University of Virginia Library

Scene.—The Library.
Mr. Selby, Mrs. Frampton.
SELBY.
A fortunate encounter, Mistress Frampton.
My purpose was, if you can spare so much
From your sweet leisure, a few words in private.

MRS. FRAMPTON.
[Aside.

SELBY.
No more of that.—
I know not why, my wife hath lost of late
Much of her cheerful spirits.

MRS. FRAMPTON.
It was my topic
To-day; and every day, and all day long,
I still am chiding with her. “Child,” I said,
And said it pretty roundly—it may be
I was too peremptory—we elder school-fellows,
Presuming on the advantage of a year
Or two, which, in that tender time, seem'd much,
In after years, much like to elder sisters,
Are prone to keep the authoritative style,
When time has made the difference most ridiculous—

SELBY.
The observation's shrewd.

MRS. FRAMPTON.
“Child,” I was saying,
“If some wives had obtained a lot like yours,”
And then perhaps I sigh'd, “they would not sit
In corners moping, like to sullen moppets
That want their will, but dry their eyes, and look
Their cheerful husbands in the face,” perhaps
I said, their Selby's, “with proportion'd looks
Of honest joy.”

SELBY.
You do suspect no jealousy?

MRS. FRAMPTON.

SELBY.
I do not know, but women have their fancies;
And underneath a cold indifference,
Or show of some distaste, husbands have mask'd
A growing fondness for a female friend,
Which the wife's eye was sharp enough to see,
Before the friend had wit to find it out.
You do not quit us soon?

MRS. FRAMPTON.
'Tis as I find
Your Katherine profits by my lessons, sir.—
Means this man honest? Is there no deceit?

[Aside.
SELBY.
She cannot chuse.—Well, well, I have been thinking,
And if the matter were to do again—

MRS. FRAMPTON.
What matter, sir?

SELBY.
This idle bond of wedlock;
These sour-sweet briars, fetters of harsh silk;
I might have made, I do not say a better,
But a more fit choice in a wife.

MRS. FRAMPTON.
The parch'd ground,
In hottest Julys, drinks not in the showers
More greedily, than I his words!

[Aside.
SELBY.
My humour
Is to be frank and jovial; and that man
Affects me best, who most reflects me in
My most free temper.

MRS. FRAMPTON.
Were you free to chuse,
As jestingly I'll put the supposition,
Without a thought reflecting on your Katherine,
What sort of woman would you make your choice?

SELBY.
I like your humour, and will meet your jest.
She should be one about my Katherine's age;
But not so old, by some ten years, in gravity.
One that would meet my mirth, sometimes outrun it;
No puling, pining moppet, as you said,
Nor moping maid, that I must still be teaching
The freedoms of a wife all her life after:
But one, that, having worn the chain before,
(And worn it lightly, as report gave out,)
Enfranchised from it by her poor fool's death,
Took it not so to heart that I need dread
To die myself, for fear a second time
To wet a widow's eye.

MRS. FRAMPTON.
Some widows, sir,
Hearing you talk so wildly, would be apt
To put strange misconstruction on your words,
As aiming at a Turkish liberty,
Where the free husband hath his several mates,
His Penseroso, his Allegro wife,
To suit his sober, or his frolic fit.

SELBY.
How judge you of that latitude?

MRS. FRAMPTON.
As one,
In European customs bred, must judge. Had I
Been born a native of the liberal East,
I might have thought as they do. Yet I knew
A married man that took a second wife,
And (the man's circumstances duly weigh'd,
With all their bearings) the considerate world
Nor much approved, nor much condemn'd the deed.

SELBY.
You move my wonder strangely. Pray, proceed.

MRS. FRAMPTON.
An eye of wanton liking he had placed
Upon a Widow, who liked him again,
But stood on terms of honourable love,
And scrupled wronging his most virtuous wife—
When to their ears a lucky rumour ran,
That this demure and saintly-seeming wife
Had a first husband living; with the which
Being question'd, she but faintly could deny.
“A priest indeed there was; some words had past,
But scarce amounting to a marriage rite.
Her friend was absent; she supposed him dead;
And, seven years parted, both were free to chuse.”

SELBY.
What did the indignant husband? Did he not
With violent handlings stigmatize the cheek
Of the deceiving wife, who had entail'd
Shame on their innocent babe?

