“INSIDE or out, Ma’am?” asked the coachman, as he stood civilly with the door in his hand.
“If you please, I’ll try in first,” answered the woman, poking in an umbrella before her, and then a pair of pattens—“I’m not used to coaching, and don’t think I could keep myself on the top.”
In she came, and after some floundering, having first tried two gentlemen’s laps, she found herself in the centre of the front seat, where she composed herself, with something of the air of a Catherine Hayes, getting into a sledge for a trip to Tyburn. Except for her fear, which literally made a fright of her, I should have called her a pretty-looking woman,—but the faces she pulled were horrible. As the cad enclosed her luggage in the hind-boot with a smart slam, her features underwent an actual spasm; and I heard her whisper to herself, “somethink broke.” As she spoke thus, she started on her feet, and the horses doing the same thing at the same moment, the timid female found herself suddenly hugging the strange gentleman opposite, for which she excused herself by saying, “she wasn’t accustomed to be so carried away.”
Down she plumped again in her old place, but her physiognomy didn’t improve. She seemed in torture, as if broken, not upon one wheel, but upon four. Her eyes rolled, her eyebrows worked up and down, as if trying to pump out tears that wouldn’t come,—her lips kept going like a rabbit’s, though she had nothing to eat, and I fancied I could hear her grinding her teeth. Her hands, meanwhile, convulsively grasped a bundle on her lap, till something like orange-juice squeezed out between her fingers. When the coach went on one side, she clutched the arm of whichever of her neighbours sat highest, and at a pinch she laid hold of both. At last she suddenly turned pale, and somewhat hastily I suggested that she perhaps did not prefer to ride backwards.
“If it’s all the same to you, Sir, I should really be glad to change seats.”
The removal was effected, not without some difficulty, for she contrived to tread on all our feet, and hang on all our necks, before she could subside. It was managed, however, and there we sat again, vis-a-vis, if such a phrase may be used where one visage was opposed to visages innumerable; for if her face was her fortune, she screwed as much out of it as she could. She hardly needed to speak, but she did so after a short interval.
“I hope you’ll excuse, but I can’t ride forrards neither.”
“The air’s what you wan’t Ma’am,” said a stout gentleman in the corner.
“Yes, I think that would revive me,” said the female, with what the musicians call a veiled voice, through her handkerchief.