British -- Italy -- Fiction; Domestic fiction; Female friendship -- Fiction; Italy -- Fiction; Love stories
In their anxiety, for the road twisted round great jutting rocks, and
on their left was only the low wall to keep them out of the sea should
anything happen, they too began to gesticulate, waving their hands at
Beppo, pointing ahead. They wanted him to turn round again and face his
horse, that was all. He thought they wanted him to drive faster; and
there followed a terrifying ten minutes during which, as he supposed,
he was gratifying them. He was proud of his horse, and it could go very
fast. He rose in his seat, the whip cracked, the horse rushed forward,
the rocks leaped towards them, the little fly swayed, the suit-cases
heaved, Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins clung. In this way they
continued, swaying, heaving, clattering, clinging, till at a point near
Castagneto there was a rise in the road, and on reaching the foot of
the rise the horse, who knew every inch of the way, stopped suddenly,
throwing everything in the fly into a heap, and then proceeded up at
the slowest of walks.
Beppo twisted himself round to receive their admiration, laughing with
pride in his horse.
There was no answering laugh from the beautiful ladies. Their eyes,
fixed on him, seemed bigger than ever, and their faces against the
black of the night showed milky.
But here at least, once they were up the slope, were houses. The rocks
left off, and there were houses; the low wall left off, and there were
houses; the sea shrunk away, and the sound of it ceased, and the
loneliness of the road was finished. No lights anywhere, of course,
nobody to see them pass; and yet Beppo, when the houses began, after
looking over his shoulder and shouting “Castagneto” at the ladies, once
more stood up and cracked his whip and once more made his horse dash
forward.
“We shall be there in a minute,” Mrs. Arbuthnot said to herself,
holding on.
“We shall soon stop now,” Mrs. Wilkins said to herself, holding on.
They said nothing aloud, because nothing would have been heard above
the whip-cracking and the wheel-clattering and the boisterous inciting
noises Beppo was making at his horse.
Anxiously they strained their eyes for any sight of the beginning of
San Salvatore.
They had supposed and hoped that after a reasonable amount of village a
mediaeval archway would loom upon them, and through it they would drive
into a garden and draw up at an open, welcoming door, with light
streaming from it and those servants standing in it who, according to
the advertisement, remained.
Instead the fly suddenly stopped.
Peering out they could see they were still in the village street, with
small dark houses each side; and Beppo, throwing the reins over the
horse’s back as if completely confident this time that he would not go
any farther, got down off his box. At the same moment, springing as it
seemed out of nothing, a man and several half-grown boys appeared on
each side of the fly and began dragging out the suit-cases.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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