Black Mischief (6 page)

‘I am
afraid that as yet the Wanda are totally out of touch with modern thought. They
need education. We must start some schools and a university for them when we
get things straight.’

‘That’s
it, Seth, you can’t blame them. It’s want of education. That’s all it is.’

‘We might
start them on Montessori methods, ‘ said Seth dreamily. ‘You can’t blame them.’
Then rousing himself:

‘Connolly,
I shall make you a Duke.’

‘That’s
nice of you, Seth. I don’t mind so much for myself, but Black Bitch will be
pleased as Punch about it.’

‘And,
Connolly.’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t
you think that when she is a Duchess, it might be more suitable if you were to
try and call your wife by another name? You see, there will probably be a great
influx of distinguished Europeans for my coronation. We wish to break down
colour barriers as far as possible. Your name for Mrs Connolly, though suitable
as a term of endearment in the home, seems to emphasize the racial distinction
between you in a way which might prove disconcerting.’

‘I dare
say you’re right, Seth. I’ll try and remember when we’re in company. But I
shall always think of her as Black Bitch, somehow. By the way, what has become
of Ali?’

‘Ali?
Yes, I had forgotten. He was murdered by Major Joab yesterday evening. And that
reminds me of something else. I must order a new crown.’

Chapter Two

Lovey dovey, cat’s eyes.’

‘You
got that out of a book.’

‘Well,
yes. How did you know?’

‘I read
it too. It’s been all round the compound.’

‘Anyway,
I said it as a quotation. We have to find new things to say somehow sometimes,
don’t we?’

William
and Prudence rolled apart and lay on their backs, sun hats tilted over their
noses, shading their eyes from the brilliant equatorial sun. They were on the
crest of the little hills above Debra Dowa; it was cool there, eight thousand
feet up. Behind them in a stockade of euphorbia trees stood a thatched
Nestorian shrine. At its door the priest’s youngest child lay sunning his naked
belly, gazing serenely into the heavens, indifferent to the flies which settled
on the corners of his mouth and sauntered across his eyeballs. Below them the
tin roofs of Debra Dowa and a few thin columns of smoke were visible among the
blue gums. At a distance the Legation syce sat in charge of the ponies.

‘William,
darling, there’s something so extraordinary on your neck. I believe it’s two of
them.’

‘Well,
I think you might knock it off.’

‘I
believe it’s that kind which sting worst.’

‘Beast.’

‘Oh,
it’s gone now. It
was
two.’

‘I can
feel it walking about.’

‘No,
darling, that’s me. I think you might
look
sometimes when I’m being
sweet to you. I’ve invented a new way of kissing. You do it with your
eyelashes.’

‘I’ve
known that for years. It’s called a butterfly kiss.’

‘Well
you needn’t be so high up about it. I only do these things for your benefit.’

‘It was
very nice, darling. I only said it wasn’t very new.’

‘I
don’t believe you liked it at all.’

‘It was
so like the stinging thing.’

‘Oh,
how maddening it is to have no one to make love with except you.’

‘Sophisticated
voice.’

‘That’s
not sophisticated. It’s my gramophone record voice. My sophisticated voice is
quite different. It’s like this.’

‘I call
that American.’

‘Shall
I do my vibrant-with-passion voice?’

‘No.’

‘Oh
dear, men are hard to keep amused.’ Prudence sat up and lit a cigarette. ‘I
think you’re effeminate and undersexed,’ she said, ‘and I hate you.’

‘That’s
because you’re too young to arouse serious emotion. You might give me a
cigarette.’

‘I
hoped you’d say that. It happens to be the last. Not only the last in my pocket
but the last in Debra Dowa. I got it out of the Envoy Extraordinary’s bedroom
this morning.’

‘Oh
Lord, when will this idiotic war be over? We haven’t had a bag for six weeks.
I’ve run out of hair-wash and detective stories and now no cigarettes. I think
you might give me some of that.’

‘I hope
you go bald. Still, I’ll let you have the cigarette.’

‘Pru,
how sweet of you. I never thought you would.’

‘I’m
that kind of girl.’

‘I
think I’ll give you a kiss.’

‘No,
try the new way with eyelashes.’

‘Is
that right?’

‘Delicious.
Do it some more. ‘.

