in the same character. Lady Wishfort How! Foible Oh, what luck it is, Sir Rowland, that you were present at this juncture!⁠—This was the business that brought Mr. Mirabell disguised to Madam Millamant this afternoon. I thought something was contriving, when he stole by me and would have hid his face. Lady Wishfort How, how!⁠—I heard the villain was in the house indeed; and now I remember, my niece went away abruptly when Sir Wilfull was to have made his addresses. Foible Then, then, madam, Mr. Mirabell waited for her in her chamber! but I would not tell your ladyship to discompose you when you were to receive Sir Rowland. Waitwell Enough, his date is short. Foible No, good Sir Rowland, don’t incur the law. Waitwell Law! I care not for law. I can but die, and ’tis in a good cause.⁠—My lady shall be satisfied of my truth and innocence, though it cost me my life. Lady Wishfort No, dear Sir Rowland, don’t fight: if you should be killed I must never show my face; or hanged⁠—oh, consider my reputation, Sir Rowland!⁠—No, you shan’t fight⁠—I’ll go in and examine my niece; I’ll make her confess. I conjure you, Sir Rowland, by all your love not to fight. Waitwell I am charmed, madam; I obey. But some proof you must let me give you; I’ll go for a black box, which contains the writings of my whole estate, and deliver that into your hands. Lady Wishfort Aye, dear Sir Rowland, that will be some comfort; bring the black box. Waitwell And may I presume to bring a contract to be signed this night? May I hope so far? Lady Wishfort Bring what you will; but come alive, pray come alive. Oh, this is a happy discovery! Waitwell Dead or alive I’ll come⁠—and married we will be in spite of treachery; aye, and get an heir that shall defeat the last remaining glimpse of hope in my abandoned nephew. Come, my buxom widow:

Ere long you shall substantial proof receive,
That I’m an arrant knight⁠—

Foible Aside. Or arrant knave. Exeunt. Act V Scene I

A room in Lady Wishfort’s house.

Lady Wishfort and Foible. Lady Wishfort Out of my house, out of my house, thou viper, thou serpent that I have fostered! thou bosom traitress that I raised from nothing!⁠—Begone! begone! begone!⁠—go! go!⁠—that I took from washing of old gauze and weaving of dead hair, with a bleak blue nose, over a chafing-dish of starved embers, and dining behind a traver’s rag, in a shop no bigger than a birdcage.⁠—Go, go! starve again, do, do! Foible Dear madam, I’ll beg pardon on my knees. Lady Wishfort Away! out! out!⁠—Go set up for yourself again!⁠—Do, drive a trade, do, with your threepennyworth of small ware, flaunting upon a packthread, under a brandy-seller’s bulk, or against a dead wall by a ballad-monger.89 Go, hang out an old Frisoneer gorget,90 with a yard of yellow colberteen again, do; an old gnawed mask, two rows of pins, and a child’s fiddle; a glass necklace with the beads broken, and a quilted nightcap with one ear. Go, go, drive a trade!⁠—These were your commodities, you treacherous trull! this was the merchandise you dealt in, when I took you into my house, placed you next myself, and made you governant of my whole family! You have forgot this, have you, now you have feathered your nest? Foible No, no, dear madam. Do but hear me, have but a moment’s patience, I’ll confess all. Mr. Mirabell seduced me; I am not the first that he has wheedled with his dissembling tongue. Your ladyship’s own wisdom has been deluded by him; then how should I, a poor ignorant, defend myself? O madam, if you knew but what he promised me, and how he assured me your ladyship should come to no damage, or else the wealth of the Indies should not have bribed me to conspire against so good, so sweet, so kind a lady as you have been to me. Lady Wishfort No damage! What, to betray me, to marry me to a cast servingman;91 to make me a receptacle, an hospital for a decayed pimp! No damage! O thou frontless impudence, more than a big-bellied actress! Foible Pray do but hear me, madam; he could not marry your ladyship, madam.⁠—No indeed, his marriage was to have been void in law; for he was married to me first, to secure your ladyship. He could not have bedded your ladyship, for if he had consummated with your ladyship, he must have run the risk of the law, and been put upon his clergy.92⁠—Yes indeed, I enquired of the law in that case before I would meddle or make.93 Lady Wishfort What, then I have been your property, have I? I have been convenient to you, it seems!⁠—While you were catering for Mirabell; I have been broker for you? What, have you made a passive bawd of me?⁠—This exceeds all precedent. I am brought to fine uses, to become a botcher of secondhand marriages between Abigails and Andrews!94⁠—I’ll couple you!⁠—Yes, I’ll baste you together, you and your Philander.95 I’ll Duke’s-place you,96 as I’m a person. Your turtle is in custody already: you shall coo in the same cage, if there be constable or warrant in the parish. Exit. Foible Oh, that ever I was born! Oh, that I was ever married!⁠—A bride!⁠—aye, I shall be a Bridewell-bride.97⁠—Oh! Enter Mrs. Fainall. Mrs. Fainall Poor Foible, what’s the matter? Foible O madam,