Act 2 — SCENE.-Mrs. Selby's Chamber.

MRS. FRAMPTON. KATHERINE.

MRS. FRAMPTON Did I express myself in terms so strong?

KATHERINE As nothing could have more affrighted me.

MRS. FRAMPTON Think it a hurt friend's jest, in retribution Of a suspected cooling hospitality. And, for my staying here, or going hence, (Now I remember something of our argument,) Selby and I can settle that between us. You look amazed. What if your husband, child, Himself has courted me to stay?

KATHERINE You move My wonder and my pleasure equally.

MRS. FRAMPTON Yes, courted me to stay, waiv'd all objections. Made it a favour to yourselves; not me, His troublesome guest, as you surmised. Child, child! When I recall his flattering welcome, I Begin to think the burden of my presence Was—

KATHERINE What, for Heaven—

MRS. FRAMPTON A little, little spice Of jealousy—that's all—an honest pretext, No wife need blush for. Say that you should see (As oftentimes we widows take such freedoms, Yet still on this side virtue,) in a jest Your husband pat me on the cheek, or steal A kiss, while you were by,—not else, for virtue's sake.

KATHERINE I could endure all this, thinking my husband Meant it in sport—

MRS. FRAMPTON But if in downright earnest (Putting myself out of the question here) Your Selby, as I partly do suspect, Own'd a divided heart—

KATHERINE My own would break—

MRS. FRAMPTON Why, what a blind and witless fool it is, That will not see its gains, its infinite gains—

KATHERINE Gain in a loss, Or mirth in utter desolation!

MRS. FRAMPTON He doting on a face—suppose it mine, Or any other's tolerably fair— What need you care about a senseless secret?

KATHERINE Perplex'd and fearful woman! I in part Fathom your dangerous meaning. You have broke The worse than iron band, fretting the soul, By which you held me captive. Whether my husband Is what you gave him out, or your fool'd fancy But dreams he is so, either way I am free.

MRS. FRAMPTON It talks it bravely, blazons out its shame; A very heroine while on its knees; Rowe's Penitent, an absolute Calista!

KATHERINE Not to thy wretched self these tears are falling; But to my husband, and offended heaven, Some drops are due—and then I sleep in peace, Reliev'd from frightful dreams, my dreams though sad. [Exit.]

MRS. FRAMPTON I have gone too far. Who knows but in this mood She may forestall my story, win on Selby By a frank confession?—and the time draws on For our appointed meeting. The game's desperate, For which I play. A moment's difference May make it hers or mine. I fly to meet him. [Exit.]

SCENE.—A Garden.

MR. SELBY. MRS. FRAMPTON.

SELBY I am not so ill a guesser, Mrs. Frampton, Not to conjecture, that some passages In your unfinished story, rightly interpreted, Glanced at my bosom's peace; You knew my wife?

MRS. FRAMPTON Even from her earliest school-days.—What of that? Or how is she concerned in my fine riddles, Framed for the hour's amusement?

SELBY By my hopes Of my new interest conceived in you, And by the honest passion of my heart, Which not obliquely I to you did hint; Come from the clouds of misty allegory, And in plain language let me hear the worst. Stand I disgraced or no?

MRS. FRAMPTON Then, by my hopes Of my new interest conceiv'd in you, And by the kindling passion in my breast, Which through my riddles you had almost read, Adjured so strongly, I will tell you all. In her school years, then bordering on fifteen, Or haply not much past, she loved a youth—

SELBY My most ingenuous Widow—

MRS. FRAMPTON Met him oft By stealth, where I still of the party was—

SELBY Prime confidant to all the school, I warrant, And general go-between— [Aside.]

MRS. FRAMPTON One morn he came In breathless haste. "The ship was under sail, Or in few hours would be, that must convey Him and his destinies to barbarous shores, Where, should he perish by inglorious hands, It would be consolation in his death To have call'd his Katherine his."

SELBY Thus far the story Tallies with what I hoped. [Aside.]

MRS. FRAMPTON Wavering between The doubt of doing wrong, and losing him; And my dissuasions not o'er hotly urged, Whom he had flatter'd with the bride-maid's part;—

SELBY I owe my subtle Widow, then, for this. [Aside.]

