LUCIDA

Scudmore is in love with Bellafront, and his friend Nevill persuades him, with difficulty, to show the love- letter he has received from her. There is a slight complication: Nevill is on his way to .Bellafront’s wedding. She is to marry Count Frederick that morning. The whole family is mired in matrimonial competition. Bellafront’s sister Lucida also loves Frederick, and has sworn never to marry for his sake; but she is being courted by the foolish Sir Abraham Ninny, who has got himself knighted expressly to make himself a more eligible son-in-law. The youngest daughter, Katherine, is also to be married that morning, to Strange the merchant, but she too has another admirer, Captain Pouts. Unbeknown to Scudmore, Nevill impersonates the parson who is to officiate at the wedding. Scudmore tries to catch Bellafront at the church door, but she refuses him; this convinces him that all women are perfidious. After the wedding, Pouts publicly declares that Katherine has slept with him on many previous occasions. Strange seems reluctant to seek legal redress for this slander, but only because he doesn’t want anyone to stop him secretly taking a more immediate revenge. He tries to see Pouts at his lodging, but Pouts assumes he has come to serve a writ and will not let him in. Pouts then prepares to flee England and his creditors, but Strange intercepts him disguised as a soldier, claiming that Katherine engaged him to murder her new husband and that she loves only Pouts. Pouts admits that he slandered her; Strange wounds him in a fight and forces him to sign a document affirming her innocence. By a pretext, Scudmore gets in to see Bellafront, rebukes her, and returns her love-letters. She tells him that her father forced her to marry Frederick, and that she will kill herself rather than consummate the marriage. He mistrusts her, but Nevill arranges for him to participate in a wedding masque that evening. He and Bellafront sneak away during the dancing and are married, this time by the right parson. Suspicions of polyandry are dispelled when Nevill explains that the parson that morning was really him, so that the marriages are invalid. Strange brings Pouts to apologise to the gathering, but is almost arrested for his own murder until he reveals his identity. Pouts returns to the war, abjuring women. Strange is confirmed as Katherine’s husband, and Frederick will marry Lucida. In the sub-plot, Wagtail is pregnant, but wants to ensure that the child has a wealthier…