ABBESS

Old Valentine returns home from a Continental tour with a new young friend, Francis. Francis falls ill and is attended by physicians, but Valentine learns that he is really sickening for love. Unfortunately the woman who interests him is Valentine’s own intended, Cellide. Valentine asks Cellide to offer herself to Francis. Though offended, she does so, but Francis will not betray Valentine by accepting. Witnessing the encounter, Valentine gives his blessing to their union. Both Francis and Cellide abscond from the household: Francis attempts to join a merchant ship, but is apprehended by Valentine’s friend Michael; Cellide enters a nunnery. Thomas also returns home from travels abroad, thoroughly Frenchified. To his father Sebastian, who prizes the family tradition of madcap eccentricity, he behaves with unwelcome sobriety. To his sweetheart Mary, who would like him to calm down, he is grossly rude, to the extent of sending her a letter full of offensive oaths. He then serenades her late at night with bad music, and climbs up to the window to kiss her. Mary responds with a practical joke: when he reaches the window, Thomas finds himself kissing a servant in a devil mask; startled, he falls and hurts his legs. When Thomas denies his servant’s report of their riotous night, Sebastian pays him his portion and decides to marry again and beget an heir more like the father; but Thomas prevents him by claiming to have already slept with every woman he has in mind — which proves to Sebastian that he still has some sparks of kinship. Thomas plans to gain access to Mary dressed as his own sister, Dorothy; but Dorothy tips off Mary in advance. Sebastian tries to stop ‘Dorothy’ sneaking out at night, and gets a beating for his pains. Valentine also encounters ‘Dorothy’ and asks ‘her’ to visit the nunnery and intercede with Cellide for him; Thomas agrees, relishing the opportunity to chat up some pretty nuns. He is eventually shown into Mary’s bedroom, only to find an amorous blackamoor maid waiting for him: Dorothy and Mary have played. another practical joke. Leaving the house, still posing as Dorothy, Thomas is accosted by the womanizing Hylas, but insists on their marrying before Hylas may have his way with ‘her’. Hylas agrees, and the ceremony is performed; Hylas looks forward to the wedding night. Meanwhile Thomas visits the nunnery and is taken for a spirit; the Abbess attempts to exorcise him. Hylas meets the real Dorothy, who denies ail knowledge of the…