The landlord, the lady, and Mr. Charles Wogan were all three, it seemed,
in luck's way that September morning of the year 1719. Wogan was not
surprised, his luck for the moment was altogether in, so that even when
his horse stumbled and went lame at a desolate part of the road from
Florence to Bologna, he had no doubt but that somehow fortune would
serve him. His horse stepped gingerly on for a few yards, stopped, and
looked round at his master. Wogan and his horse were on the best of
terms. "Is it so bad as that?" said he, and dismounting he gently felt
the strained leg. Then he took the bridle in his hand and walked
forward, whistling as he walked.
Yet the place and the hour were most unlikely to give him succour. It
was early morning, and he walked across an empty basin of the hills. The
sun was not visible, though the upper air was golden and the green peaks
of the hills rosy. The basin itself was filled with a broad uncoloured
light, and lay naked to it and extraordinarily still. There were as yet
no shadows; the road rose and dipped across low ridges of turf, a
ribbon of dead and unillumined white; and the grass at any distance from
the road had the darkness of peat. He led his horse forward for perhaps
a mile, and then turning a corner by a knot of trees came unexpectedly
upon a wayside inn. In front of the inn stood a travelling carriage with
its team of horses. The backs of the horses smoked, and the candles of
the lamps were still burning in the broad daylight. Mr. Wogan quickened
his pace. He would beg a seat on the box to the next posting stage.
Fortune had served him. As he came near he heard from the interior of
the inn a woman's voice, not unmusical so much as shrill with
impatience, which perpetually ordered and protested. As he came nearer
he heard a man's voice obsequiously answering the protests, and as the
sound of his footsteps rang in front of the inn both voices immediately
stopped. The door was flung hastily open, and the landlord and the lady
ran out onto the road.
"Sir," said the lady in Italian, "I need a postillion."
To Wogan's thinking she needed much more than a postillion. She needed
certainly a retinue of servants. He was not quite sure that she did not
need a nurse, for she was a creature of an exquisite fragility, with the
pouting face of a child, and the childishness was exaggerated by a great
muslin bow she wore at her throat. Her pale hair, where it showed
beneath her hood, was fine as silk and as glossy; her eyes had the
colour of an Italian sky at noon, and her cheeks the delicate tinge of
a carnation. The many laces and ribbons, knotted about her dress in a
manner most mysterious to Wogan, added to her gossamer appearance; and,
in a word, she seemed to him something too flowerlike for the world's
rough usage.