The next day we had gone coaching again. This time I had the front seat of the coach. My neighbour was an elegant young man who had the manner and the bearing of a Prince of the blood Royal. Having taken the day before a Royal Prince for a colonist, Sergy this time promoted my neighbour to the post of State Minister at least, and I felt sure he was no less a person than a Royalty travelling incognito. At a stoppage one of the horses had cast a shoe, and one can easily imagine how we felt when my aristocratic neighbour began to shoe the horse—he was a blacksmith! Our driver put into good spirits by frequent sips taken at the stoppages, seemed to have completely forgotten his business. He drove recklessly, taking the corners in a way that made me gasp; I had to hold fast to the seat not to be thrown out of the omnibus at every turn. I couldn’t bear it any longer and begged our driver to go slower, but it only made him rush down the inclines at the speed of an express train, turning in the same time his back to the horses and chatting with the passengers. He boasted of how well he could manage his long whip, and waving it right and left, he caught the rake of a villager who was passing on the road. Luckily the idea didn’t come to our driver to lift the man like a spilikin in the air. Half-way on we stopped at Ventnor, a resort for consumptive patients, to give a rest to the horses. We saw numerous invalids drawn through the streets in their bath-chairs. We continued our way by an avenue of trees bending over and forming a roof, and towards four o’clock we rattled into the quiet village of Carisbrooke, and tore like a hurricane through the narrow streets, scattering the crowd of dogs and hens before us. The village with its white cottages and grass growing liberally out of the broken pavement, looked very cosy. We saw a group of women all down on their knees cheerfully doing their washing in the stream, laughing and chatting together, and village children who were playing at soldiers near a puddle where the ducks were quacking. The foaming horses came to a stop before the Red Lion Inn, and everyone descended. We had dinner at the inn, consisting of soup tasting like dish-water, and slices of mutton not thicker than a sheet of paper, and they charged us five shillings for the meagre repast! A two hours’ halt gave us time to visit the picturesque ruins of old Carisbrooke Castle, after which we flung ourselves with satisfaction upon the grass under a stack of hay, and had for company an ancient white cart-horse who chewed his bunch of hay under an old ash tree. We felt quite bucolic, it was so cool and nice here, and the new-mown hay smelt so sweetly. Meanwhile our coachman had put out his horses and gone to lie down. When we returned to the inn we found him stretched full length on the grass under the shade of a big tree, his face covered with his hat, sleeping the sleep of the just. The postilion put him on his legs with some difficulty, for the brave man had fortified himself still more with plentiful libations at the bar of the inn. The horses were put to with the aid of the postilion, and we drove back to Shanklin at the rate of twenty miles an hour. The photographer who had taken a photograph of our group in the morning, just before we had started for our tour, was waiting on the high-road and handed to each passenger a copy of it.
The next day we went to Cowes, the summer residence of Queen Victoria. We were speeding along level roads bordered by green woods—all soft grass and splendid trees—and rolled through fields golden with buttercups. The road now wound through bright green pastures where big fat cows dozed, lying in the shade of apple-trees. We passed neat little white cottages embowered in green, and a big farm-house belonging to the Prince of Wales. We drew now through an avenue sheltered by stately elm-trees and descended a steep hill leading to the river Medina, which we crossed on a ferry, and arrived at Cowes. Our coach drew up before a big hotel where we were to have dinner. The view from the terrace was one of exquisite beauty, the surroundings of Cowes being amongst the most splendid in England. We went and sat down on a bench beside the pier, waiting for the bell to call us to table-d’hôte. Two big yachts belonging to the Queen, the “Neptune” and “Man-of-War,” were moored in front of us. Side by side with us on the bench sat an old man, with a face framed in a grey fringe of beard, wearing a cotton bonnet drawn over his ears, who held a short pipe in his toothless mouth. We fell into conversation with him and were very much surprised when he told us that in all his long life he had only been once to London.
Another day we went by rail to Ryde, the most frequented beach of the Isle of Wight. The esplanade with its elm-groves, different-coloured flower-beds, and well raked lawns, is magnificent.