MRS. FRAMPTON Briefly, we went to church. The ceremony Scarcely was huddled over, and the ring Yet cold upon her finger, when they parted— He to his ship; and we to school got back, Scarce miss'd, before the dinner-bell could ring.

SELBY And from that hour—

MRS. FRAMPTON Nor sight, nor news of him, For aught that I could hear, she e'er obtain'd.

SELBY Like to a man that hovers in suspense Over a letter just receiv'd, on which The black seal hath impress'd its ominous token, Whether to open it or no, so I Suspended stand, whether to press my fate Further, or check ill curiosity That tempts me to more loss.—The name, the name Of this fine youth?

MRS. FRAMPTON What boots it, if 'twere told?

SELBY Now, by our loves, And by my hopes of happier wedlocks, some day To be accomplish'd, give me his name!

MRS. FRAMPTON 'Tis no such serious matter. It was—Huntingdon.

SELBY How have three little syllables pluck'd from me A world of countless hopes!— [Aside.] Evasive Widow.

MRS. FRAMPTON How, Sir! I like not this. [Aside.]

SELBY No, no, I meant Nothing but good to thee. That other woman, How shall I call her but evasive, false, And treacherous?—by the trust I place in thee, Tell me, and tell me truly, was the name As you pronounced it?

MRS. FRAMPTON Huntingdon—the name, Which his paternal grandfather assumed, Together with the estates, of a remote Kinsman; but our high-spirited youth—

SELBY Yes—

MRS. FRAMPTON Disdaining For sordid pelf to truck the family honours, At risk of the lost estates, resumed the old style, And answer'd only to the name of—

SELBY What?

MRS. FRAMPTON Of Halford—

SELBY A Huntingdon to Halford changed so soon! Why, then I see, a witch hath her good spells, As well as bad, and can by a backward charm Unruffle the foul storm she has just been raising. [Aside.] [He makes the signal.]

My frank, fair spoken Widow! let this kiss, Which yet aspires no higher, speak my thanks, Till I can think on greater.

Enter LUCY and KATHERINE.

MRS. FRAMPTON Interrupted!

SELBY My sister here! and see, where with her comes My serpent gliding in an angel's form, To taint the new-born Eden of our joys. Why should we fear them? We'll not stir a foot, Nor coy it for their pleasures. [He courts the Widow.]

LUCY (to Katherine.)

This your free, And sweet ingenuous confession, binds me For ever to you; and it shall go hard, But it shall fetch you back your husband's heart, That now seems blindly straying; or at worst, In me you have still a sister.—Some wives, brother, Would think it strange to catch their husbands thus Alone with a trim widow; but your Katherine Is arm'd, I think, with patience.

KATHERINE I am fortified With knowledge of self-faults to endure worse wrongs, If they be wrongs, than he can lay upon me; Even to look on, and see him sue in earnest, As now I think he does it but in seeming, To that ill woman.

SELBY Good words, gentle Kate, And not a thought irreverent of our Widow. Why, 'twere unmannerly at any time, But most uncourteous on our wedding day, When we should shew most hospitable.—Some wine. [Wine is brought.]

I am for sports. And now I do remember, The old Egyptians at their banquets placed A charnel sight of dead men's skulls before them, With images of cold mortality, To temper their fierce joys when they grew rampant. I like the custom well: and ere we crown With freer mirth the day, I shall propose, In calmest recollection of our spirits, We drink the solemn "Memory of the dead."

MRS. FRAMPTON Or the supposed dead. [Aside to him.]

SELBY Pledge me, good wife. [She fills.] Nay, higher yet, till the brimm'd cup swell o'er.

KATHERINE I catch the awful import of your words; And, though I could accuse you of unkindness, Yet as your lawful and obedient wife, While that name lasts (as I perceive it fading, Nor I much longer may have leave to use it) I calmly take the office you impose; And on my knees, imploring their forgiveness, Whom I in heav'n or earth may have offended, Exempt from starting tears, and woman's weakness, I pledge you, Sir—the Memory of the Dead! [She drinks kneeling.]