Presently
they remounted and rode back to the Legation. On the way William said:

‘I hope
it doesn’t give one a twitch.’

‘What
doesn’t, darling?’

‘That
way with the eyelashes. I’ve seen people with twitches. I dare say that’s how
they got it. There was once a man who got run in for winking at girls in the
street. So he said it was a permanent affliction and he winked all through his
trial and got off. But the sad thing is that now he can’t stop and he’s been
winking ever since.’

‘I will
say one thing for you,’ said Prudence. ‘You do know a lovely lot of stories. I
dare say that’s why I like you.’

Three Powers — Great
Britain, France and the United States — maintained permanent diplomatic
representatives at Debra Dowa. It was not an important appointment. Mr
Schonbaum, the doyen, had adopted diplomacy late in life. Indeed the more
formative years of his career had already passed before he made up his mind, in
view of the uncertainty of Central European exchanges, to become a citizen of
the republic he represented. From the age of ten until the age of forty he had
lived an active life variously engaged in journalism, electrical engineering,
real estate, cotton broking, hotel management, shipping and theatrical
promotion. At the outbreak of the European war he had retired first to the
United States, and then, on its entry into the war, to Mexico. Soon after the
declaration of peace he became an American citizen and amused himself in
politics. Having subscribed largely to a successful Presidential campaign, he
was offered his choice of several public preferments, of which the ministry at
Debra Dowa was by far the least prominent or lucrative. His European
upbringing, however, had invested diplomacy with a glamour which his later
acquaintance with the great world had never completely dimmed; he had made all
the money he needed; the climate at Debra Dowa was reputed to be healthy and
the environment romantic. Accordingly he had chosen that post and had not
regretted it, enjoying during the last eight years a popularity and prestige
which he would hardly have attained among his own people.

The
French Minister, M. Ballon, was a Freemason.

His
Britannic Majesty’s minister, Sir Samson Courteney, was a man of singular
personal charm and wide culture whose comparative ill-success in diplomatic
life was attributable rather to inattention than to incapacity. As a very
young man he had great things predicted of him. He had passed his examinations
with a series of papers of outstanding brilliance; he had powerful family
connections in the Foreign Office; but almost from the outset of his career it
became apparent that he would disappoint expectations. As third secretary at
Peking he devoted himself, to the exclusion of all other interests, to the
construction of a cardboard model of the Summer Palace; transferred to
Washington he conceived a sudden enthusiasm for bicycling and would disappear
for days at a time to return dusty but triumphant with reports of some broken
record for speed or endurance; the scandal caused by this hobby culminated in
the discovery that he had entered his name for an international long-distance
championship. His uncles at the Foreign Office hastily shifted him to
Copenhagen, marrying him, on his way through London, to the highly suitable
daughter of a Liberal cabinet minister. It was in Sweden that his career was
finally doomed. For some time past he had been noticeably silent at the dinner
table when foreign languages were being spoken; now the shocking truth became
apparent that he was losing his mastery even of French; many ageing diplomats,
at loss for a word, could twist the conversation and suit their opinions to
their vocabulary; Sir Samson recklessly improvised or lapsed into a kind of
pidgin English. The uncles were loyal. He was recalled to London and
established in a department of the Foreign Office. Finally, at the age of
fifty, when his daughter Prudence was thirteen years old, he was created a
Knight of St Michael and St George and relegated to Azania. The appointment caused
him the keenest delight. It would have astonished him to learn that anyone
considered him unsuccessful or that he was known throughout the service as the
‘Envoy Extraordinary’.

