The Country Wife

epub:type="z3998:persona">Harcourt Ay, to poor Horner ’tis like coming to an estate at threescore, when a man can’t be the better for’t. Pinchwife Come. Mrs. Pinchwife Presently, bud. Dorilant Come, let us go too.⁠—To Alithea. Madam, your servant.⁠—To Lucy. Good night, strapper. Harcourt Madam, though you will not let me have a good day or night, I wish you one; but dare not name the other half of my wish. Alithea Good night, sir, forever. Mrs. Pinchwife I don’t know where to put this here, dear bud, you shall eat it; nay, you shall have part of the fine gentleman’s good things, or treat, as you call it, when we come home. Pinchwife

Indeed, I deserve it, since I furnished the best part of it. Strikes away the orange.

The gallant treats presents, and gives the ball;
But ’tis the absent cuckold pays for all.

Exeunt.

Act IV

Scene I

Pinchwife’s house in the morning.

	Enter Alithea dressed in new clothes, and Lucy.
Lucy	Well⁠—madam, now have I dressed you, and set you out with so many ornaments, and spent upon you ounces of essence and pulvillio;8 and all this for no other purpose but as people adorn and perfume a corpse for a stinking secondhand grave: such, or as bad, I think Master Sparkish’s bed.
Alithea	Hold your peace.
Lucy	Nay, madam, I will ask you the reason why you would banish poor Master Harcourt forever from your sight; how could you be so hardhearted?
Alithea	’Twas because I was not hardhearted.
Lucy	No, no; ’twas stark love and kindness, I warrant.
Alithea	It was so; I would see him no more because I love him.
Lucy	Hey day, a very pretty reason!
Alithea	You do not understand me.
Lucy	I wish you may yourself.
Alithea	I was engaged to marry, you see, another man, whom my justice will not suffer me to deceive or injure.
Lucy	Can there be a greater cheat or wrong done to a man than to give him your person without your heart? I should make a conscience of it.
Alithea	I’ll retrieve it for him after I am married a while.
Lucy	The woman that marries to love better, will be as much mistaken as the wencher that marries to live better. No, madam, marrying to increase love is like gaming to become rich; alas! you only lose what little stock you had before.
Alithea	I find by your rhetoric you have been bribed to betray me.
Lucy	Only by his merit, that has bribed your heart, you see, against your word and rigid honour. But what a devil is this honour! ’tis sure a disease in the head, like the megrim or falling-sickness, that always hurries people away to do themselves mischief. Men lose their lives by it; women, what’s dearer to ’em, their love, the life of life.
Alithea	Come, pray talk you no more of honour, nor Master Harcourt; I wish the other would come to secure my fidelity to him and his right in me.
Lucy	You will marry him then?
Alithea	Certainly, I have given him already my word, and will my hand too, to make it good, when he comes.
Lucy	Well, I wish I may never stick pin more, if he be not an arrant natural, to t’other fine gentleman.
Alithea	I own he wants the wit of Harcourt, which I will dispense withal for another want he has, which is want of jealousy, which men of wit seldom want.
Lucy	Lord, madam, what should you do with a fool to your husband? You intend to be honest, don’t you? then that husbandly virtue, credulity, is thrown away upon you.
Alithea	He only that could suspect my virtue should have cause to do it; ’tis Sparkish’s confidence in my truth that obliges me to be so faithful to him.
Lucy	You are not sure his opinion may last.
Alithea	I am satisfied, ’tis impossible for him to be jealous after the proofs I have had of him. Jealousy in a husband⁠—Heaven defend me from it! it begets a thousand plagues to a poor woman, the loss of her honour, her quiet, and her⁠—
Lucy	And her pleasure.
Alithea	What d’ye mean, impertinent?
Lucy	Liberty is a great pleasure, madam.
Alithea	I say, loss of her honour, her quiet, nay, her life sometimes; and what’s as bad almost, the loss of this town; that is, she is sent into the country, which is the last ill-usage of a husband to a wife, I think.
Lucy	Aside. O, does the wind lie there?⁠—Aloud. Then of necessity, madam, you think a man must carry his wife into the country, if he be wise. The country is as terrible, I find, to our young English ladies, as a monastery to those abroad; and on my virginity, I think they would rather marry a London jailer, than a high sheriff of a county, since neither can stir from his employment. Formerly women of wit married fools for a great estate, a fine seat, or the like; but now ’tis for a pretty seat only in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, St. James’s-Fields, or the Pall-Mall.
	Enter Sparkish, and Harcourt, dressed like a Parson.
Sparkish	Madam, your humble servant, a happy day to you, and to us all.
Harcourt	Amen.
Alithea	Who have we here?
Sparkish	My chaplain, faith⁠—O madam, poor Harcourt remembers his humble service to you; and, in obedience to your last commands, refrains coming into your sight.
Alithea	Is not that he?
Sparkish	No, fy, no; but to show that he ne’er intended to hinder our match, has sent his brother here to join our hands. When I get me a wife, I must get her a chaplain, according to the custom; that is his brother, and my chaplain.
Alithea	His brother!
Lucy	And your chaplain, to preach in your pulpit then⁠—Aside.
Alithea	His brother!
Sparkish	Nay, I knew you would not believe it.⁠—I told you, sir, she would take you for your brother Frank.
Alithea	Believe it!
Lucy	His brother! ha! ha! he! he has a trick left still, it seems. Aside.
Sparkish	Come, my dearest, pray let us go to