I used to ride on horseback a great deal, accompanied by my sentimental officer. One day, whilst my white mare was galloping wildly across the open moors, my saddle unbuckled and I felt it turning with me; I slipt out of it and found myself sitting on the grass, unhurt, and was on my legs all right in a moment, having luckily disengaged my foot from the stirrup.
A few days afterwards I escaped from another danger. We were to take a drive in the woods that evening; Mr. K., a friend of my brothers, asked me to take him with me in my dog-cart. As I didn’t care particularly for his company, I contrived to put off our drive for some time and suggested a game of croquet. In the middle of our game Mr. K. uttered a piercing scream and fell down in a violent fit of epilepsy. I was dreadfully frightened and scrambled, without ceremony, over the fence of the croquet-ground. None of us had before suspected Mr. K. to be epileptic, and if I hadn’t delayed our drive, this attack would have happened in my dog-cart and the consequences might have been terribly disastrous. It makes me shudder when I think of it!
I went out driving one day with a dashing young officer, Count Podgoritchany, his sister Mary and my dolorous Troubadour. I was in a mood just then to do something foolish, and it struck me that it would be charming fun to take a ride astride on the horse which drove us, and thus, becoming deaf to Mary’s frantic remonstrance and casting dignity to the winds, I perched myself on our steed, who broke into a gallop, whilst my cavaliers ran by my side holding me steadily. That was certainly very unladylike and shocking of me!
We were near neighbours with the Podgoritchany’s, their estate is within a few miles from Dolgik. The young count was always devoted to me; he believed that we were destined for one another, and it was the hope of his life to make me his wife, but my heart was still entirely at my own disposal and I never gave him more than a passing thought, being hard to catch as a sunbeam. It wasn’t very fair, however, to keep him dangling after me like that if I didn’t mean that it should come to anything. One day, as I was practising one my favourite Chopin’s Etudes, the count came in and leant on the piano, his eyes dwelling upon me with a passionate expression; suddenly he seized my right hand and kissed it, whilst I played accords with my left one. I knew quite well what he was going to say. He implored me to marry him, but I had not yet made up my mind to part with my liberty and said “No” point blank, telling him he would have to get on as best he could without me. His face fell and he looked very miserable, my rejected lover, his matrimonial hopes being rudely shattered.
A wealthy country squire, the possessor of a fine adjoining estate, who had the reputation of being a very good catch, came to pay us a visit. I made no attempt whatever to show off my best points and made up my mind, on the contrary, to make a guy of myself, putting on my most unbecoming gown and dressing my hair unfashionably, so that he might see me at my worst. Our guest was all sentiment and poetry, his language was “music spoken,” and I responded by the most crude prose. He asked me at luncheon: “Mademoiselle aime les fleurs.” “Oh, non, monsieur, je préfère le jambon!” I answered, helping myself to a second portion of ham. Mamma looked very annoyed indeed at this unromantic turn of conversation.
I surely had not the vocation of a domestic paragon; when I poured out tea it was done the reverse of neatly, and the spotless teacloth was spotless no longer, for I poured more water on to it than into the cups, and mamma regretfully decided that I hadn’t got the right turn for housekeeping. My culinary efforts were also not to meet approval, and the cakes that I amused myself in baking, one day, were recognised, I am aggrieved to say, as not being fit to eat.
CHAPTER VII
IN ST. PETERSBURG AGAIN
My thoughts flew back constantly to St. Petersburg. Being a girl who had already tasted city life, it did not please me in the least to bury myself in the country, and I longed to mix with the gay world again. One day, an invitation came from my aunt Leon Galitzine, asking me to spend two or three months with them. That was indeed a piece of good fortune! What could be more exciting, more delicious! Visions of balls floated before my eyes and I simply danced with joy, meaning to amuse myself tremendously.
Mamma brought me to St. Petersburg and left me in charge of my aunt, who did all she could to make my stay pleasant. The vanities of the world took complete hold of me; I had a very gay season, being out nearly every night and dancing to my heart’s content with my band of last year’s admirers. Stenger continued to care for me as he did at first, and was more than ever my slave. Everywhere I went he would find out and go too, for he had a true heart, poor boy. I had such a thirst for pleasure that my evenings at home appeared awfully long; I found it dreadfully dreary and yawned in the most distressing fashion, sitting half-dozing in an armchair beside the fire, and constantly asking what time it was, having a most natural desire to go to bed.