SELBY 'Tis gently and discreetly said, and like My former loving Kate.

MRS. FRAMPTON Does he relent? [Aside.]

SELBY That ceremony past, we give the day To unabated sport. And, in requital Of certain stories, and quaint allegories, Which my rare Widow hath been telling to me To raise my morning mirth, if she will lend Her patient hearing, I will here recite A Parable; and, the more to suit her taste, The scene is laid in the East.

MRS. FRAMPTON I long to hear it. Some tale, to fit his wife. [Aside.]

KATHERINE Now, comes my TRIAL.

LUCY The hour of your deliverance is at hand, If I presage right. Bear up, gentlest sister.

SELBY "The Sultan Haroun"—Stay—O now I have it— "The Caliph Haroun in his orchards had A fruit-tree, bearing such delicious fruits, That he reserved them for his proper gust; And through the Palace it was Death proclaim'd To any one that should purloin the same."

MRS. FRAMPTON A heavy penance for so light a fault—

SELBY Pray you, be silent, else you put me out. "A crafty page, that for advantage watch'd, Detected in the act a brother page, Of his own years, that was his bosom friend; And thenceforth he became that other's lord, And like a tyrant he demean'd himself, Laid forced exactions on his fellow's purse; And when that poor means fail'd, held o'er his head Threats of impending death in hideous forms; Till the small culprit on his nightly couch Dream'd of strange pains, and felt his body writhe In tortuous pangs around the impaling stake."

MRS. FRAMPTON I like not this beginning—

SELBY Pray you, attend. "The Secret, like a night-hag, rid his sleeps, And took the youthful pleasures from his days, And chased the youthful smoothness from his brow, That from a rose-cheek'd boy he waned and waned To a pale skeleton of what he was; And would have died, but for one lucky chance."

KATHERINE Oh!

MRS. FRAMPTON Your wife—she faints—some cordial—smell to this.

SELBY Stand off. My sister best will do that office.

MRS. FRAMPTON Are all his tempting speeches come to this? [Aside.]

SELBY What ail'd my wife?

KATHERINE A warning faintness, sir, Seized on my spirits, when you came to where You said "a lucky chance." I am better now, Please you go on.

SELBY The sequel shall be brief.

KATHERINE But brief or long, I feel my fate hangs on it. [Aside.]

SELBY "One morn the Caliph, in a covert hid, Close by an arbour where the two boys talk'd (As oft, we read, that Eastern sovereigns Would play the eaves-dropper, to learn the truth, Imperfectly received from mouths of slaves,) O'erheard their dialogue; and heard enough To judge aright the cause, and know his cue. The following day a Cadi was dispatched To summon both before the judgment-seat: The lickerish culprit, almost dead with fear, And the informing friend, who readily, Fired with fair promises of large reward, And Caliph's love, the hateful truth disclosed."

MRS. FRAMPTON What did the Caliph to the offending boy, That had so grossly err'd?

SELBY His sceptred hand He forth in token of forgiveness stretch'd, And clapp'd his cheeks, and courted him with gifts, And he became once more his favourite page.

MRS. FRAMPTON But for that other—

SELBY He dismiss'd him straight, From dreams of grandeur and of Caliph's love, To the bare cottage on the withering moor, Where friends, turn'd fiends, and hollow confidants, And widows, hide, who, in a husband's ear, Pour baneful truths, but tell not all the truth; And told him not that Robert Halford died Some moons before his marriage-bells were rung. Too near dishonour hast thou trod, dear wife, And on a dangerous cast our fates were set; But Heav'n, that will'd our wedlock to be blest, Hath interposed to save it gracious too. Your penance is—to dress your cheek in smiles, And to be once again my merry Kate.—

Sister, your hand. Your wager won makes me a happy man, Though poorer, Heav'n knows, by a thousand pounds. The sky clears up after a dubious day. Widow, your hand. I read a penitence In this dejected brow; and in this shame Your fault is buried. You shall in with us, And, if it please you, taste our nuptial fare: For, till this moment, I can joyful say, Was never truly Selby's Wedding Day.

FINIS.