Act the Third
Scene I The Dining Hall in Old Geraldine’s House
Enter Old Geraldine, Young Geraldine, Wincott and his Wife, Delavil, and Prudentilla.
Wincott.
We are bound to you, kind Master Geraldine,
For this great entertainment; troth, your cost
Hath much exceeded common neighbourhood;
You have feasted us like princes.
Old Geraldine.
This, and more
Many degrees, can never countervail25
The oft and frequent welcomes given my son:
You have took him from me quite, and have, I think,
Adopted him into your family,
He stays with me so seldom.
Wincott.
And in this,
By trusting him to me, of whom yourself
May have both use and pleasure, you’re as kind
As moneyed men, that might make benefit
Of what they are possessed, yet to their friends
In need will lend it gratis.
Wife.
And, like such
As are indebted more than they can pay,
We more and more confess ourselves engaged
To you for your forbearance.
Prudentilla.
Yet you see,
Like debtors, such as would not break their day,26
The treasure late received we tender back,
The which, the longer you can spare, you still
The more shall bind us to you.
Old Geraldine.
Most kind ladies,
Worthy you are to borrow, that return
The principal with such large use27 of thanks.
Delavil.
[Aside.] What strange felicity these rich men take
To talk of borrowing, lending, and of use!
The usurer’s language right.
Wincott.
You’ve, Master Geraldine,
Fair walks and gardens; I have praisèd them
Both to my wife and sister.
Old Geraldine.
You would see them?
There is no pleasure that the house can yield
That can be debarred from you.—Prithee, son,
Be thou the usher to those mounts and prospects
May one day call thee master.
Young Geraldine.
Sir, I shall.—
Please you to walk?
Prudentilla.
What, Master Delavil,
Will you not bear us company?
Delavil.
’Tis not fit
That we should leave our noble host alone.
Be you my friend’s charge, and this old man mine.
Prudentilla.
Well, be’t then at your pleasure.
[Exeunt all but Delavil and Old Geraldine.
Delavil.
You to your prospects, but there’s project here
That’s of another nature.—Worthy sir,
I cannot but approve your happiness
To be the father of so brave a son,
So every way accomplished and made up,
In which my voice is least; for I, alas!
Bear but a mean part in the common choir,
When with much louder accents of his praise
So all the world reports him.
Old Geraldine.
Thank my stars,
They have lent me one who, as he always was And is my present joy, if their aspect
Be no ways to our goods malevolent,
May be my future comfort.
Delavil.
Yet must I hold him happy above others,
As one that solely to himself enjoys
What many others aim at, but in vain.
Old Geraldine.
How mean you that?
Delavil.
So beautiful a mistress.
Old Geraldine.
A mistress, said you?
Delavil.
Yes, sir, or a friend,
Whether you please to style her.
Old Geraldine.
Mistress! friend!
Pray be more open-languaged.
Delavil.
And indeed
Who can blame him to absent himself from home,
And make his father’s house but as a grange28
For a beauty so attractive? or blame her,
Hugging so weak an old man in her arms,
To make a new choice of an equal youth,
Being in him so perfect? Yet, in troth,
I think they both are honest.
Old Geraldine.
You have, sir,
Possessed me with such strange fancies—
Delavil.
For my part,
How can I love the person of your son,
And not his reputation? His repair
So often to the house is voiced by all,
And frequent in the mouths of the whole country:
Some, equally addicted, praise his happiness,29
But others, more censorious and austere,
Blame and reprove a course so dissolute;
Each one in general pity the good man,
As one unfriendly dealt with, yet in my conscience
I think them truly honest.
Old Geraldine.
’Tis suspicious.
Delavil.
True, sir, at best; but what when scandalous tongues
Will make the worst, and what’s good in itself,
Sully and stain by fabulous misreport?
For let men live as chary as they can,
Their lives are often questioned; then no wonder
If such as give occasion of suspicion
Be subject to this scandal. What I speak
Is as a noble friend unto your son;
And therefore, as I glory in his fame,
I suffer in his wrong; for, as I live,
I think they both are honest.
Old Geraldine.
Howsoever,
I wish them so.
Delavil.
Some course might be devised
To stop this clamour ere it grow too rank,
Lest that which yet but inconvenience seems
May turn to greater mischief: this I speak
In zeal to both,—in sovereign care of him
As of a friend, and tender of her honour
As one to whom I hope to be allied
By marriage with her sister.
Old Geraldine.
I much thank you,
For you have clearly given me light of that Till now I never dreamt on.
Delavil.
’Tis my love,
And therefore I entreat you make not me
To be the first reporter.
Old Geraldine.
You have done
The office of a noble gentleman,
And shall not be so injured.
Re-enter Wincott and his Wife, Young Geraldine, and Prudentilla; the ladies wearing flowers.
Wincott.
See, Master Geraldine,
How bold we are; especially these ladies
Play little better than the thieves with you,
For they have robbed your garden.
Wife.
You might, sir,
Better have termed it sauciness than theft;
You see we blush not what we took in private
To wear in public view.
Prudentilla.
Besides, these cannot
Be missed out of so many; in full fields
The gleanings are allowed.
Old Geraldine.
These and the rest
Are, ladies, at your service.
Wincott.
Now to horse:
But one thing, ere we part, I must entreat,
In which my wife will be joint suitor with me,
My sister too.
Old Geraldine.
In what, I pray?
Wincott.
That he
Which brought us hither may but bring us home;
Your much-respected son.
Old Geraldine.
How men are born
To woo their own disasters! [Aside.
Wife.
But to see us
From whence he brought us, sir, that’s all.
Old Geraldine.
This second motion30 makes it palpable.