The
Legation lay seven miles out of the capital; a miniature garden city in a stockaded
compound, garrisoned by a troop of Indian cavalry. There was wireless
communication with Aden and a telephone service, of capricious activity, to the
town. The road, however, was outrageous. For a great part of the year it was
furrowed by water-courses, encumbered with boulders, landslides and fallen
trees, and ambushed by cut-throats. On this matter Sir Samson’s predecessor
had addressed numerous remonstrances to the Azanian government with the result
that several wayfarers were hanged under suspicion of brigandage; nothing, however,
was done about the track; the correspondence continued and its conclusion was
the most nearly successful achievement of Sir Samson’s career. Stirred by his
appointment and zealous for his personal comfort, the Envoy Extraordinary
had, for the first time in his life, thrown himself wholeheartedly into a
question of public policy. He had read through the entire file bearing on the
subject and with-in a week of presenting his papers, re-opened the question in
a personal interview with the Prince Consort. Month after month he pressed
forward the interchange of memoranda between Palace, Legation, Foreign Office
and Office of Works (the posts of Lord Chamberlain, Foreign Secretary and
Minister of Works were all, as it happened at that time, occupied by the
Nestorian Metropolitan), until one memorable day Prudence returned from her
ride to say that a caravan of oxen, a load of stones and three chain-gangs of
convicts had appeared on the road. Here, however, Sir Samson suffered a
setback. The American commercial attaché acted, in his ample spare time, as
agents for a manufacturer of tractors, agricultural machinery and steam-. rollers.
At his representation the convicts were withdrawn and the Empress and her circle
settled down to the choice of a steam-roller. She had always had a weakness for
illustrated catalogues and after several weeks’ discussion had ordered a
threshing machine, a lawn mower and a mechanical saw. About the steam-roller
she could not make up her mind. The Metropolitan Archbishop (who was working
with the American attaché on a half-commission basis) supported a very
magnificent engine named Pennsylvania Monarch; the Prince Consort, whose
personal allowance was compromised by any public extravagance, headed a party
in favour of the more modest Kentucky Midget. Meanwhile guests to the British
Legation were still in most seasons of the year obliged to ride out to dinner
on mule-back, preceded by armed Askaris and a boy with a lantern. It was widely
believed that a decision was imminent, when the Empress’s death and the
subsequent civil war postponed all immediate hope of improvement. The Envoy
Extraordinary bore the reverse with composure but real pain. He had taken the
matter to heart and he felt hurt and disillusioned. The heap of stones at the
roadside remained for him as a continual reproach, the monument to his single
ineffective excursion into statesmanship.

In its
isolation, life in the compound was placid and domestic. Lady Courteney devoted
herself to gardening. The bags came out from London laden with bulbs and
cuttings and soon there sprang up round the Legation a luxuriant English
garden; lilac and lavender, privet and box, grass walks and croquet lawn,
rockeries and wildernesses, herbaceous borders, bowers of rambler roses,
puddles of waterlilies and an immature maze.

William
Bland, the honorary attaché, lived with the Courteneys. The rest of the staff were
married. The Second Secretary had clock golf and the Consul two tennis courts.
They called each other by their Christian names, pottered in and out of each
others’ bungalows and knew the details of each others’ housekeeping. The
Oriental Secretary, Captain Walsh, alone maintained certain reserves. He
suffered from recurrent malaria and was known to ill-treat his wife. But since
he was the only member of the Legation who understood Sakuyu, he was a man of
importance, being in frequent demand as arbiter in disputes between the
domestic servants.

The
unofficial British population of Debra Dowa was small and rather shady. There
was the manager of the bank and his wife (who was popularly believed to have an
infection of Indian blood); two subordinate bank clerks _; a shipper of hides
who described himself as President of the Azanian Trading Association; a
mechanic on the railway who was openly married to two Azanians; the Anglican
Bishop of Debra Dowa and a shifting community of canons and curates, the
manager of the Eastern Exchange Telegraph Company; and General Connolly.
Intercourse between them and the Legation was now limited to luncheon on
Christmas Day, to which all the more respectable were invited, and an annual
garden party on the King’s Birthday which was attended by everyone in the town,
from the Georgian Prince who managed the Perroquet Night Club to the Mormon
Missionary. This aloofness from the affairs of the town was traditional to the
Legation, being dictated partly by the difficulties of the road and partly by
their inherent disinclination to mix with social inferiors. On Lady Courteney’s
first arrival in Debra Dowa she had attempted to break down these distinctions,
saying that they were absurd in so small a community. General Connolly had
dined twice at the Legation and a friendship seemed to be in bud when its
flowering was abruptly averted by an informal call paid on him by Lady
Courteney in his own quarters. She had been lunching with the Empress and
turned aside on her way home to deliver an invitation to croquet. Sentries
presented arms in the courtyard, a finely uniformed servant opened the door,
but this dignified passage was interrupted by a resolute little Negress in a
magenta tea-gown who darted across the hall and barred her way to the
drawing-room.