The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (story books to read TXT) 📖

/> [Exit LUCY.]

Surely I heard my cousin Julia's voice.

[Re-enter LUCY.]

LUCY Lud! ma'am, here is Miss Melville.

LYDIA Is it possible! - -

[Exit LUCY.]

[Enter JULIA.]

LYDIA My dearest Julia, how delighted am I! - [Embrace.] How unexpected was this happiness!

JULIA True, Lydia - and our pleasure is the greater. - But what has been the matter? - you were denied to me at first!

LYDIA Ah, Julia, I have a thousand things to tell you! - But first inform me what has conjured you to Bath? - Is Sir Anthony here?

JULIA He is - we are arrived within this hour - and I suppose he will be here to wait on Mrs. Malaprop as soon as he is dressed.

LYDIA Then before we are interrupted, let me impart to you some of my distress! - I know your gentle nature will sympathize with me, though your prudence may condemn me! My letters have informed you of my whole connection with Beverley; but I have lost him, Julia! My aunt has discovered our intercourse by a note she intercepted, and has confined me ever since! Yet, would you believe it? she has absolutely fallen in love with a tall Irish baronet she met one night since we have been here, at Lady Macshuffle's rout.

JULIA You jest, Lydia!

LYDIA No, upon my word. - She really carries on a kind of correspondence with him, under a feigned name though, till she chooses to be known to him: - but it is a Delia or a Celia, I assure you.

JULIA Then, surely, she is now more indulgent to her niece.

LYDIA Quite the contrary. Since she has discovered her own frailty, she is become more suspicious of mine. Then I must inform you of another plague! - That odious Acres is to be in Bath to-day; so that I protest I shall be teased out of all spirits!

JULIA Come, come, Lydia, hope for the best - Sir Anthony shall use his interest with Mrs. Malaprop.

LYDIA But you have not heard the worst. Unfortunately I had quarrelled with my poor Beverley, just before my aunt made the discovery, and I have not seen him since, to make it up.

JULIA What was his offence?

LYDIA Nothing at all! - But, I don't know how it was, as often as we had been together, we had never had a quarrel, and, somehow, I was afraid he would never give me an opportunity. So, last Thursday, I wrote a letter to myself, to inform myself that Beverley was at that time paying his addresses to another woman. I signed it your friend unknown , showed it to Beverley, charged him with his falsehood, put myself in a violent passion, and vowed I'd never see him more.

JULIA And you let him depart so, and have not seen him since?

LYDIA 'Twas the next day my aunt found the matter out. I intended only to have teased him three days and a half, and now I've lost him for ever.

JULIA If he is as deserving and sincere as you have represented him to me, he will never give you up so. Yet consider, Lydia, you tell me he is but an ensign, and you have thirty thousand pounds.

LYDIA But you know I lose most of my fortune if I marry without my aunt's consent, till of age; and that is what I have determined to do, ever since I knew the penalty. Nor could I love the man who would wish to wait a day for the alternative.

JULIA Nay, this is caprice!

LYDIA What, does Julia tax me with caprice? - I thought her lover Faulkland had inured her to it.

JULIA I do not love even his faults.

LYDIA But apropos - you have sent to him, I suppose?

JULIA Not yet, upon my word - nor has he the least idea of my being in Bath. Sir Anthony's resolution was so sudden, I could not inform him of it.

LYDIA Well, Julia, you are your own mistress, (though under the protection of Sir Anthony), yet have you, for this long year, been a slave to the caprice, the whim, the jealousy of this ungrateful Faulkland, who will ever delay assuming the right of a husband, while you suffer him to be equally imperious as a lover.

JULIA Nay, you are wrong entirely. We were contracted before my father's death. That, and some consequent embarrassments, have delayed what I know to be my Faulkland's most ardent wish. He is too generous to trifle on such a point: - and for his character, you wrong him there, too. No, Lydia, he is too proud, too noble to be jealous; if he is captious, 'tis without dissembling; if fretful, without rudeness. Unused to the fopperies of love, he is negligent of the little duties expected from a lover - but being unhackneyed in the passion, his affection is ardent and sincere; and as it engrosses his whole soul, he expects every thought and emotion of his mistress to move in unison with his. Yet, though his pride calls for this full return, his humility makes him undervalue those qualities in him which would entitle him to it; and not feeling why he should be loved to the degree he wishes, he still suspects that he is not loved enough. This temper, I must own, has cost me many unhappy hours; but I have learned to think myself his debtor, for those imperfections which arise from the ardour of his attachment.

