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. Go, hang out an old Frisoneer gorget, 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; 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.—Yes indeed, I enquired of the law in that case before I would meddle or make.
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!—I’ll couple you!—Yes, I’ll baste you together, you and your Philander. I’ll Duke’s-place you, 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.—Oh!
Enter Mrs. Fainall.
Mrs. Fainall
Poor Foible, what’s the matter?
Foible
O madam, my lady’s gone for a constable. I shall be had to a justice, and put to Bridewell to beat hemp. Poor Waitwell’s gone to prison already.
Mrs. Fainall
Have a good heart, Foible; Mirabell’s gone to give security for him. This is all Marwood’s and my husband’s doing.
Foible
Yes, yes; I know it, madam: she was in my lady’s closet, and overheard all that you said to me before dinner. She sent the letter to my lady, and that missing effect, Mr. Fainall laid this plot to arrest Waitwell, when he pretended to go for the papers; and in the meantime Mrs. Marwood declared all to my lady.
Mrs. Fainall
Was there no mention made of me in the letter? My mother does not suspect my being in the confederacy? I fancy Marwood has not told her, though she has told my husband.
Foible
Yes, madam; but my lady did not see that part. We stifled the letter before she read so far.—Has that mischievous devil told Mr. Fainall of your ladyship then?
Mrs. Fainall
Aye, all’s out—my affair with Mirabell—everything discovered. This is the last day of our living together, that’s my comfort.
Foible
Indeed, madam, and so ’tis a comfort, if you knew all—he has been even with your ladyship; which I could have told you long enough since, but I love to keep peace and quietness by my good will. I had rather bring friends together than set ’em at distance. But Mrs. Marwood and he are nearer related than ever their parents thought for.
Mrs. Fainall
Say’st thou so, Foible? Canst thou prove this?
Foible
I can take my oath of it, madam; so can Mrs. Mincing. We have had many a fair word from Madam Marwood to conceal something that passed in our chamber one evening when you were at Hyde Park, and we were thought to have gone a-walking. But we went up unawares; though we were sworn to secrecy too. Madam Marwood took a book and swore us upon it, but it was but a book of poems. So long as it was not a bible oath, we may break it with a safe conscience.
Mrs. Fainall
This discovery is the most opportune thing I could wish. Now, Mincing!
Enter Mincing.
Mincing
My lady would speak with Mrs. Foible, mem. Mr. Mirabell is with her; he has set your spouse at liberty, Mrs. Foible, and would have you hide yourself in my lady’s closet till my old lady’s anger is abated. Oh, my old lady is in a perilous passion at something Mr. Fainall has said; he swears, and my old lady cries. There’s a fearful hurricane, I vow. He says, mem, how that he’ll have my lady’s fortune made over to him, or he’ll be divorced.
Mrs. Fainall
Does your lady or Mirabell know that?
Mincing
Yes mem; they have sent me to see if Sir Wilfull be sober, and to bring him to them. My lady is resolved to have him, I think, rather than lose such a vast sum as six thousand pound.—Oh, come, Mrs. Foible, I hear my old lady.
Mrs. Fainall
Foible, you must tell Mincing that she must prepare to vouch when I call her.
Foible
Yes, yes, madam.
Mincing
Oh, yes mem, I’ll vouch anything for your ladyship’s service, be what it will.
Exeunt.