The Way of the World: Scene I.
Scene I.
Scene continues.
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 bird-cage. 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 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?
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
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!
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 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.
FOIBLE
Oh, that ever I was born! Oh, that I was ever married! A
bride? Ay, I shall be a Bridewell bride. Oh!