Scene II. Bevil Jr.’s Lodgings.
Bevil Jr., reading.
Bevil Jr.
These moral writers practise virtue after death. This charming vision of Mirza! Such an author consulted in a morning sets the spirit for the vicissitudes of the day better than the glass does a man’s person. But what a day have I to go through! to put on an easy look with an aching heart! If this lady my father urges me to marry should not refuse me, my dilemma is insupportable. But why should I fear it? Is not she in equal distress with me? Has not the letter I have sent her this morning confessed my inclination to another? Nay, have I not moral assurances of her engagements, too, to my friend Myrtle? It’s impossible but she must give in to it; for, sure, to be denied is a favour any man may pretend to. It must be so—Well, then, with the assurance of being rejected, I think I may confidently say to my father, I am ready to marry her. Then let me resolve upon, what I am not very good at, though it is an honest dissimulation.
Enter Tom.
Tom
Sir John Bevil, sir, is in the next room.
Bevil Jr.
Dunce! Why did not you bring him in?
Tom
I told him, sir, you were in your closet.
Bevil Jr.
I thought you had known, sir, it was my duty to see my father anywhere. Going himself to the door.
Tom
The devil’s in my master! he has always more wit than I have. Aside.
Bevil Jr., introducing Sir John.
Bevil Jr.
Sir, you are the most gallant, the most complaisant of all parents. Sure, ’tis not a compliment to say these lodgings are yours. Why would you not walk in, sir?
John Bevil
I was loth to interrupt you unseasonably on your wedding-day.
Bevil Jr.
One to whom I am beholden for my birthday might have used less ceremony.
John Bevil
Well, son, I have intelligence you have writ to your mistress this morning. It would please my curiosity to know the contents of a wedding-day letter; for courtship must then be over.
Bevil Jr.
I assure you, sir, there was no insolence in it upon the prospect of such a vast fortune’s being added to our family; but much acknowledgment of the lady’s greater desert.
John Bevil
But, dear Jack, are you in earnest in all this? And will you really marry her?
Bevil Jr.
Did I ever disobey any command of yours, sir? nay, any inclination that I saw you bent upon?
John Bevil
Why, I can’t say you have, son; but methinks in this whole business, you have not been so warm as I could have wished you. You have visited her, it’s true, but you have not been particular. Everyone knows you can say and do as handsome things as any man; but you have done nothing but lived in the general—been complaisant only.
Bevil Jr.
As I am ever prepared to marry if you bid me, so I am ready to let it alone if you will have me.
Humphry enters, unobserved.
John Bevil
Look you there now! why, what am I to think of this so absolute and so indifferent a resignation?
Bevil Jr.
Think? that I am still your son, sir. Sir, you have been married, and I have not. And you have, sir, found the inconvenience there is when a man weds with too much love in his head. I have been told, sir, that at the time you married, you made a mighty bustle on the occasion. There was challenging and fighting, scaling walls, locking up the lady, and the gallant under an arrest for fear of killing all his rivals. Now, sir, I suppose you having found the ill consequences of these strong passions and prejudices, in preference of one woman to another, in case of a man’s becoming a widower—
John Bevil
How is this?
Bevil Jr.
I say, sir, experience has made you wiser in your care of me; for, sir, since you lost my dear mother, your time has been so heavy, so lonely, and so tasteless, that you are so good as to guard me against the like unhappiness, by marrying me prudentially by way of bargain and sale. For, as you well judge, a woman that is espoused for a fortune, is yet a better bargain if she dies; for then a man still enjoys what he did marry, the money, and is disencumbered of what he did not marry, the woman.
John Bevil
But pray, sir, do you think Lucinda, then, a woman of such little merit?
Bevil Jr.
Pardon me, sir, I don’t carry it so far neither; I am rather afraid I shall like her too well; she has, for one of her fortune, a great many needless and superfluous good qualities.
John Bevil
I am afraid, son, there’s something I don’t see yet, something that’s smothered under all this raillery.
Bevil Jr.
Not in the least, sir. If the lady is dressed and ready, you see I am. I suppose the lawyers are ready too.
Humphry
This may grow warm if I don’t interpose. Aside.—Sir, Mr. Sealand is at the coffeehouse, and has sent to speak with you.
John Bevil
Oh! that’s well! Then I warrant the lawyers are ready. Son, you’ll be in the way, you say.
