Before Sir Francis’s house
Enter Old Franklin in mourning, young Cressingham with young Franklin disguis’d like an old serving-man.
CRESSINGHAM
Sir, your son’s death, which has apparell’d you
In this darker wearing, is a loss wherein
I have ample share: he was my friend.
OLD FRANKLIN
He was my nearest and dearest enemy,
And the perpetual fear of a worse end,
Had he continued his former dissolute course,
Makes me weigh his death the lighter.
CRESSINGHAM
Yet, sir,
With your pardon, if you value him every way
As he deserv’d, it will appear your scanting
Of his means, and the Lord Beaufort’s most
Unlordly breach of promise to him, made
Him fall upon some courses, to which his nature
And mine own, made desperate likewise by the cruelty
Of a mother-in-law, would else have been as strange
As insolent greatness is to distress’d virtue.
OLD FRANKLIN
Yes, I have heard of that too, your defeat
Made upon a mercer: I style ‘t modestly,
The law intends it plain cozenage.
CRESSINGHAM
’Twas no less,
But my penitence and restitution may
Come fairly off from’t: it was no impeachment
To the glory won at Agincourt’s great battle
That the achiever of it in his youth
Had been a purse-taker; this with all reverence
To th’ great example. Now to my business,
Wherein you have made such noble trial of
Your worth, that in a world so dull as this,
Where faith is almost grown to be a miracle,
I have found a friend so worthy as yourself
To purchase all the land my father sold
At the persuasion of a riotous woman,
And charitable to reserve it for his use
And the good of his three children; this I say
Is such a deed shall style you our preserver,
And owe the memory of your worth, and pay it
To all posterity.
OLD FRANKLIN
Sir, what I have done
Looks to the end of the good deed itself,
No other way i’ th’ world.
CRESSINGHAM
But would you please
Out of a friendly reprehension
To make him sensible of the weighty wrong
He has done his children? Yet I would not have it
Too bitter, for he undergoes already
Such torment in a woman’s naughty pride,
Too harsh reproof would kill him.
OLD FRANKLIN
Leave you that
To my discretion: I have made myself
My son’s executor, and am come up
On purpose to collect his creditors,
And where I find his pennyworth conscionable,
I’ll make them in part satisfaction.
Enter George.
Oh, this fellow was born near me, and his trading here i’ th’ city may bring me to the knowledge of the men my son ought money to.
GEORGE
Your worship’s welcome to London. And I pray, how does all our good friends i’ th’ country?
OLD FRANKLIN
They are well, George. How thou art shot up since I saw thee! What, I think thou art almost out of thy time?
GEORGE
I am out of my wits, sir; I have liv’d in a kind of Bedlam these four years: how can I be mine own man then?
OLD FRANKLIN
Why, what’s the matter?
GEORGE
I may turn soap-boiler, I have a loose body: I am turn’d away from my master.
OLD FRANKLIN
How! Turn’d away?
GEORGE
I am gone, sir, not in drink, and yet you may behold my indentures.
[He shows his] indenture.
Oh, the wicked wit of woman! For the good turn I did bringing her home, she ne’er left sucking my master’s breath like a cat, kissing him, I mean, till I was turn’d away!
OLD FRANKLIN
I have heard she’s a terrible woman.
GEORGE
Yes, and the miserablest! Her sparing in housekeeping has cost him somewhat, the Dagger-pies can testify. She has stood in’s light most miserably, like your fasting days before red letters in the almanac; saying, the pinching of our bellies would be a mean to make him wear scarlet the sooner. She had once persuaded him to have bought spectacles for all his servants, that they might have worn ‘em dinner and supper.
OLD FRANKLIN
To what purpose?
GEORGE
Marry, to have made our victuals seem bigger than ’twas. She shows from whence she came; that my wind-colic can witness.
OLD FRANKLIN
Why, whence came she?
GEORGE
Marry, from a courtier, and an officer too, that was up and down I know not how often.
OLD FRANKLIN
Had he any great place?
GEORGE
Yes, a very high one, but he got little by it; he was one that blew the organ in the court chapel: our puritans, especially your puritans in Scotland, could ne’er away with him.
OLD FRANKLIN
Is she one of the sect?
GEORGE
Faith, I think not, for I am certain she denies her husband the supremacy.
