Scene
I
A room in Pinchwife’s house.
Enter Alithea and Mrs. Pinchwife.
Alithea
Sister, what ails you? you are grown melancholy.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Would it not make anyone melancholy to see you go every day fluttering about abroad, whilst I must stay at home like a poor lonely sullen bird in a cage?
Alithea
Ay, sister; but you came young, and just from the nest to your cage: so that I thought you liked it, and could be as cheerful in’t as others that took their flight themselves early, and are hopping abroad in the open air.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Nay, I confess I was quiet enough till my husband told me what pure lives the London ladies live abroad, with their dancing, meetings, and junketings, and dressed every day in their best gowns; and I warrant you, play at ninepins every day of the week, so they do.
Enter Pinchwife.
Pinchwife
Come, what’s here to do? you are putting the town-pleasures in her head, and setting her a-longing.
Alithea
Yes, after ninepins. You suffer none to give her those longings you mean but yourself.
Pinchwife
I tell her of the vanities of the town like a confessor.
Alithea
A confessor! just such a confessor as he that, by forbidding a silly ostler to grease the horse’s teeth, taught him to do’t.
Pinchwife
Come, Mrs. Flippant, good precepts are lost when bad examples are still before us: the liberty you take abroad makes her hanker after it, and out of humour at home. Poor wretch! she desired not to come to London; I would bring her.
Alithea
Very well.
Pinchwife
She has been this week in town, and never desired till this afternoon to go abroad.
Alithea
Was she not at a play yesterday?
Pinchwife
Yes; but she ne’er asked me; I was myself the cause of her going.
Alithea
Then if she ask you again, you are the cause of her asking, and not my example.
Pinchwife
Well, tomorrow night I shall be rid of you; and the next day, before ’tis light, she and I’ll be rid of the town, and my dreadful apprehensions.—Come, be not melancholy; for thou sha’t go into the country after tomorrow, dearest.
Alithea
Great comfort!
Mrs. Pinchwife
Pish! what d’ye tell me of the country for?
Pinchwife
How’s this! what, pish at the country?
Mrs. Pinchwife
Let me alone; I am not well.
Pinchwife
O, if that be all—what ails my dearest?
Mrs. Pinchwife
Truly, I don’t know: but I have not been well since you told me there was a gallant at the play in love with me.
Pinchwife
Ha!—
Alithea
That’s by my example too!
Pinchwife
Nay, if you are not well, but are so concerned, because a lewd fellow chanced to lie, and say he liked you, you’ll make me sick too.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Of what sickness?
Pinchwife
O, of that which is worse than the plague, jealousy.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Pish, you jeer! I’m sure there’s no such disease in our receipt-book at home.
Pinchwife
No, thou never met’st with it, poor innocent.—Well, if thou cuckold me, ’twill be my own fault—for cuckolds and bastards are generally makers of their own fortune. Aside.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Well, but pray, bud, let’s go to a play tonight.
Pinchwife
’Tis just done, she comes from it. But why are you so eager to see a play?
Mrs. Pinchwife
Faith, dear, not that I care one pin for their talk there; but I like to look upon the playermen, and would see, if I could, the gallant you say loves me: that’s all, dear bud.
Pinchwife
Is that all, dear bud?
Alithea
This proceeds from my example!
Mrs. Pinchwife
But if the play be done, let’s go abroad, however, dear bud.
Pinchwife
Come have a little patience and thou shalt go into the country on Friday.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Therefore I would see first some sights to tell my neighbours of. Nay, I will go abroad, that’s once.
Alithea
I’m the cause of this desire too!
Pinchwife
But now I think on’t, who, who was the cause of Horner’s coming to my lodgings today? That was you.
Alithea
No, you, because you would not let him see your handsome wife out of your lodging.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Why, O Lord! did the gentleman come hither to see me indeed?
Pinchwife
No, no.—You are not the cause of that damned question too, Mistress Alithea?—Aside. Well, she’s in the right of it. He is in love with my wife—and comes after her—’tis so—but I’ll nip his love in the bud; lest he should follow us into the country, and break his chariot-wheel near our house, on purpose for an excuse to come to’t. But I think I know the town.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Come, pray, bud, let’s go abroad before ’tis late; for I will go, that’s flat and plain.
Pinchwife
Aside. So! the obstinacy already of the town-wife; and I must, whilst she’s here, humour her like one.—Aloud. Sister, how shall we do, that she may not be seen, or known?
Alithea
Let her put on her mask.
Pinchwife
Pshaw! a mask makes people but the more inquisitive, and is as ridiculous a disguise as a stage-beard: her shape, stature, habit will be known. And if we should meet with Horner, he would be sure to take acquaintance with us, must wish her joy, kiss her, talk to her, leer upon her, and the devil and all. No, I’ll not use her to a mask, ’tis dangerous; for masks have made more cuckolds than the best faces that ever were known.
Alithea
How will you do then?
Mrs. Pinchwife
Nay, shall we go? The Exchange will be shut, and I have a mind to see that.
Pinchwife
So—I have it—I’ll dress her up in the suit we are to carry down to her brother, little Sir James; nay, I understand the town-tricks. Come, let’s go dress her. A mask! no—a woman masked, like a covered dish, gives a man curiosity and appetite; when, it may be, uncovered, ’twould turn his stomach: no, no.
Alithea
Indeed your comparison is something a greasy one: but I had a gentle gallant used to say, A beauty masked, like the sun in eclipse, gathers together more gazers than if it shined out.
Exeunt.