LADY. 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 balladmonger.
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 night-cap 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?
FOIB. 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. No damage? What, to betray me, to marry me to a cast serving-man;
to make me a receptacle, an hospital for a decayed pimp? No damage? O
thou frontless impudence, more than a big-bellied actress!
FOIB. 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. 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
second-hand 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.
FOIB. Oh, that ever I was born! Oh, that I was ever married! A bride?
Ay, I shall be a Bridewell bride. Oh!
SCENE II.
MRS. FAINALL, FOIBLE.
MRS. FAIN. Poor Foible, what’s the matter?
FOIB. 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. FAIN. Have a good heart, Foible: Mirabell’s gone to give security
for him. This is all Marwood’s and my husband’s doing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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