The day after we went and spent the whole afternoon in the neighbouring town of Newport, to visit the Exhibition of Agriculture. There was only one passenger in our compartment, a stiff, solemn-looking lady, who plunged her nose in her book all the way without uttering one word. On arriving at Newport our silent companion dropped on my lap a small bunch of flowers and a leaflet describing the way to get to Heaven. It flashed upon me that, perhaps, that lady was some kind of missionary who wanted to snatch me from the grip of the Evil One, and rescue my soul from destruction.
The Exhibition, decorated with flags and banners, occupied a large space. In the first place we were taken to see the section of work-horses, cows, sheep and pigs in their stalls. All these animals, enormous in size, were well worth looking at, especially the pigs, long and low, with no legs to speak of, interested me much. The prize-animals had placards hanging round their necks, bearing the inscription: First Prize, Highly Commended, and simply Commended. On a big square we watched the show of the carriage, saddle and cart-horses, their manes plaited and interwoven with wild flowers and ears of corn, and their tails jauntily braided with red cords. Then came the jumping competition in which the first riders were to prove what they and their horses could do in clearing hedges, hurdles, water-jumps and other obstacles. Special experts were observing the print of the horses-hoofs on the sand, in order to see which one had made the longest leap. One of the horses bolted before a water-ditch and all the brave experts took to their heels, carrying off their chairs with them. There was suddenly a stir on the ring and stifled shrieks. It was a swarm of bees, which, leaving their hive, had settled on the head of a poor lady. Luckily a doctor who was present, rushed to her aid and began to scrape off with his pen-knife the bees from their victim’s face, which had become all at once one blistered mass. We had dinner in a big refreshment tent, during which a red-coated military band played the best pieces from their repertoire. Towards evening it began to rain, and we hurried back to Shanklin.
One afternoon we saw a carriage stop at our entrance door, it held King Oscar of Sweden and his suite, who had come to take lunch at our hotel. After their meal the whole company withdrew to the lawn in front of our window. The Swedes threw themselves down on the grass, and the eldest member of the party, who was lying on his back in idle contentment, began to sing at the top of his voice a Swedish song with the burden of O Matilde, coming over and over again. Another Swede, forgetting his dignity, pirouetted and executed somersaults like a veritable clown, his legs making frequent excursions towards the sky, to the great indignation of one of the hotel tenants, a prudish maiden-lady of some fifty years, who was knitting in the garden. She rose suddenly, gathered up her work in dignified displeasure, and walked back to the hotel with an air of offended maidenhood, like a startled virgin whose virtue was being put to the test. King Oscar was travelling in strictly incognito under the name of Count Haga. When my husband asked our waiter, who had just brought in our tea, if the gentleman who sang O Matilde, was the King, he responded stoutly that it was not at all the King, but his first minister. Some time afterwards, during our stay in Paris, we saw the portrait of the Swedish King exposed in the window of a picture shop, and the fact appeared undeniable—that the singer was precisely King Oscar.
In Shanklin, like everywhere else in England, Sunday is a dull day; the village is asleep, the shopkeepers put up their shutters and retire to the bosom of their families. Over the door of a thatched-roofed cottage just opposite Hollier’s Hotel, the sign-board Library in big white letters, is taken off and the mistress of the shop does not sweep the steps on her threshold, as she does every week-day. The baths, even, are open only until eight o’clock in the morning. There are very few people in the streets, only at eleven o’clock a.m., and at eight p.m. you can see the inhabitants with their prayer-books, going off to Chapel.
We had quite enough of the Isle of Wight. Shanklin is such a dull and sleepy place! It has only one advantage, you can’t spend money there. The worst of the place is that there is nothing to do in the evenings; at nine o’clock all the houses close their shutters, and one can only go to bed. My pleasure-loving temperament revolted against this life, and I was very pleased when the day of our departure arrived. We went by train to Cowes, where we took the boat to Southampton. Before leaving British soil, we entered a druggist’s shop and bought some homeopathic medicine against sea-sickness, for each crossing makes me horribly ill.
We arrived at Havre the next morning at sunrise. The fog was so thick that we could not see two paces ahead of us, and had to signal our approach by shrill sounds of the fog-horn. We took the express train at Havre and arrived the same evening at Paris, where we made a three days’ halt, and then started back to Russia.