OLD FRANKLIN
Well, George, your difference may be reconcil’d. I am now to use your help in a business that concerns me: here’s a note of men’s names here i’ th’ city unto whom my son ought money, but I do not know their dwelling.
GEORGE
[Taking the note from him] Let me see, sir. [Reading] “Fifty pound ta’en up at use of Master Waterthin the brewer.”
OLD FRANKLIN
What’s he?
GEORGE
An obstinate fellow, and one that denied payment of the groats till he lay by th’ heels for’t; I know him. [Reading] “Item, fourscore pair of provant breeches a’ th’ new fashion, to Pinchbuttock, a hosier in Birchen Lane, so much.”
OLD FRANKLIN
What the devil did he with so many pair of breeches?
FRANKLIN
Supply a captain, sir; a friend of his went over to the Palatinate.
GEORGE
[Reading] “Item, to my tailor Master Weatherwise, by St. Clement’s church.”
CRESSINGHAM
Who should that be? It may be ’tis the new prophet, the astrological tailor.
FRANKLIN
No, no, no, sir; we have nothing to do with him.
GEORGE
Well, I’ll read no further; leave the note to my discretion: do not fear but I’ll inquire them all.
OLD FRANKLIN
Why, I thank thee, George. [To Cressingham] Sir, rest assur’d I shall in all your business be faithful to you, and at better leisure find time to imprint deeply in your father the wrong he has done you.
CRESSINGHAM
You are worthy in all things.
Exeunt Old Franklin, George and young Franklin. Enter Saunder.
Is my father stirring?
SAUNDER
Yes, sir. My lady wonders you are thus chargeable to your father, and will not direct yourself unto some gainful study may quit him of your dependence.
CRESSINGHAM
What study?
SAUNDER
Why, the law, that law that takes up most a’ th’ wits i’ th’ kingdom, not for most good, but most gain. Or divinity: I have heard you talk well, and I do not think but you’d prove a singular fine churchman.
CRESSINGHAM
I should prove a plural better, if I could attain to fine benefices.
SAUNDER
My lady, now she has money, is studying to do good works. She talk’d last night what a goodly act it was of a countess — Northamptonshire breed, belike, or thereabouts — that to make Coventry a corporation, rode through the city naked, and by daylight.
CRESSINGHAM
I do not think but you have ladies living would discover as much in private, to advance but some member of a corporation.
Enter Sir Francis Cressingham.
SAUNDER
Well, sir, your wit is still goring at my lady’s projects. Here’s your father.
SIR FRANCIS
Thou com’st to chide me, hearing how like a ward I am handled since the sale of my land.
CRESSINGHAM
No, sir, but to turn your eyes into your own bosom.
SIR FRANCIS
Why, I am become my wife’s pensioner, am confin’d to a hundred mark a year, t’ one suit, and one man to attend me?
SAUNDER
And is not that enough for a private gentleman?
SIR FRANCIS
Peace, sirrah; there is nothing but knave speaks in thee. And my two poor children must be put forth to prentice!
CRESSINGHAM
Ha! To prentice? Sir, I do not come to grieve you,
But to show how wretched your estate was,
That you could not come to see order
Until foul disorder pointed the way to’t:
So inconsiderate, yet so fruitful still
Is dotage to beget its own destruction.
SIR FRANCIS
Surely I am nothing, and desire to be so.
Pray thee, fellow, entreat her only to be quiet;
I have given her all my estate on that condition.
SAUNDER
Yes, sir; her coffers are well lin’d, believe me.
SIR FRANCIS
And yet she is not contented; we observe
The moon is ne’er so pleasant and so clear
As when she is at the full.
CRESSINGHAM
You did no use
My mother with this observance. You are like
The frogs who, weary of their quiet king,
Consented to the election of the stork,
Who in the end devour’d them.
SIR FRANCIS
You may see
How apt man is to forfeit all his judgment
Upon the instant of his fall.
CRESSINGHAM
Look up, sir.
SIR FRANCIS
O, my heart’s broke! Weighty are injuries
That come from an enemy, but those are deadly
That come from a friend, for we see commonly
Those are ta’en most to heart.
Enter the Lady Cressingham.
She comes.
CRESSINGHAM
What a terrible eye she darts on us!
