The Conscious Lovers

Mr. Myrtle. Bevil Jr. Very well, do you step again, and wait for an answer to my letter. Exit Tom. Enter Myrtle. Bevil Jr. Well, Charles, why so much care in thy countenance? Is there anything in this world deserves it? You, who used to be so gay, so open, so vacant! Myrtle I think we have of late changed complexions. You, who used to be much the graver man, are now all air in your behaviour.⁠—But the cause of my concern may, for aught I know, be the same object that gives you all this satisfaction. In a word, I am told that you are this very day⁠—and your dress confirms me in it⁠—to be married to Lucinda. Bevil Jr. You are not misinformed.⁠—Nay, put not on the terrors of a rival till you hear me out. I shall disoblige the best of fathers if I don’t seem ready to marry Lucinda; and you know I have ever told you you might make use of my secret resolution never to marry her for your own service as you please; but I am now driven to the extremity of immediately refusing or complying unless you help me to escape the match. Myrtle Escape? Sir, neither her merit or her fortune are below your acceptance⁠—Escaping do you call it? Bevil Jr. Dear sir, do you wish I should desire the match? Myrtle No; but such is my humorous and sickly state of mind since it has been able to relish nothing but Lucinda, that though I must owe my happiness to your aversion to this marriage, I can’t bear to hear her spoken of with levity or unconcern. Bevil Jr. Pardon me, sir, I shall transgress that way no more. She has understanding, beauty, shape, complexion, wit⁠— Myrtle Nay, dear Bevil, don’t speak of her as if you loved her neither. Bevil Jr. Why, then, to give you ease at once, though I allow Lucinda to have good sense, wit, beauty, and virtue, I know another in whom these qualities appear to me more amiable than in her. Myrtle There you spoke like a reasonable and good-natured friend. When you acknowledge her merit, and own your prepossession for another, at once you gratify my fondness and cure my jealousy. Bevil Jr. But all this while you take no notice, you have no apprehension, of another man that has twice the fortune of either of us. Myrtle Cimberton!25 hang him, a formal, philosophical, pedantic coxcomb; for the sot, with all these crude notions of diverse things, under the direction of great vanity and very little judgment, shows his strongest bias is avarice; which is so predominant in him that he will examine the limbs of his mistress with the caution of a jockey, and pays no more compliment to her personal charms than if she were a mere breeding animal. Bevil Jr. Are you sure that is not affected? I have known some women sooner set on fire by that sort of negligence than by⁠— Myrtle No, no; hang him, the rogue has no art; it is pure, simple insolence and stupidity. Bevil Jr. Yet, with all this, I don’t take him for a fool. Myrtle I own the man is not a natural; he has a very quick sense, though very slow understanding. He says, indeed, many things that want only the circumstances of time and place to be very just and agreeable. Bevil Jr. Well, you may be sure of me if you can disappoint him; but my intelligence says the mother has actually sent for the conveyancer to draw articles for his marriage with Lucinda, though those for mine with her are, by her father’s orders, ready for signing; but it seems she has not thought fit to consult either him or his daughter in the matter. Myrtle Pshaw! a poor troublesome woman. Neither Lucinda nor her father will ever be brought to comply with it. Besides, I am sure Cimberton can make no settlement upon her without the concurrence of his great uncle, Sir Geoffry, in the west. Bevil Jr. Well, sir, and I can tell you that’s the very point that is now laid before her counsel, to know whether a firm settlement can be made without his uncle’s actual joining in it. Now, pray consider, sir, when my affair with Lucinda comes, as it soon must, to an open rupture, how are you sure that Cimberton’s fortune may not then tempt her father, too, to hear his proposals? Myrtle There you are right, indeed; that must be provided against. Do you know who are her counsel? Bevil Jr. Yes, for your service I have found out that, too. They are Serjeant Bramble and Old Target⁠—by the way, they are neither of them known in the family. Now, I was thinking why you might not put a couple of false counsel upon her to delay and confound matters a little; besides, it may probably let you into the bottom of her whole design against you. Myrtle As how, pray? Bevil Jr. Why, can’t you slip on a black wig and a gown, and be Old Bramble yourself? Myrtle Ha! I don’t dislike it.⁠—But what shall I do for a brother in the case? Bevil Jr. What think you of my fellow, Tom? The rogue’s intelligent, and is a good mimic. All his part will be but to stutter heartily, for that’s old Target’s case. Nay, it would be an immoral thing to mock him were it not that his impertinence is the occasion of its breaking out to that degree. The conduct of the scene will chiefly lie upon you. Myrtle I like it of all things. If you’ll send Tom to my chambers, I will give him full instructions. This will certainly give me occasion to raise difficulties, to puzzle or confound her project for a while at least. Bevil Jr. I’ll warrant you success.⁠—So far we are right, then. And now, Charles, your apprehension of my marrying her is all you have to get over. Myrtle Dear Bevil, though I know you are my friend, yet when I abstract