As the door opened Mr. Youkoumian hastily stepped back from the keyhole. The General pushed past him and left the Ministry.
“Oh, Mr. Seal, why the ell do you want a bust up with im for? Look, how about I go after im and fix it, eh, Mr. Seal?”
“You won’t do anything of the sort. Well carry right on with the plans for the pageant of contraception.”
“Oh dear, oh dear, Mr. Seal, there ain’t no sense at all in aving bust ups.”
News of the rupture spread like plague through the town. It was first-class gossip. The twenty or so spies permanently maintained by various interests in the Imperial Household carried tidings of the split through the legations and commercial houses; runners informed the Earl of Ngumo; Black Bitch told her hairdresser; an Eurasian bank clerk told his manager and the bank manager told the Bishop; Mr. Youkoumian recounted the whole incident in graphic gesture over the bar of the Empereur Seth; Connolly swore hideously about it at the Perroquet to Prince Fyodor; the Minister of the Interior roared out a fantastically distorted version to the assembled young ladies of the leading maison de societe. That I74 evening there was no dinner table of any importance in Debra-Dowa where the subject was not discussed in detail.
“Pity,” remarked Sir Samson Courteney. “I suppose this’ll mean that young Seal will be coming up here more than ever. Sorry, Prudence, I daresay he’s all right, but the truth is I can never find much to say to the chap…. interested in different things … always going on about local politics….
Damn fool thing to quarrel about anyway. Why shouldn’t he wear boots if he wants to?”
“That wasn’t quite the point, Envoy.”
“Well, it was something of the kind, I know.”
“Ha! Ha!” said Monsieur Ballon. “Here is a thing Sir Samson did not foresee. Where is his fine web now, eh? Gossamer in the wind. Connolly is our man.”
“Alas, blind, trusting husband, if he only knew,” murmured the first to the second secretary.
“The Seal-Courteney faction and their puppet emperor have lost the allegiance of the army. We must consolidate our party.”
It was in this way it happened that next morning there occurred an event unique in Black Bitch’s experience. She was in the yard in front of her house laundering some of the General’s socks (for she could not bear another woman to touch her man’s I75 clothes), chewing nut and meditatively spitting the dark juice into the soap-suds, when a lancer dismounted before her in the crimson and green uniform of the French Legation.
“Her Grace, the Duchess of Ukaka.”
She lifted her dress, so as not to soil it, and wiped her hands on her knickers. “Me,” she said.
The man saluted, handed her a large envelope; saluted again, mounted and rode away.
The Duchess was left alone with her large envelope; she squatted on her heels and examined it, turning it this way and that, holding it up to her ear and shaking it, her head sagely cocked on one side. Then she rose, padded into the house and across the hall to her bedroom; there, after circumspection, she raised a loose corner of the fibre matting and slipped the letter beneath it.
Two or three times during the next hour she left her wash-tub to see if her treasure was safe. At noon the General returned to luncheon and she handed it over to him, to await his verdict.
“Hullo, Black Bitch, what do you suppose this is? Madame Ballon wants us to dine at the French Legation tomorrow.”
“You go?”
“But it’s for both of us, old girl. The invitation is addressed to you. What d’you think of that?”
“Oh, my! Me dine with Madame Ballon! Oh, my, that’s good!”
The Duchess could not contain her excitement; she threw back her head, lolled her eyes, and emitting deep gurgles of pleasure began spinning about the room like a teetotum.
“Good for the old geyser,” said the Duke, and later when the acceptance was written and despatched by the hand of the Imperial Guard’s most inspiring sergeant-major, and Connolly had answered numerous questions about the proper conduct of knife, fork, glass and gloves, and the Duchess had gone bustling off to Mr. Youkoumian’s store for ribbon and gold braid and artificial peonies to em-bellish her party frock, he went back to barracks with unusual warmth at heart towards the French Legation, remarking again, “Good for the old geyser. He’s the first person who’s troubled to ask Black Bitch to anything in eight years. And wasn’t she pleased as Punch about it too, bless her black heart?”
As the time approached Black Bitch’s excitement became almost alarming and her questions on etiquette so searching that the General was obliged to thump her soundly on the head and lock her in a cupboard for some hours before she could be reduced to a condition sufficiently subdued for diplomatic society. The dinner party, however, was a great success. The French Legation were there in full force, the director of the railway with his wife and daughters, and Lord Boaz, the Minister for the Interior. Black Bitch as Duchess of Ukaka took precedence and sat beside M. Ballon who spoke to her in English in praise of her husband’s military skill, influence and discretion. Any small errors in deportment which she may have committed were completely eclipsed by the Minister for the Interior who complained of the food, drank far too much, pinched the ladies on either side of him, pocketed a dozen cigars and a silver pepper mill which happened to take his fancy, and later in the drawing-room insisted on dancing by himself to the gramophone until his slaves appeared to hoist him into his car and carry him back to
In the dining room when the succession of wines finally ended with the few ceremonial spoonfuls of sweet champagne and the men were left alone—the Minister for the Interior being restrained with difficulty from too precipitately following the ladies—M. Ballon signalled for a bottle of eau de vie and moving round to the General’s side, filled his glass and prompted him to some frank criticism of the Emperor and the present regime.
In the drawing-room the French ladies crowded about their new friend and before the evening was out several of them, including Madame Ballon, had dropped the ‘Duchess’ and were on terms of calling her ‘Black Bitch.’ They asked her to come and see their gardens and children, they offered to teach her tennis and picquet, they advised her about an Armenian dressmaker in the town and a Hindu fortune teller; they were eager to lend her the patterns of their pyjamas; they spoke seriously of pills; best of all they invited her to sit on the committee which was being
