Getting on or off a horse-drawn carriage [closed]

I am writing a story and I was wondering if there was any particular way of saying that the protagonist got off a horse drawn carriage? She is the passenger in the carriage and I wanted to make the point that as soon as she stepped off she notices someone following her. I might be overthinking this, but is there any specific language/jargon used to describe such action?

Solution 1:

1814

The worthy Mr. H. having informed the coachman he was correct in his ideas, instantly satisfied the demand he made; and, descending from the carriage, said to poor Dawson, in a whisper...

1815

On a sudden Madame Buonaparte's carriage came into the court; General Murat went out to receive her. She had not time to give him her hand, but jumped out hastily from the carriage. "Where is the General?" she said.

1807

We entered the court, and on alighting from the carriage were received by Monsieur Gabe, the master of the mansion, with a very grave countenance, and a less cordial welcome than I had expected.

1813

Mr. Darcy handed the ladies into the carriage, and ...

You may find others by examining the Ngram references here.

Solution 2:

Ladies traditionally alight or descend from carriages, especially those in romantic or historical novels.

Gentlemen would generally follow suit but (heroic types) are permitted to leap/hop/spring/jump down (when required to rescue maidens or see off villains).

(www.thefreedictionary.com/alight, www.yourdictionary.com › Dictionary Definitions › alight)

Solution 3:

A Google Books search of books published during the second half of the nineteenth century finds five matches for "stepped down from the carriage." From "Two Days at Windsor; or The Princess and the Sultan," in The Monthly Packet (August 1867):

Again, punctual to a moment, the Royal carriage drew up, and there sat the Queen. As she rose and stepped down from the carriage, although she is so short and—well, a little fat—I was literally taken aback by the regal movement. She was as upright as one of her own life-guards, and looked like the great Commander-in-chief of her country.

From the entry for Russia, in Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1881 (1882):

The prefect of police, Colonel Dvorjetsky, who followed behind in a sledge, leaped out and seized the assassin, who drew and fired a revolver. The Emperor [Alexander II] stepped down from the carriage, and at that moment a second bomb was cast, which exploded at his feet, the fragments breaking both his legs and penetrating his abdomen. Dvorjetsky, who was also wounded, drove the Czar in his sledge to the Winter palace. He breathed his last not two hours after he was struck.

From Sarah Wyman, Madeline, chapter 24, serialized in The Hawaiian Monthly (December 1884):

"You needn't wait for me," said Col. Hoixter to the coachman as he stepped down from the carriage at Linden Ledge. Turning round he met a welcome from Tirzah, who seemed to dwell in a kind of watch tower at Linden Ledge, for never did a carriage drive up the avenue, that her eyes had not seen the instant it diverged from the main street, and never was there a familiar footstep upon the verandah that did not find proximity to a pair of bright red stockings and slippers mounted with crimson bows and in the centre, glittering steel buckles.

From Richard Davis, Soldiers of Fortune, serialized in Scribner's Magazine (May 1897):

Madame Alvarez stepped down from the carriage and as Hope handed her her jewel case in silence, the men draped her cloak about her shoulders. She put out her hand to them, and as Clay took it in his, she bent her head quickly and kissed his hand.

And from an 1898 translation of Lyof Tolstoi, War and Peace (part I, chapter 21):

He [Pierre] noticed that they had drawn up, not at the state entrance, but t the rear door. Just as he stepped down from the carriage, two men in citizens' clothes skulked down from the doorway and hid in the shadow of the wall. Stopping a moment to look around, he saw several other similar figures on both sides in the shadow.

and again in part II, chapter 2:

The calash [a Viennese coach drawn by six horses] drew up near the regiment. Kutuzof and the Austrian general were engaged in conversation in low tones, and Kutuzov smiled slightly, as he slowly and heavily stepped down from the carriage, exactly as if the two thousand men who were breathlessly gazing at him, and the regimental commander, did not exist.

Even more common in Victorian times was the shorter phrase "stepped from the carriage, as this Ngram chart of the phrases "stepped down from the carriage" (blue line) and "stepped from the carriage" (red line) for the period 1830–1950 indicates:

A Google Books search finds 12 unique matches for the phrase "stepped from the carriage" during the period 1830–1900. It thus appears that both "stepped down from the carriage" and "stepped from the carriage" were familiar English expressions during the Victorian era.