Part 43 (1/2)

LADY FROTH. We shall have whispering time enough, you know, since we are partners.

SCENE VIII.

LADY PLYANT _and_ CARELESS.

LADY PLYANT. Oh, Mr. Careless, Mr. Careless, I'm ruined, I'm undone.

CARE. What's the matter, madam?

LADY PLYANT. Oh, the unluckiest accident, I'm afraid I shan't live to tell it you.

CARE. Heaven forbid! What is it?

LADY PLYANT. I'm in such a fright; the strangest quandary and premunire!

I'm all over in a universal agitation; I dare swear every circ.u.mstance of me trembles. O your letter, your letter! By an unfortunate mistake I have given Sir Paul your letter instead of his own.

CARE. That was unlucky.

LADY PLYANT. Oh, yonder he comes reading of it; for heaven's sake step in here and advise me quickly before he sees.

SCENE IX.

SIR PAUL _with the Letter_.

SIR PAUL. O Providence, what a conspiracy have I discovered. But let me see to make an end on't. [_Reads_.] Hum--After supper in the wardrobe by the gallery. If Sir Paul should surprise us, I have a commission from him to treat with you about the very matter of fact. Matter of fact!

Very pretty; it seems that I am conducting to my own cuckoldom. Why, this is the very traitorous position of taking up arms by my authority, against my person! Well, let me see. Till then I languish in expectation of my adored charmer.--Dying Ned Careless. Gads-bud, would that were matter of fact too. Die and be d.a.m.ned for a Judas Maccabeus and Iscariot both. O friends.h.i.+p! what art thou but a name? Henceforward let no man make a friend that would not be a cuckold: for whomsoever he receives into his bosom will find the way to his bed, and there return his caresses with interest to his wife. Have I for this been pinioned, night after night for three years past? Have I been swathed in blankets till I have been even deprived of motion? Have I approached the marriage bed with reverence as to a sacred shrine, and denied myself the enjoyment of lawful domestic pleasures to preserve its purity, and must I now find it polluted by foreign iniquity? O my Lady Plyant, you were chaste as ice, but you are melted now, and false as water. But Providence has been constant to me in discovering this conspiracy; still, I am beholden to Providence. If it were not for Providence, sure, poor Sir Paul, thy heart would break.

SCENE X.

[_To him_] LADY PLYANT.

LADY PLYANT. So, sir, I see you have read the letter. Well, now, Sir Paul, what do you think of your friend Careless? Has he been treacherous, or did you give his insolence a licence to make trial of your wife's suspected virtue? D'ye see here? [_s.n.a.t.c.hes the letter as in anger_.] Look, read it. Gads my life, if I thought it were so, I would this moment renounce all communication with you. Ungrateful monster! He? is it so? Ay, I see it, a plot upon my honour; your guilty cheeks confess it. Oh, where shall wronged virtue fly for reparation?

I'll be divorced this instant.

SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, what shall I say? This is the strangest surprise.

Why, I don't know anything at all, nor I don't know whether there be anything at all in the world, or no.

LADY PLYANT. I thought I should try you, false man. I, that never dissembled in my life, yet to make trial of you, pretended to like that monster of iniquity, Careless, and found out that contrivance to let you see this letter, which now I find was of your own inditing--I do, heathen, I do. See my face no more; I'll be divorced presently.

SIR PAUL. O strange, what will become of me? I'm so amazed, and so overjoyed, so afraid, and so sorry. But did you give me this letter on purpose, he? Did you?

LADY PLYANT. Did I? Do you doubt me, Turk, Saracen? I have a cousin that's a proctor in the Commons; I'll go to him instantly.