SIR FRANCIS
Oh, most natural for lightning to go before the thunder.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
What? Are you in council? Are ye levying faction against us?
SIR FRANCIS
Good friend!
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Sir, sir, pray, come hither. There is winter in your looks, a latter winter. Do you complain to your kindred? I’ll make you fear extremely to show you have any cause to fear. Are the bonds seal’d for the six thousand pounds I put forth to use?
SAUNDER
Yes, madam.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
The bonds were made in my uncle’s name?
SAUNDER
Yes.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
’Tis well.
SIR FRANCIS
’Tis strange though.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Nothing strange; you’ll think the allowance I have put you to as strange, but your judgment cannot reach the aim I have in’t. You were prick’d last year to be high sheriff, and what it would have cost you I understand now. All this charge and the other by the sale of your land, and the money at my dispose, and your pension so small, will settle you in quiet, make you master of a retir’d life. And our great ones may think you a politic man, and that you are aiming at some strange business, having made all over.
SIR FRANCIS
I must leave you. Man is never truly awake till he be dead!
Exeunt [Sir Francis] Cressingham and Saunder.
CRESSINGHAM
What a dream have you made of my father!
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Let him be so, and keep the proper place of dream, his bed, until I raise him.
CRESSINGHAM
Raise him! Not likely! ’Tis you have ruin’d him!
LADY CRESSINGHAM
You do not come to quarrel?
CRESSINGHAM
No, certain, but to persuade you to a thing that in the virtue of it nobly carries its own commendation, and you shall gain much honour by it, which is the recompense of all virtuous actions: to use my father kindly.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Why? Does he complain to you, sir?
CRESSINGHAM
Complain? Why should a king complain for anything but for his sins to heaven? The prerogative of husband is like to his over his wife.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
I am full of business, sir, and will not mind you.
CRESSINGHAM
I must not leave you thus; I tell you, mother,
’Tis dangerous to a woman: when her mind
Raises her to such height, it makes her only
Capable of her own merit, nothing of duty!
Oh, ’twas a strange unfortunate o’erprising
Your beauty brought him, otherwise discreet,
Into the fatal neglect of his poor children.
What will you give us of the late sum you receiv’d?
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Not a penny. Away, you are troublesome and saucy!
CRESSINGHAM
You are too cruel; denials even from princes,
Who may do what they list, should be supplied
With a gracious verbal usage, that though they
Do not cure the sore, they may abate the sense of’t.
The wealth you seem to command over is his,
And he I hope will dispose of’t to our use.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
When he can command my will.
CRESSINGHAM
Have you made him
So miserable that he must take a law from his wife?
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Have you not had some lawyers forc’d to groan
Under the burden?
CRESSINGHAM
Oh, but the greater the women
The more visible are their vices.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
So,
Sir, you have been so bold. By all can bind
An oath, and I’ll not break it, I will not be
The woman to you hereafter you expected.
CRESSINGHAM
Be not; be not yourself, be not my father’s wife,
Be not my Lady Cressingham, and then
I’ll thus speak to you, but you must not answer
In your own person.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
A fine puppet-play!
CRESSINGHAM
Good madam, please you pity the mistress
Of a poor gentleman that is undone
By a cruel mother-in-law; you do not know her,
Nor does she deserve the knowledge of any good one,
For she does not know herself. You would sigh for
That e’er she took [your] sex, if you but heard
Her qualities.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
This is a fine crotchet.
CRESSINGHAM
Envy and pride flow in her painted breasts,
She gives no other suck; all her attendants
Do not belong to her husband, his money is hers:
Marry, his debts are his own. She bears such sway
She will not suffer his religion be his own
But what she please to turn it to.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
And all this while,
I am the woman you libel against.
CRESSINGHAM
I remember
Ere the land was sold you talk’d of going to Ireland,
But should you touch there, you would die presently.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Why, man?
CRESSINGHAM
The country brooks no poison: go,
You’ll find how difficult a thing it is
To make a settled or assur’d estate
Of things ill-gotten. When my father’s dead,
The curse of lust and riot follow you!
Marry some young gallant that may rifle you,
Yet add one blessing to your needy age,
That you may die full of repentance.
LADY CRESSINGHAM
Ha, ha, ha!
CRESSINGHAM
Oh, she is lost to any kind of goodness!
Exeunt.