The Country Wife, William Wycherley [debian ebook reader txt] 📗

after dinner, dealing cards to ’em, reading plays and gazettes to ’em, picking fleas out of their smocks for ’em, collecting receipts, new songs, women, pages, and footmen for ’em. Horner I hope they’ll afford me better employment, sir. Sir Jasper He! he! he! ’tis fit you know your work before you come into your place. And since you are unprovided of a lady to flatter, and a good house to eat at, pray frequent mine, and call my wife mistress, and she shall call you gallant, according to the custom. Horner Who, I? Sir Jasper Faith, thou sha’t for my sake; come, for my sake only. Horner For your sake⁠— Sir Jasper Come, come, here’s a gamester for you; let him be a little familiar sometimes; nay, what if a little rude? Gamesters may be rude with ladies, you know. Lady Fidget Yes; losing gamesters have a privilege with women. Horner I always thought the contrary, that the winning gamester had most privilege with women; for when you have lost your money to a man, you’ll lose anything you have, all you have, they say, and he may use you as he pleases. Sir Jasper He! he! he! well, win or lose, you shall have your liberty with her. Lady Fidget As he behaves himself; and for your sake I’ll give him admittance and freedom. Horner All sorts of freedom, madam? Sir Jasper Ay, ay, ay, all sorts of freedom thou canst take. And so go to her, begin thy new employment; wheedle her, jest with her, and be better acquainted one with another. Horner Aside. I think I know her already; therefore may venture with her my secret for hers. Horner and Lady Fidget whisper. Sir Jasper Sister cuz, I have provided an innocent playfellow for you there. Mrs. Dainty Who, he? Mrs. Squeamish There’s a playfellow, indeed! Sir Jasper Yes sure.⁠—What, he is good enough to play at cards, blindman’s-buff, or the fool with, sometimes! Mrs. Squeamish Foh! we’ll have no such playfellows. Mrs. Dainty No, sir; you shan’t choose playfellows for us, we thank you. Sir Jasper Nay, pray hear me. Whispering to them. Lady Fidget But, poor gentleman, could you be so generous, so truly a man of honour, as for the sakes of us women of honour, to cause yourself to be reported no man? No man! and to suffer yourself the greatest shame that could fall upon a man, that none might fall upon us women by your conversation? but, indeed, sir, as perfectly, perfectly the same man as before your going into France, sir? as perfectly, perfectly, sir? Horner As perfectly, perfectly, madam. Nay, I scorn you should take my word; I desire to be tried only, madam. Lady Fidget Well, that’s spoken again like a man of honour: all men of honour desire to come to the test. But, indeed, generally you men report such things of yourselves, one does not know how or whom to believe; and it is come to that pass, we dare not take your words no more than your tailor’s, without some staid servant of yours be bound with you. But I have so strong a faith in your honour, dear, dear, noble sir, that I’d forfeit mine for yours, at any time, dear sir. Horner No, madam, you should not need to forfeit it for me; I have given you security already to save you harmless, my late reputation being so well known in the world, madam. Lady Fidget But if upon any future falling-out, or upon a suspicion of my taking the trust out of your hands, to employ some other, you yourself should betray your trust, dear sir? I mean, if you’ll give me leave to speak obscenely, you might tell, dear sir. Horner If I did, nobody would believe me. The reputation of impotency is as hardly recovered again in the world as that of cowardice, dear madam. Lady Fidget Nay, then, as one may say, you may do your worst, dear, dear sir. Sir Jasper Come, is your ladyship reconciled to him yet? have you agreed on matters? for I must be gone to Whitehall. Lady Fidget Why, indeed, Sir Jasper, Master Horner is a thousand, thousand times a better man than I thought him. Cousin Squeamish, sister Dainty, I can name him now. Truly, not long ago, you know, I thought his very name obscenity; and I would as soon have lain with him as have named him. Sir Jasper Very likely, poor madam. Mrs. Dainty I believe it. Mrs. Squeamish No doubt on’t. Sir Jasper Well, well⁠—that your ladyship is as virtuous as any she, I know, and him all the town knows⁠—he! he! he! therefore now you like him, get you gone to your business together, go, go to your business, I say, pleasure, whilst I go to my pleasure, business. Lady Fidget Come, then, dear gallant. Horner Come away, my dearest mistress. Sir Jasper So, so; why, ’tis as I’d have it. Exit. Horner And as I’d have it. Lady Fidget

Who for his business from his wife will run,
Takes the best care to have her business done.

Exeunt. Act III 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,