We used to live in Kharkoff in winter and passed the summer months in Doljik, our beautiful estate which claims to be counted amongst the stately homes of Russia, situated forty miles distance from town. Our removal to Doljik was a regular treat for us children, our joy and the servants’ nuisance, for when they began to pack up, we were only in their way, under pretence of help, poking about among the straw, scattered in the yard, throwing it over one another whilst playing hide-and-seek.
Doljik is a delightful place. The castle, a stately white mansion of commanding appearance, is very grand with its suite of lofty rooms; portraits of ancestors, the former Galitzines, very good-looking all of them, adorn the walls. The park is beautiful, with long alleys of elm and oak and vast lawns with skilfully sorted flower-borders, I had a doll’s house in the park, furnished with every convenience, with a garden of my own in which I spent happy hours gardening eagerly, weeding and watering, I also bestowed a great part of my affection on pet animals: dogs, cats, squirrels and tame rabbits. My brothers and I were fond of all kinds of fun; early in the morning we used to start for the meadows with baskets to gather mushrooms for our breakfast, and went for rambles in the woods. We also did a lot of fishing and bathing. My parents presented me with a prefect dream of a pony. How proud I felt when I was lifted on my “Scotchy’s” back for my first ride!
Dolls took no leading part in my childhood, and I had often wished I had been a boy. I climbed trees and tore my frocks and engaged in all sorts of wild pranks.
There was much excitement on my father’s birthday. The house was full of guests, and an orchestra came down from town. At dinner when papa’s health was drunk, two large cannons, placed at the principal entrance, were fired, which made me crawl on my hands and knees, shamefully, under the table. We had in the evening grand illuminations in the park, with fireworks which did not enrapture me, for at every burst of rockets I had to put my hands over my ears.
On the day of our village festival there was a fair on the square opposite the church. I threw sugar-candy and handfuls of pennies to the peasant children.
I had now passed my eighth year and the time for lessons had come. I was given over to the care of a French governess, Melle. Rose, who was very badly named, for she was a horrid lemon-coloured old creature, wearing a hideous curled wig, and always looking as though she had just swallowed a spoonful of vinegar. I hated plain people about me and could not bare the sight of Melle. Rose, disliking her from the first. What a life I led her! Plaguing her was a charmingly pretty sport for me. My governess was always scolding and faultfinding; she forced me to make her every morning and evening a low curtsey, which made me long to kick her. Melle. Rose held up as an example to me a little friend of mine, the Princess Mimi Troubetzkoy, who was a well-behaved child, doing credit to her governess’s bringing up, and never giving her any trouble. But I despised sheep-like docility and was weary of hearing of all the beautiful things Mimi did and said.
Being deprived of the bump of respect, I did exactly what my governess told me not to do, refusing to be put into harness. When the fighting-blood stirred in me and made me too horribly naughty, I was sent for punishment to bed, but I would rather be cut to pieces before I would deign to apologise to Melle. Rose. That disagreeable person was succeeded by Melle. Allamand, a French lady educated in England, the most delightful of old maids, whom I loved fondly, for she was never cross, and since she came to me, I began to understand that it was possible for a governess to be nice, and that the term is not necessarily synonymous to frighten and bore.
We got on very well for Melle. Allamand bore with my caprices, which were many, I must confess. But though she was always in a good temper we had little quarrels sometimes, which we soon made up. I studied my piano with Melle. Allamand and learned English, which soon became a second mother-tongue to me. When we went out walking, my governess’s soft heart was full of pity for the poor starving homeless dogs which she picked up in the streets and brought home to be fed; the ugliest and shabbiest had her tenderest care. Melle. Allamand was called back to England and my parents had to get another governess. An English young lady was engaged, named Miss Emily Puddan. My brothers made her rage awfully in calling her Miss Pudding. She had no authority over me whatever, being in fact rather silly, but she was a very pleasant companion—so well up in all games. We were enthusiastic croquet-players and had sometimes desperate quarrels, being very near scratching each other’s eyes out. “I tell you I hit your ball!”—“You didn’t!”—“I did!” etc., our arguments becoming very hot and uncivil; soon we dropped our mallets and ran and complained to mamma, both governess and pupil.
When I was past my twelfth year I grew very fond of reading the books of the “Bibliothèque Rose.” I pitied mamma because she read deadly uninteresting English Tauchnitz novels, when there existed such enrapturing books as Les petites filles modéles, les malheurs de Sophie, etc. But this childish literature did not hinder me from flirtation. I used to long for adventures; and here I was having one, notwithstanding that I had only just grown out of pinafores. My parents took me sometimes to the Italian opera and I conceived a romantic admiration for the tenor of the troop, who was, as I thought adorable beyond words. I raved about him. When out walking with my governess, I dragged her in the direction I knew the tenor would take, in the hope of meeting him. I began to knit a prosaic cache-nez for the object of my dreams, which mamma confiscated, happily, in time.
From my earliest years I had a great love for acting; we gave, from time to time, little theatrical entertainments; we dressed up and played fragments of Shakespeare’s dramas, and I was the leading-lady in these rehearsals. When I took up the high tragic part of “Desdemona,” Nicolas, the brother of my little friend Sophy Annenkoff, was the personator of “Othello,” he sacrificed his appearance so far as to blacken his face. During the murder scene, when the situation grew particularly tragic, Nicolas displayed such a realism of the Shakespearian meaning, that I began to fear being choked in reality.