MRS. FRAMPTON.
He neither tore
His wife's locks nor his own; but wisely weighing
His own offence with her's in equal poise,
And woman's weakness 'gainst the strength of man,
Came to a calm and witty compromise.
He coolly took his gay-faced widow home,
Made her his second wife; and still the first
Lost few or none of her prerogatives.
The servants call'd her mistress still; she kept
The keys, and had the total ordering
Of the house affairs; and, some slight toys excepted,
Was all a moderate wife would wish to be.

SELBY.
A tale full of dramatic incident!—
And if a man should put it in a play,
How should he name the parties?

MRS. FRAMPTON.
The man's name
Through time I have forgot—the widow's too;—
But his first wife's first name, her maiden one,
Was—not unlike to that your Katherine bore,
Before she took the honour'd style of Selby.

SELBY.
A dangerous meaning in your riddle lurks.
One knot is yet unsolved; that told, this strange
And most mysterious drama ends. The name
Of that first husband—

Enter Lucy.
MRS. FRAMPTON.
Sir, your pardon—
The allegory fits your private ear.
Some half hour hence, in the garden's secret walk,
We shall have leisure.

[Exit.
SELBY.
Sister, whence come you?

LUCY.
From your poor Katherine's chamber, where she droops
In sad presageful thoughts, and sighs, and weeps,
And seems to pray by turns. At times she looks
As she would pour her secret in my bosom—
Then starts, as I have seen her, at the mention
Of some immodest act. At her request,
I left her on her knees.

SELBY.
The fittest posture;
For great has been her fault to Heaven and me.
She married me, with a first husband living,
Or not known not to be so, which, in the judgment
Of any but indifferent honesty,
Must be esteem'd the same. The shallow Widow,
Caught by my art, under a riddling veil
Too thin to hide her meaning, hath confess'd all.
Your coming in broke off the conference,
When she was ripe to tell the fatal name,
That seals my wedded doom.

LUCY.
Was she so forward
To pour her hateful meanings in your ear
At the first hint?

SELBY.
Her newly flatter'd hopes
Array'd themselves at first in forms of doubt;
And with a female caution she stood off
Awhile, to read the meaning of my suit,
Which with such honest seeming I enforced,
That her cold scruples soon gave way; and now
She rests prepared, as mistress, or as wife,
To seize the place of her betrayed friend—
My much offending, but more suffering, Katherine.

LUCY.
Into what labyrinth of fearful shapes
My simple project has conducted you—
Were but my wit as skilful to invent
A clue to lead you forth!—I call to mind
A letter, which your wife received from the Cape,
Soon after you were married, with some circumstances
Of mystery too.

SELBY.
I well remember it.
That letter did confirm the truth (she said)
Of a friend's death, which she had long fear'd true,
But knew not for a fact. A youth of promise
She gave him out—a hot adventurous spirit—
That had set sail in quest of golden dreams,
And cities in the heart of Central Afric;
But named no names, nor did I care to press
My question further, in the passionate grief
She shew'd at the receipt. Might this be he?

LUCY.
Tears were not all. When that first shower was past,
With clasped hands she raised her eyes to Heav'n,
As if in thankfulness for some escape,
Or strange deliverance, in the news implied,
Which sweeten'd that sad news.

SELBY.
Something of that
I noted also—

LUCY.
In her closet once,
Seeking some other trifle, I espied
A ring, in mournful characters deciphering
The death of “Robert Halford, aged two
And twenty.” Brother, I am not given
To the confident use of wagers, which I hold
Unseemly in a woman's argument;
But I am strangely tempted now to risk
A thousand pounds out of my patrimony,
(And let my future husband look to it,
If it be lost,) that this immodest Widow
Shall name the name that tallies with that ring.

SELBY.
That wager lost, I should be rich indeed—
Rich in my rescued Kate—rich in my honour,
Which now was bankrupt. Sister, I accept
Your merry wager, with an aching heart
For very fear of winning. 'Tis the hour
That I should meet my Widow in the walk,
The south side of the garden. On some pretence
Lure forth my Wife that way, that she may witness
Our seeming courtship. Keep us still in sight,
Yourselves unseen; and by some sign I'll give,
(A finger held up, or a kerchief waved,)
You'll know your wager won—then break upon us,
As if by chance.

LUCY.
I apprehend your meaning—

SELBY.
And may you prove a true Cassandra here,
Though my poor acres smart for't, wagering sister.

[Exeunt.