We sat in silence upon the sunken bench, gazing upward at the curiously angled opposite wall and waited for deliverance to arrive. For some time there came nothing but the ceaseless patter of rain. The wind blew against our thin wooden walls and rattled the glass. I could hear the coachman cursing to himself in gruff bruxellois as he unhitched the horses and paced the road.

Perhaps a half an hour or so had passed before the noise of a beast and a vehicle was heard. Lucy and I hastily drew down the window. A man and his son were driving what appeared to be a two-wheeled cart of stacked logs in our direction. As soon as their eyes met sight of the spectacle they stopped. For some moments, our coachman stood in animated conversation with them. Shrugs were exchanged and arms flew about, before all three turned and approached us. They stared at us in our collapsed contraption, as one might gawp at two curious creatures in a cage. Gradually they removed their sodden felt hats and ventured to address us.

‘Mesdames,’ the eldest of the two began, ‘it . . . it would be my pleasure to carry you to the Pot d’Étain in Saint-Quentin. If you will . . .’

I examined the cart behind them: a rickety tumbrel half filled with soaked wood and as spattered with mud as my own conveyance. I did not require more than common sense to determine that the solution he proposed would have caused me more discomfort than remaining upturned in my own carriage. I would have arrived at the inn, entirely drenched and certain to have caught my death. Lucy paid me a cautious look.

It was at that precise moment that our little cabin began to reverberate. The road beneath us moved to what seemed to be the beat of hooves and the roll of wheels. Lucy and I turned expectantly towards a bend where a copse shielded the view. From behind it emerged that for which I had been quietly praying: six chestnut horses pulling a wide Berlin carriage. For an instant it appeared so coated in mud that I believed it to be the diligence, but as it neared I could see this was no stagecoach, but rather the proudly owned possession of some person of quality, and if not a person of quality then certainly a person of means. Beneath the veil of filth could be spied red and gold painted wheels and a highly lacquered cabin. Though he wore his hat over his eyes, the driver was attired in a livery of blue wool and gold lacing and sat upon a handsome crimson-fringed hammercloth. He hastily drew back on the reins and slowed the charging team to a cantering halt. All three men approached this vehicle, and once the well-attired coachman was convinced it was not some ruse for a robbery, a liveried footman opened the carriage door.