Bevil Jr.
If you please, sir, I’ll take a chair, and go to Mr. Sealand’s, where the young lady and I will wait your leisure.
John Bevil
By no means. The old fellow will be so vain if he sees—
Bevil Jr.
Ay; but the young lady, sir, will think me so indifferent.
Humphry
Ay, there you are right; press your readiness to go to the bride—he won’t let you. Aside to Bevil Jr.
Bevil Jr.
Are you sure of that? Aside to Humphry.
Humphry
How he likes being prevented. Aside.
John Bevil
No, no. You are an hour or two too early. Looking on his watch.
Bevil Jr.
You’ll allow me, sir, to think it too late to visit a beautiful, virtuous young woman, in the pride and bloom of life, ready to give herself to my arms; and to place her happiness or misery, for the future, in being agreeable or displeasing to me, is a—Call a chair.
John Bevil
No, no, no, dear Jack; this Sealand is a moody old fellow. There’s no dealing with some people but by managing with indifference. We must leave to him the conduct of this day. It is the last of his commanding his daughter.
Bevil Jr.
Sir, he can’t take it ill, that I am impatient to be hers.
John Bevil
Pray let me govern in this matter; you can’t tell how humorsome old fellows are. There’s no offering reason to some of ’em, especially when they are rich.—If my son should see him before I’ve brought old Sealand into better temper, the match would be impracticable. Aside.
Humphry
Pray, sir, let me beg you to let Mr. Bevil go.—See whether he will or not. Aside to Sir John.—Then to Bevil Jr. Pray, sir, command yourself; since you see my master is positive, it is better you should not go.
Bevil Jr.
My father commands me, as to the object of my affections; but I hope he will not, as to the warmth and height of them.
John Bevil
So! I must even leave things as I found them; and in the meantime, at least, keep old Sealand out of his sight—Well, son, I’ll go myself and take orders in your affair. You’ll be in the way, I suppose, if I send to you. I’ll leave your old friend with you—Humphry, don’t let him stir, d’ye hear?—Your servant, your servant.
Exit Sir John.
Humphry
I have a sad time on’t, sir, between you and my master. I see you are unwilling, and I know his violent inclinations for the match.—I must betray neither, and yet deceive you both, for your common good. Heaven grant a good end of this matter.—But there is a lady, sir, that gives your father much trouble and sorrow.—You’ll pardon me.
Bevil Jr.
Humphry, I know thou art a friend to both, and in that confidence I dare tell thee, that lady is a woman of honour and virtue. You may assure yourself I never will marry without my father’s consent. But give me leave to say, too, this declaration does not come up to a promise that I will take whomsoever he pleases.
Humphry
Come, sir, I wholly understand you. You would engage my services to free you from this woman whom my master intends you, to make way, in time, for the woman you have really a mind to.
Bevil Jr.
Honest Humphry, you have always been a useful friend to my father and myself; I beg you continue your good offices, and don’t let us come to the necessity of a dispute; for, if we should dispute, I must either part with more than life, or lose the best of fathers.
Humphry
My dear master, were I but worthy to know this secret, that so near concerns you, my life, my all should be engaged to serve you. This, sir, I dare promise, that I am sure I will and can be secret: your trust, at worst, but leaves you where you were; and if I cannot serve you, I will at once be plain and tell you so.
Bevil Jr.
That’s all I ask. Thou hast made it now my interest to trust thee. Be patient, then, and hear the story of my heart.
Humphry
I am all attention, sir.
Bevil Jr.
You may remember, Humphry, that in my last travels my father grew uneasy at my making so long a stay at Toulon.
Humphry
I remember it; he was apprehensive some woman had laid hold of you.
Bevil Jr.
His fears were just; for there I first saw this lady. She is of English birth: her father’s name was Danvers—a younger brother of an ancient family, and originally an eminent merchant of Bristol, who, upon repeated misfortunes, was reduced to go privately to the Indies. In this retreat, Providence again grew favourable to his industry, and, in six years’ time, restored him to his former fortunes. On this he sent directions over that his wife and little family should follow him to the Indies. His wife, impatient to obey such welcome orders, would not wait the leisure of a convoy, but took the first occasion of a single ship, and, with her husband’s sister only, and this daughter, then scarce seven years old, undertook the fatal voyage—for here, poor creature, she lost her liberty and life. She and her family, with all they had, were, unfortunately, taken by a privateer from Toulon. Being thus made a prisoner, though as such not ill-treated, yet the fright, the shock, and cruel disappointment, seized with such violence upon her unhealthy frame, she sickened, pined, and died at sea.
