Love for Love | Page 8

loth to be thus pressing, but my necessity -
VAL. No apology, good Mr Scrivener, you shall be paid.
TRAP. I hope you forgive me; my business requires -
SCENE VIII.
VALENTINE, SCANDAL.
SCAN. He begs pardon like a hangman at an execution.
VAL. But I have got a reprieve.
SCAN. I am surprised; what, does your father relent?
VAL. No; he has sent me the hardest conditions in the world. You have heard of a booby brother of mine that was sent to sea three years ago? This brother, my father hears, is landed; whereupon he very affectionately sends me word; if I will make a deed of conveyance of my right to his estate, after his death, to my younger brother, he will immediately furnish me with four thousand pounds to pay my debts and make my fortune. This was once proposed before, and I refused it; but the present impatience of my creditors for their money, and my own impatience of confinement, and absence from Angelica, force me to consent.
SCAN. A very desperate demonstration of your love to Angelica; and I think she has never given you any assurance of hers.
VAL. You know her temper; she never gave me any great reason either for hope or despair.
SCAN. Women of her airy temper, as they seldom think before they act, so they rarely give us any light to guess at what they mean. But you have little reason to believe that a woman of this age, who has had an indifference for you in your prosperity, will fall in love with your ill-fortune; besides, Angelica has a great fortune of her own; and great fortunes either expect another great fortune, or a fool.
SCENE IX.
[To them] JEREMY.
JERE. More misfortunes, sir.
VAL. What, another dun?
JERE. No, sir, but Mr Tattle is come to wait upon you.
VAL. Well, I can't help it, you must bring him up; he knows I don't go abroad.
SCENE X.
VALENTINE, SCANDAL.
SCAN. Pox on him, I'll be gone.
VAL. No, prithee stay: Tattle and you should never be asunder; you are light and shadow, and show one another; he is perfectly thy reverse both in humour and understanding; and as you set up for defamation, he is a mender of reputations.
SCAN. A mender of reputations! Ay, just as he is a keeper of secrets, another virtue that he sets up for in the same manner. For the rogue will speak aloud in the posture of a whisper, and deny a woman's name while he gives you the marks of her person. He will forswear receiving a letter from her, and at the same time show you her hand in the superscription: and yet perhaps he has?counterfeited the hand too, and sworn to a truth; but he hopes not to be believed, and refuses the reputation of a lady's favour, as a Doctor says no to a Bishopric only that it may be granted him. In short, he is public professor of secrecy, and makes proclamation that he holds private intelligence.--He's here.
SCENE XI.
[To them] TATTLE.
TATT. Valentine, good morrow; Scandal, I am yours: --that is, when you speak well of me.
SCAN. That is, when I am yours; for while I am my own, or anybody's else, that will never happen.
TATT. How inhuman!
VAL. Why Tattle, you need not be much concerned at anything that he says: for to converse with Scandal, is to play at losing loadum; you must lose a good name to him before you can win it for yourself.
TATT. But how barbarous that is, and how unfortunate for him, that the world shall think the better of any person for his calumniation! I thank heaven, it has always been a part of my character to handle the reputations of others very tenderly indeed.
SCAN. Ay, such rotten reputations as you have to deal with are to be handled tenderly indeed.
TATT. Nay, but why rotten? Why should you say rotten, when you know not the persons of whom you speak? How cruel that is!
SCAN. Not know 'em? Why, thou never had'st to do with anybody that did not stink to all the town.
TATT. Ha, ha, ha; nay, now you make a jest of it indeed. For there is nothing more known than that nobody knows anything of that nature of me. As I hope to be saved, Valentine, I never exposed a woman, since I knew what woman was.
VAL. And yet you have conversed with several.
TATT. To be free with you, I have. I don't care if I own that. Nay more (I'm going to say a bold word now) I never could meddle with a woman that had to do with anybody else.
SCAN. How?
VAL. Nay faith, I'm apt to believe him. Except her husband, Tattle.
TATT. Oh, that -
SCAN. What think you of that noble commoner, Mrs Drab?
TATT. Pooh, I know Madam Drab has made her brags in three or