The School for Scandal Part 6

[CRABTREE.] I am very glad you think so ma'am.

MRS. CANDOUR. She has a charming fresh Colour.

CRABTREE. Yes when it is fresh put on--

LADY TEAZLE. O fie! I'll swear her colour is natural--I have seen it come and go--

CRABTREE. I dare swear you have, ma'am: it goes of a Night, and comes again in the morning.

SIR BENJAMIN. True, uncle, it not only comes and goes but what's more egad her maid can fetch and carry it--

MRS. CANDOUR. Ha! ha! ha! how I hate to hear you talk so!

But surely, now, her Sister, is or was very handsome.

CRABTREE. Who? Mrs. Stucco? O lud! she's six-and-fifty if she's an hour!

MRS. CANDOUR. Now positively you wrong her[;] fifty-two, or fifty-three is the utmost--and I don't think she looks more.

SIR BENJAMIN. Ah! there's no judging by her looks, unless one was to see her Face.

LADY SNEERWELL. Well--well--if she does take some pains to repair the ravages of Time--you must allow she effects it with great ingenuity--and surely that's better than the careless manner in which the widow Ocre chaulks her wrinkles.

SIR BENJAMIN. Nay now--you are severe upon the widow--come--come, it isn't that she paints so ill--but when she has finished her Face she joins it on so badly to her Neck, that she looks like a mended Statue, in which the Connoisseur sees at once that the Head's modern tho' the Trunk's antique----

CRABTREE. Ha! ha! ha! well said, Nephew!

MRS. CANDOUR. Ha! ha! ha! Well, you make me laugh but I vow I hate you for it--what do you think of Miss Simper?

SIR BENJAMIN. Why, she has very pretty Teeth.

LADY TEAZLE. Yes and on that account, when she is neither speaking nor laughing (which very seldom happens)--she never absolutely shuts her mouth, but leaves it always on a-Jar, as it were----

MRS. CANDOUR. How can you be so ill-natured!

LADY TEAZLE. Nay, I allow even that's better than the Pains Mrs. Prim takes to conceal her losses in Front--she draws her mouth till it resembles the aperture of a Poor's-Box, and all her words appear to slide out edgewise.

LADY SNEERWELL. Very well Lady Teazle I see you can be a little severe.

LADY TEAZLE. In defence of a Friend it is but justice, but here comes Sir Peter to spoil our Pleasantry.

Enter SIR PETER

SIR PETER. Ladies, your obedient--Mercy on me--here is the whole set!

a character's dead at every word, I suppose.

MRS. CANDOUR. I am rejoiced you are come, Sir Peter--they have been so censorious and Lady Teazle as bad as any one.

SIR PETER. That must be very distressing to you, Mrs. Candour I dare swear.

MRS. CANDOUR. O they will allow good Qualities to n.o.body--not even good nature to our Friend Mrs. Pursy.

LADY TEAZLE. What, the fat dowager who was at Mrs. Codrille's [Quadrille's] last Night?

LADY SNEERWELL. Nay--her bulk is her misfortune and when she takes such Pains to get rid of it you ought not to reflect on her.

MRS. CANDOUR. 'Tis very true, indeed.

LADY TEAZLE. Yes, I know she almost lives on acids and small whey-- laces herself by pulleys and often in the hottest noon of summer you may see her on a little squat Pony, with her hair plaited up behind like a Drummer's and puffing round the Ring on a full trot.

MRS. CANDOUR. I thank you Lady Teazle for defending her.

SIR PETER. Yes, a good Defence, truly!

MRS. CANDOUR. But for Sir Benjamin, He is as censorious as Miss Sallow.

CRABTREE. Yes and she is a curious Being to pretend to be censorious--an awkward Gawky, without any one good Point under Heaven!

LADY SNEERWELL. Positively you shall not be so very severe.

Miss Sallow is a Relation of mine by marriage, and, as for her Person great allowance is to be made--for, let me tell you a woman labours under many disadvantages who tries to pa.s.s for a girl at six-and-thirty.

MRS. CANDOUR. Tho', surely she is handsome still--and for the weakness in her eyes considering how much she reads by candle-light it is not to be wonder'd at.

LADY SNEERWELL. True and then as to her manner--upon my word I think it is particularly graceful considering she never had the least Education[:] for you know her Mother was a Welch milliner, and her Father a sugar-Baker at Bristow.--

SIR BENJAMIN. Ah! you are both of you too good-natured!

SIR PETER. Yes, d.a.m.ned good-natured! Her own relation!

mercy on me! [Aside.]

MRS. CANDOUR. For my Part I own I cannot bear to hear a friend ill-spoken of?

SIR PETER. No, to be sure!

SIR BENJAMIN. Ah you are of a moral turn Mrs. Candour and can sit for an hour to hear Lady Stucco talk sentiments.

LADY SNEERWELL. Nay I vow Lady Stucco is very well with the Dessert after Dinner for she's just like the Spanish Fruit one cracks for mottoes--made up of Paint and Proverb.

MRS. CANDOUR. Well, I never will join in ridiculing a Friend-- and so I constantly tell my cousin Ogle--and you all know what pretensions she has to be critical in Beauty.

LADY TEAZLE. O to be sure she has herself the oddest countenance that ever was seen--'tis a collection of Features from all the different Countries of the globe.

SIR BENJAMIN. So she has indeed--an Irish Front----

CRABTREE. Caledonian Locks----

SIR BENJAMIN. Dutch Nose----

CRABTREE. Austrian Lips----