LYDIA Well, I cannot blame you for defending him. But tell me candidly, Julia, had he never saved your life, do you think you should have been attached to him as you are? - Believe me, the rude blast that overset your boat was a prosperous gale of love to him.

JULIA Gratitude may have strengthened my attachment to Mr. Faulkland, but I loved him before he had preserved me; yet surely that alone were an obligation sufficient.

LYDIA Obligation! why a water spaniel would have done as much! - Well, I should never think of giving my heart to a man because he could swim.

JULIA Come, Lydia, you are too inconsiderate.

LYDIA Nay, I do but jest. - What's here?

[Re-enter LUCY in a hurry.]

LUCY O ma'am, here is Sir Anthony Absolute just come home with your aunt.

LYDIA They'll not come here. - Lucy, do you watch.

[Exit LUCY.]

JULIA Yet I must go. Sir Anthony does not know I am here, and if we meet, he'll detain me, to show me the town. I'll take another opportunity of paying my respects to Mrs. Malaprop, when she shall treat me, as long as she chooses, with her select words so ingeniously misapplied, without being mispronounced.

[Re-enter LUCY.]

LUCY O Lud! ma'am, they are both coming up stairs.

LYDIA Well, I'll not detain you, coz. - Adieu, my dear Julia. I'm sure you are in haste to send to Faulkland. - There - through my room you'll find another staircase.

JULIA Adieu! [Embraces LYDIA, and exit.]

LYDIA Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books. Quick, quick! - Fling Peregrine Pickle under the toilet - throw Roderick Random into the closet - put
The Innocent Adultery into The Whole Duty of Man - thrust Lord Aimworth under the sofa - cram Ovid behind the bolster - there - put
The Man of Feeling into your pocket - so, so - now lay Mrs. Chapone in sight, and leave Fordyce's Sermons open on the table.

LUCY O burn it, ma'am! the hair-dresser has torn away as far as Proper Pride .

LYDIA Never mind - open at Sobriety . - Fling me Lord Chesterfields Letters . - Now for 'em.

[Exit LUCY.]

[Enter Mrs. MALAPROP, and Sir ANTHONY ABSOLUTE.]

Mrs. MALAPROP There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deliberate simpleton who wants to disgrace her family, and lavish herself on a fellow not worth a shilling.

LYDIA Madam, I thought you once - -

Mrs. MALAPROP You thought, miss! I don't know any business you have to think at all - thought does not become a young woman. But the point we would request of you is, that you will promise to forget this fellow - to illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.

LYDIA Ah, madam! our memories are independent of our wills. It is not so easy to forget.

Mrs. MALAPROP But I say it is, miss; there is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I'm sure I have as much forgot your poor dear uncle as if he had never existed - and I thought it my duty so to do; and let me tell you, Lydia, these violent memories don't become a young woman.

Sir ANTHONY Why sure she won't pretend to remember what she's ordered not! - ay, this comes of her reading!

LYDIA What crime, madam, have I committed, to be treated thus?

Mrs. MALAPROP Now don't attempt to extirpate yourself from the matter; you know I have proof controvertible of it. - But tell me, will you promise to do as you're bid? Will you take a husband of your friends' choosing?

LYDIA Madam, I must tell you plainly, that had I no preferment for any one else, the choice you have made would be my aversion.

Mrs. MALAPROP What business have you, miss, with preference and aversion? They don't become a young woman; and you ought to know, that as both always wear off, 'tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle before marriage as if he'd been a blackamoor - and yet, miss, you are sensible what a wife I made! - and when it pleased Heaven to release me from him, 'tis unknown what tears I shed! - But suppose we were going to give you another choice, will you promise us to give up this Beverley?

LYDIA Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that promise, my actions would certainly as far belie my words.

Mrs. MALAPROP Take yourself to your room. - You are fit company for nothing but your own ill-humours.

LYDIA Willingly, ma'am - I cannot change for the worse. [Exit.]

Mrs. MALAPROP There's a little intricate hussy for you!

Sir ANTHONY It is not to be wondered at, ma'am, - all this is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. Had I a thousand daughters, by Heaven! I'd as soon have them taught the black art as their alphabet!

Mrs. MALAPROP Nay, nay, Sir Anthony, you are an absolute misanthropy.

Sir ANTHONY In my way hither, Mrs. Malaprop, I observed your niece's maid coming forth from a circulating library! - She had a book in each hand - they were half-bound volumes, with marble covers! - From that moment I guessed how full of duty I should see her mistress!

Mrs. MALAPROP Those are vile places, indeed!

Sir ANTHONY Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge! It blossoms through the year! - And depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long for the fruit at last.

Mrs. MALAPROP Fy, fy, Sir Anthony! you surely speak laconically.