The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume IV Part 67

This posture to your friend had better suited The orphan Katherine in her humble school-days To the _then_ rich heiress, than the wife of Selby, Of wealthy Mr. Selby, To the poor widow Frampton, sunk as she is.

Come, come, 'Twas something, or 'twas nothing, that I said; I did not mean to fright you, sweetest bed-fellow!

You once were so, but Selby now engrosses you.

I'll make him give you up a night or so; In faith I will: that we may lie, and talk Old tricks of school-days over.

KATHERINE Hear me, madam--

MRS. FRAMPTON Not by that name. Your friend--

KATHERINE My truest friend, And saviour of my honour!

MRS. FRAMPTON This sounds better; You still shall find me such.

KATHERINE That you have graced Our poor house with your presence hitherto, Has been my greatest comfort, the sole solace Of my forlorn and hardly guess'd estate.

You have been pleased To accept some trivial hospitalities, In part of payment of a long arrear I owe to you, no less than for my life.

MRS. FRAMPTON You speak my services too large.

KATHERINE Nay, less; For what an abject thing were life to me Without your silence on my dreadful secret!

And I would wish the league we have renew'd Might be perpetual--

MRS. FRAMPTON Have a care, fine madam! [_Aside._]

KATHERINE That one house still might hold us. But my husband Has shown himself of late--

MRS. FRAMPTON How Mistress Selby?

KATHERINE Not, not impatient. You misconstrue him.

He honours, and he loves, nay, he must love The friend of his wife's youth. But there are moods In which--

MRS. FRAMPTON I understand you;--in which husbands, And wives that love, may wish to be alone, To nurse the tender fits of new-born dalliance, After a five years' wedlock.

KATHERINE Was that well Or charitably put? do these pale cheeks Proclaim a wanton blood? this wasting form Seem a fit theatre for Levity To play his love-tricks on; and act such follies, As even in Affection's first bland Moon Have less of grace than pardon in best wedlocks?

I was about to say, that there are times, When the most frank and sociable man May surfeit on most loved society, Preferring loneness rather--

MRS. FRAMPTON To my company--

KATHERINE Ay, your's, or mine, or any one's. Nay, take Not this unto yourself. Even in the newness Of our first married loves 'twas sometimes so.

For solitude, I have heard my Selby say, Is to the mind as rest to the corporal functions; And he would call it oft, the _day's soft sleep._

MRS. FRAMPTON What is your drift? and whereto tends this speech, Rhetorically labour'd?

KATHERINE That you would Abstain but from our house a month, a week; I make request but for a single day.

MRS. FRAMPTON A month, a week, a day! A single hour In every week, and month, and the long year, And all the years to come! My footing here, Slipt once, recovers never. From the state Of gilded roofs, attendance, luxuries, Parks, gardens, sauntering walks, or wholesome rides, To the bare cottage on the withering moor, Where I myself am servant to myself, Or only waited on by blackest thoughts-- I sink, if this be so. No; here I sit.

KATHERINE Then I am lost for ever!

[_Sinks at her feet--curtain drops._]

SCENE.--_An Apartment, contiguous to the last_.

SELBY, _as if listening_.

SELBY The sounds have died away. What am I changed to?

What do I here, list'ning like to an abject, Or heartless wittol, that must hear no good, If he hear aught? "This shall to the ear of your husband."

It was the Widow's word. I guess'd some mystery, And the solution with a vengeance comes.

What can my wife have left untold to me, That must be told by proxy? I begin To call in doubt the course of her life past Under my very eyes. She hath not been good, Not virtuous, not discreet; she hath not outrun My wishes still with prompt and meek observance.

Perhaps she is not fair, sweet-voiced; her eyes Not like the dove's; all this as well may be, As that she should entreasure up a secret In the peculiar closet of her breast, And grudge it to my ear. It is my right To claim the halves in any truth she owns, As much as in the babe I have by her; Upon whose face henceforth I fear to look, Lest I should fancy in its innocent brow Some strange shame written.

_Enter Lucy_.

Sister, an anxious word with you.

From out the chamber, where my wife but now Held talk with her encroaching friend, I heard (Not of set purpose heark'ning, but by chance) A voice of chiding, answer'd by a tone Of replication, such as the meek dove Makes, when the kite has clutch'd her. The high Widow Was loud and stormy. I distinctly heard One threat p.r.o.nounced--"Your husband shall know all."

I am no listener, sister; and I hold A secret, got by such unmanly s.h.i.+ft, The pitiful'st of thefts; but what mine ear, I not intending it, receives perforce, I count my lawful prize. Some subtle meaning Lurks in this fiend's behaviour; which, by force, Or fraud, I must make mine.

LUCY The gentlest means Are still the wisest. What, if you should press Your wife to a disclosure?

SELBY I have tried All gentler means; thrown out low hints, which, though Merely suggestions still, have never fail'd To blanch her cheek with fears. Roughlier to insist, Would be to kill, where I but meant to heal.

LUCY Your own description gave that Widow out As one not much precise, nor over coy, And nice to listen to a suit of love.

What if you feign'd a courts.h.i.+p, putting on, (To work the secret from her easy faith,) For honest ends, a most dishonest seeming?

SELBY I see your drift, and partly meet your counsel.

But must it not in me appear prodigious, To say the least, unnatural, and suspicious, To move hot love, where I have shewn cool scorn, And undissembled looks of blank aversion?

LUCY Vain woman is the dupe of her own charms, And easily credits the resistless power, That in besieging Beauty lies, to cast down The slight-built fortress of a casual hate.

SELBY I am resolved--

LUCY Success attend your wooing!

SELBY And I'll about it roundly, my wise sister. [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE.--_The Library_.

MR. SELBY. MRS. FRAMPTON.

SELBY A fortunate encounter, Mistress Frampton.

My purpose was, if you could spare so much From your sweet leisure, a few words in private.