Scene
I
Pinchwife’s House.
Enter Pinchwife and Mrs. Pinchwife. A table and candle.
Pinchwife
Come, take the pen and make an end of the letter, just as you intended; if you are false in a tittle, I shall soon perceive it, and punish you as you deserve.—Lays his hand on his sword. Write what was to follow—let’s see—“You must make haste, and help me away before tomorrow, or else I shall be forever out of your reach, for I can defer no longer our”—What follows “our”?
Mrs. Pinchwife
Must all out, then, bud?—Look you there, then. Mrs. Pinchwife takes the pen and writes.
Pinchwife
Let’s see—“For I can defer no longer our—wedding—Your slighted Alithea.”—What’s the meaning of this? my sister’s name to’t? speak, unriddle.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Yes, indeed, bud.
Pinchwife
But why her name to’t? speak—speak, I say.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Ay, but you’ll tell her then again. If you would not tell her again—
Pinchwife
I will not:—I am stunned, my head turns round.—Speak.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Won’t you tell her, indeed, and indeed?
Pinchwife
No; speak, I say.
Mrs. Pinchwife
She’ll be angry with me; but I had rather she should be angry with me than you, bud; and, to tell you the truth, ’twas she made me write the letter, and taught me what I should write.
Pinchwife
Aside. Ha!—I thought the style was somewhat better than her own.—Aloud. Could she come to you to teach you, since I had locked you up alone?
Mrs. Pinchwife
O, through the keyhole, bud.
Pinchwife
But why should she make you write a letter for her to him, since she can write herself?
Mrs. Pinchwife
Why, she said because—for I was unwilling to do it—
Pinchwife
Because what—because?
Mrs. Pinchwife
Because, lest Mr. Horner should be cruel, and refuse her; or be vain afterwards, and show the letter, she might disown it, the hand not being hers.
Pinchwife
Aside. How’s this? Ha!—then I think I shall come to myself again.—This changeling could not invent this lie: but if she could, why should she? she might think I should soon discover it.—Stay—now I think on’t too, Horner said he was sorry she had married Sparkish; and her disowning her marriage to me makes me think she has evaded it for Horner’s sake: yet why should she take this course? But men in love are fools; women may well be so—Aloud. But hark you, madam, your sister went out in the morning, and I have not seen her within since.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Alack-a-day, she has been crying all day above, it seems, in a corner.
Pinchwife
Where is she? let me speak with her.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Aside. O Lord, then she’ll discover all!—Aloud. Pray hold, bud; what, d’ye mean to discover me? she’ll know I have told you then. Pray, bud, let me talk with her first.
Pinchwife
I must speak with her, to know whether Horner ever made her any promise, and whether she be married to Sparkish or no.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Pray, dear bud, don’t, till I have spoken with her, and told her that I have told you all; for she’ll kill me else.
Pinchwife
Go then, and bid her come out to me.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Yes, yes, bud.
Pinchwife
Let me see—Pausing.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Aside. I’ll go, but she is not within to come to him: I have just got time to know of Lucy her maid, who first set me on work, what lie I shall tell next; for I am e’en at my wit’s end.
Exit.
Pinchwife
Well, I resolve it, Horner shall have her: I’d rather give him my sister than lend him my wife; and such an alliance will prevent his pretensions to my wife, sure. I’ll make him of kin to her, and then he won’t care for her.
Reenter Mrs. Pinchwife.
Mrs. Pinchwife
O Lord, bud! I told you what anger you would make me with my sister.
Pinchwife
Won’t she come hither?
Mrs. Pinchwife
No, no. Lack-a-day, she’s ashamed to look you in the face: and she says, if you go in to her, she’ll run away downstairs, and shamefully go herself to Mr. Horner, who has promised her marriage, she says; and she will have no other, so she won’t.
Pinchwife
Did he so?—promise her marriage!—then she shall have no other. Go tell her so; and if she will come and discourse with me a little concerning the means, I will about it immediately. Go.—
Exit Mrs. Pinchwife.
His estate is equal to Sparkish’s, and his extraction as much better than his, as his parts are; but my chief reason is, I’d rather be akin to him by the name of brother-in-law than that of cuckold.
Reenter Mrs. Pinchwife.
Well, what says she now?
Mrs. Pinchwife
Why, she says, she would only have you lead her to Horner’s lodging; with whom she first will discourse the matter before she talks with you, which yet she cannot do; for alack, poor creature, she says she can’t so much as look you in the face, therefore she’ll come to you in a mask. And you must excuse her, if she make you no answer to any question of yours, till you have brought her to Mr. Horner; and if you will not chide her, nor question her, she’ll come out to you immediately.
Pinchwife
Let her come: I will not speak a word to her, nor require a word from her.
Mrs. Pinchwife
Oh, I forgot: besides she says, she cannot look you in the face, though through a mask; therefore would desire you to put out the candle.
Pinchwife
I agree to all. Let her make haste.—There, ’tis out—
Puts out the candle. Exit Mrs. Pinchwife.
My case is something better: I’d rather fight with Horner for not lying with my sister, than for lying with my wife; and of the two, I had rather find my sister too forward than my wife. I expected no other from her free education, as she calls it, and her passion for the town. Well, wife and sister are names which make us expect love and duty, pleasure and comfort; but we find ’em plagues and torments, and are equally, though differently, troublesome to their keeper; for we have as much ado to get people to lie with our sisters as to keep ’em from lying with our wives.
Reenter Mrs. Pinchwife masked, and in hoods and scarfs, and a nightgown and petticoat of Alithea’s.
What, are you come, sister? let us go then.—But first, let me lock up my wife. Mrs. Margery, where are you?
Mrs. Pinchwife
Here, bud.
Pinchwife
Come hither, that I may lock you up: get you in.—Locks the door. Come, sister, where are you now? Mrs. Pinchwife gives him her hand; but when he lets her go, she steals softly on to the other side of him, and is led away by him for his Sister, Alithea.