The School for Scandal

Lady Sneerwell’s dressing-room

Lady Sneerwell discovered at her dressing table; Snake drinking chocolate.

Lady Sneerwell

The paragraphs, you say, Mr. Snake, were all inserted?

Snake

They were, madam; and, as I copied them myself in a feigned hand, there can be no suspicion whence they came.

Lady Sneerwell

Did you circulate the report of Lady Brittle’s intrigue with Captain Boastall?

Snake

That’s in as fine a train as your ladyship could wish. In the common course of things, I think it must reach Mrs. Clackitt’s ears within four-and-twenty hours; and then, you know, the business is as good as done.

Lady Sneerwell

Why, truly, Mrs. Clackitt has a very pretty talent, and a great deal of industry.

Snake

True, madam, and has been tolerably successful in her day. To my knowledge, she has been the cause of six matches being broken off, and three sons being disinherited; of four forced elopements, and as many close confinements; nine separate maintenances, and two divorces. Nay, I have more than once traced her causing a tête-á-tête in The Town and Country Magazine, when the parties, perhaps, had never seen each other’s face before in the course of their lives.

Lady Sneerwell

She certainly has talents, but her manner is gross.

Snake

’Tis very true. She generally designs well, has a free tongue and a bold invention; but her colouring is too dark, and her outlines often extravagant. She wants that delicacy of tint, and mellowness of sneer, which distinguish your ladyship’s scandal.

A room in Sir Peter Teazle’s house.

Enter Sir Peter Teazle.

Sir Peter

When an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he to expect? ’Tis now six months since Lady Teazle made me the happiest of men⁠—and I have been the most miserable dog ever since! We tifted a little going to church, and fairly quarrelled before the bells had done ringing. I was more than once nearly choked with gall during the honeymoon, and had lost all comfort in life before my friends had done wishing me joy. Yet I chose with caution⁠—a girl bred wholly in the country, who never knew luxury beyond one silk gown, nor dissipation above the annual gala of a race ball. Yet she now plays her part in all the extravagant fopperies of fashion and the town with as ready a grace as if she never had seen a bush or a grass-plot out of Grosvenor Square! I am sneered at by all my acquaintance, and paragraphed in the newspapers. She dissipates my fortune, and contradicts all my humours; yet the worst of it is, I doubt I love her, or I should never bear all this. However, I’ll never be weak enough to own it.

Enter Rowley.

Rowley

Oh! Sir Peter, your servant: how is it with you, sir?

Sir Peter

Very bad, Master Rowley, very bad. I meet with nothing but crosses and vexations.

A room in Sir Peter Teazle’s house

Enter Sir Peter and Lady Teazle.

Sir Peter

Lady Teazle, Lady Teazle, I’ll not bear it!

Lady Teazle

Sir Peter, Sir Peter, you may bear it or not, as you please; but I ought to have my own way in everything, and what’s more, I will too. What! though I was educated in the country, I know very well that women of fashion in London are accountable to nobody after they are married.

Sir Peter

Very well, ma’am, very well;⁠—so a husband is to have no influence, no authority?

Lady Teazle

Authority! No, to be sure:⁠—if you want authority over me, you should have adopted me, and not married me: I am sure you were old enough.

Sir Peter

Old enough!⁠—ay, there it is. Well, well, Lady Teazle, though my life may be made unhappy by your temper, I’ll not be ruined by your extravagance!

Lady Teazle

My extravagance! I’m sure I’m not more extravagant than a woman of fashion ought to be.

Sir Peter

No, no, madam, you shall throw away no more sums on such unmeaning luxury. ’Slife! to spend as much to furnish your dressing-room with flowers in winter as would suffice to turn the Pantheon into a greenhouse, and give a fête champêtre at Christmas.

Lady Teazle

And am I to blame, Sir Peter, because flowers are dear in cold weather? You should find fault with the climate, and not with me.

Pshaw! have done. Sir, my friend Moses is a very honest fellow, but a little slow at expression: he’ll be an hour giving us our titles. Mr. Premium, the plain state of the matter is this: I am an extravagant young fellow who wants to borrow money; you I take to be a prudent old fellow, who have got money to lend. I am blockhead enough to give fifty percent sooner than not have it; and you, I presume, are rogue enough to take a hundred if you can get it. Now, sir, you see we are acquainted at once, and may proceed to business without farther ceremony.

Sir Oliver

Exceeding frank, upon my word. I see, sir, you are not a man of many compliments.

Charles Surface

Oh, no, sir! plain dealing in business I always think best.

Sir Oliver

Sir, I like you the better for it. However, you are mistaken in one thing; I have no money to lend, but I believe I could procure some of a friend; but then he’s an unconscionable dog. Isn’t he, Moses?

Moses

But you can’t help that.

Sir Oliver

And must sell stock to accommodate you.⁠—⁠Mustn’t he, Moses?

Moses

Yes, indeed! You know I always speak the truth, and scorn to tell a lie!

Charles Surface

Right. People that speak truth generally do. But these are trifles, Mr. Premium. What! I know money isn’t to be bought without paying for ’t!

Sir Oliver

Well, but what security could you give? You have no land, I suppose?

of any friend; and then Sir Peter, too, to have him so peevish, and so suspicious, when I know the integrity of my own heart⁠—indeed ’tis monstrous!

Joseph Surface

But, my dear Lady Teazle, ’tis your own fault if you suffer it. When a husband entertains a groundless suspicion of his wife, and withdraws his confidence from her, the original compact is broken, and she owes it to the honour of her sex to endeavour to outwit him.

Lady Teazle

Indeed!⁠—So that, if he suspects me without cause, it follows, that the best way of curing his jealousy is to give him reason for ’t?

Joseph Surface

Undoubtedly⁠—for your husband should never be deceived in you: and in that case it becomes you to be frail in compliment to his discernment.

Lady Teazle

To be sure, what you say is very reasonable, and when the consciousness of my innocence⁠—

Joseph Surface

Ah, my dear madam, there is the great mistake! ’tis this very conscious innocence that is of the greatest prejudice to you. What is it makes you negligent of forms, and careless of the world’s opinion? why, the consciousness of your own innocence. What makes you thoughtless in your conduct and apt to run into a thousand little imprudences? why, the consciousness of your own innocence. What makes you impatient of Sir Peter’s temper, and outrageous at his suspicions? why, the consciousness of your innocence.

Lady Teazle

’Tis very true!

Joseph Surface

Now, my dear Lady Teazle, if you would but once make a trifling faux pas, you can’t conceive how cautious you would grow, and how ready to humour and agree with your husband.