Humphry
Poor soul! O the helpless infant!
Bevil Jr.
Her sister yet survived, and had the care of her. The captain, too, proved to have humanity, and became a father to her; for having himself married an English woman, and being childless, he brought home into Toulon this her little countrywoman, presenting her, with all her dead mother’s movables of value, to his wife, to be educated as his own adopted daughter.
Humphry
Fortune here seemed again to smile on her.
Bevil Jr.
Only to make her frowns more terrible; for, in his height of fortune, this captain, too, her benefactor, unfortunately was killed at sea; and dying intestate, his estate fell wholly to an advocate, his brother, who, coming soon to take possession, there found (among his other riches) this blooming virgin at his mercy.
Humphry
He durst not, sure, abuse his power?
Bevil Jr.
No wonder if his pampered blood was fired at the sight of her—in short, he loved; but when all arts and gentle means had failed to move, he offered, too, his menaces in vain, denouncing vengeance on her cruelty, demanding her to account for all her maintenance from her childhood; seized on her little fortune as his own inheritance, and was dragging her by violence to prison, when Providence at the instant interposed, and sent me, by miracle, to relieve her.
Humphry
’Twas Providence, indeed. But pray, sir, after all this trouble, how came this lady at last to England?
Bevil Jr.
The disappointed advocate, finding she had so unexpected a support, on cooler thoughts, descended to a composition, which I, without her knowledge, secretly discharged.
Humphry
That generous concealment made the obligation double.
Bevil Jr.
Having thus obtained her liberty, I prevailed, not without some difficulty, to see her safe to England; where, no sooner arrived, but my father, jealous of my being imprudently engaged, immediately proposed this other fatal match that hangs upon my quiet.
Humphry
I find, sir, you are irrecoverably fixed upon this lady.
Bevil Jr.
As my vital life dwells in my heart—and yet you see what I do to please my father: walk in this pageantry of dress, this splendid covering of sorrow—But, Humphry, you have your lesson.
Humphry
Now, sir, I have but one material question—
Bevil Jr.
Ask it freely.
Humphry
Is it, then, your own passion for this secret lady, or hers for you, that gives you this aversion to the match your father has proposed you?
Bevil Jr.
I shall appear, Humphry, more romantic in my answer than in all the rest of my story; for though I dote on her to death, and have no little reason to believe she has the same thoughts for me, yet in all my acquaintance and utmost privacies with her, I never once directly told her that I loved.
Humphry
How was it possible to avoid it?
Bevil Jr.
My tender obligations to my father have laid so inviolable a restraint upon my conduct that, till I have his consent to speak, I am determined, on that subject, to be dumb forever.
Humphry
Well, sir, to your praise be it spoken, you are certainly the most unfashionable lover in Great Britain.
Enter Tom.
Tom
Sir, Mr. Myrtle’s at the next door, and, if you are at leisure, will be glad to wait on you.
Bevil Jr.
Whenever he pleases—hold, Tom! did you receive no answer to my letter?
Tom
Sir, I was desired to call again; for I was told her mother would not let her be out of her sight; but about an hour hence, Mrs. Lettice said, I should certainly have one.
Bevil Jr.
Very well.
Exit Tom.
Humphry
Sir, I will take another opportunity. In the meantime, I only think it proper to tell you that, from a secret I know, you may appear to your father as forward as you please, to marry Lucinda without the least hazard of its coming to a conclusion—Sir, your most obedient servant.
Bevil Jr.
Honest Humphry, continue but my friend in this exigence, and you shall always find me yours.
Exit Humphry.
—I long to hear how my letter has succeeded with Lucinda—but I think it cannot fail; for, at worst, were it possible she could take it ill, her resentment of my indifference may as probably occasion a delay as her taking it right. Poor Myrtle, what terrors must he be in all this while? Since he knows she is offered to me, and refused to him, there is no conversing or taking any measures with him for his own service.—But I ought to bear with my friend, and use him as one in adversity—
All his disquiets by my own I prove,
The greatest grief’s perplexity in love.
Exit.