To note a woman’s cunning! Make her husband
Bawd to her own lascivious appetite,
And to solicit his own shame! [Aside.
Prudentilla.
Nay, sir;
When all of us join in so small a suit,
It were some injury to be denied.
Old Geraldine.
And work her sister too! What will not woman
To accomplish her own ends? But this disease
I’ll seek to physic ere it grow too far.— [Aside.
I am most sorry to be urged, sweet friends,
In what at this time I can no ways grant;
Most, that these ladies should be aught denied,
To whom I owe all service; but occasions
Of weighty and important consequence,
Such as concern the best of my estate,
Call him aside. Excuse us both this once;
Presume this business is no sooner over,
But he’s at his own freedom.
Wincott.
’Twere no manners
In us to urge it further.—We will leave you,
With promise, sir, that he shall in my will
Not be the last remembered.
Old Geraldine.
We are bound to you.—
See them to horse, and instantly return;
We have employments for you.
Young Geraldine.
Sir, I shall.
Delavil.
Remember your last promise.
[Exeunt Delavil, Wincott and his Wife, Prudentilla, and Young Geraldine.
Old Geraldine.
Not to do’t
I should forget myself.—If I find him false
To such a friend, be sure he forfeits me;
In which to be more punctually resolved,
I have a project how to sift his soul,
How ’tis inclined,—whether to yonder place,
[Re-enter Young Geraldine.]
The clear bright palace, or black dungeon. See,
They are onward on the way, and he returned.
Young Geraldine.
I now attend your pleasure.
Old Geraldine.
You are grown perfect man, and now you float,
Like to a well-built vessel, ’tween two currents,
Virtue and vice: take this, you steer to harbour;
Take that, to imminent shipwreck.
Young Geraldine.
Pray, your meaning?
Old Geraldine.
What fathers’ cares are, you shall never know,
Till you yourself have children. Now my study
Is how to make you such, that you in them
May have a feeling of my love to you.
Young Geraldine.
Pray, sir, expound yourself; for I protest,
Of all the languages I yet have learned,
This is to me most foreign.
Old Geraldine.
Then I shall;
I have lived to see you in your prime of youth
And height of fortune, so you will but take
Occasion by the forehead; to be brief,
And cut off all superfluous circumstance,
All the ambition that I aim at now
Is but to see you married.
Young Geraldine.
Married, sir!
Old Geraldine.
And, to that purpose, I have found out one
Whose youth and beauty may not only please
A curious eye, but her immediate means
Able to strengthen a state competent,
Or raise a ruined fortune.
Young Geraldine.
Of all which
I have, believe me, neither need nor use;
My competence best pleasing as it is,
And this my singularity31 of life
Most to my mind contenting.
Old Geraldine.
I suspect,
But yet must prove him further.— [Aside.
Say to my care I add a father’s charge,
And couple with my counsel my command—
To that how can you answer?
Young Geraldine.
That I hope
My duty and obedience, still unblamed,
Did never merit such austerity,
And from a father never yet displeased.
Old Geraldine.
Nay, then, to come more near unto the point:
Either you must resolve for present marriage,
Or forfeit all your interest in my love.
Young Geraldine.
Unsay that language, I entreat you, sir,
And do not so oppress me; or, if needs
Your heavy imposition stand in force,
Resolve me by your counsel. With more safety
May I infringe a sacred vow to Heaven,
Or to oppose me to your strict command?—
Since one of these I must.
Old Geraldine.
Now, Delavil,
I find thy words too true. [Aside.
Young Geraldine.
For marry, sir,
I neither may nor can.
Old Geraldine.
Yet whore you may,
And that’s no breach of any vow to Heaven;
Pollute the nuptial bed with mechal32 sin;
Asperse the honour of a noble friend;
Forfeit thy reputation here below,
And the interest that thy soul might claim above
In yon blest city! These you may, and can,
With untouched conscience. Oh that I should live
To see the hopes that I have stored so long
Thus in a moment ruined, and the staff
On which my old decrepit age should lean
Before my face thus broken; on which trusting,
I thus abortively, before my time,
Fall headlong to my grave. [Falls on the ground.
Young Geraldine.
It yet stands strong,
Both to support you unto future life
And fairer comfort.
Old Geraldine.
Never, never, son;
For till thou canst acquit thyself of scandal,
And me of my suspicion, here, even here,
Where I have measured out my length of earth,
I shall expire my last.
Young Geraldine.
Both these I can:
Then rise, sir, I entreat you; and that innocency,
Which poisoned by the breath of calumny
Cast you thus low, shall, these few stains wiped off,
With better thoughts erect you.
Old Geraldine.
Well, say on. [Rises.
Young Geraldine.
There’s but one fire from which this smoke may grow,
Namely, the unmatched yoke of youth and age,
In which, if ever I occasion was
Of the smallest breach, the greatest implacable mischief
Adultery can threaten fall on me!
Of you may I be disavowed a son,
And unto Heaven a servant! For that lady,
As she is beauty’s mirror, so I hold her For chastity’s example: from her tongue
Never came language that arrived my ear
That even censorious Cato, lived he now,
Could misinterpret; never from her lips
Came unchaste kiss, or from her constant eye
Look savouring of the least immodesty:
Further—
Old Geraldine.
Enough! One only thing remains,
Which, on thy part performed, assures firm credit
To these thy protestations.
Young Geraldine.
Name it then.
Old Geraldine.
Take hence the occasion of this common fame,
Which hath already spread itself so far
To her dishonour and thy prejudice:
From this day forward to forbear the house;
This do upon my blessing.
Young Geraldine.
As I hope it,
I will not fail your charge.
Old Geraldine.
I am satisfied.
[Exeunt.