The Rose Petals

The Pathetic Story of a Grizzled Dealer in Beauty and Her Very Ingenious Assistant

HENRI DUVERNOIS

AFTER various alterations, Madame Begureuil opened her beauty shop, The Rose Petals, where she sold cosmetics, dyes, and perfumes. It was a pretty place; and with its whiteness, its stucco garlands running along the walls, and its decorative prints, it recalled the eighteenth century, in which there was so fashionable an abuse of rouge, beauty-spots, and rice powder.

The proprietress had the appearance of a mummy painted in the brightest and most ornate colours. Her mouth was a blood red, in contrast to the scaly plaster of her face, and her dull eyes were framed in a crayoning of purple. A Ceres of sixty, she carried on her head a laborious structure of blonde plaits and false red curls. Her slightest motion released a heavy whiff of perfume. The lobes of her ears, which were touched up with vermilion, vaunted two artificial pearls, and her fingers with the shiny nails were adorned with glass rings. The shop did not open its doors until midday, the proprietress requiring her mornings to put her features in order and to present to her clients a spectacle which—contrary to her intentions—was more instructive than imposing.

LADIES accustomed to adventure and endowed with curiosity gladly submit to trades-people, and they find much to attract them in the retreat of a shopkeeper. Mme. Begureuil was a hostess rather than a saleswoman. She had renounced laughter because, though the laugh may be proper to man, it is prejudicial to the artistic labour of the enameled woman; but she seasoned her salestalks with a dash of psychology:

"You see this cream, madame. One must take a quantity the size of a pea and rub it on each temple before retiring. The most intelligent of us grow old first at the temples. A woman must always think of self-defence; gentlemen never fail to proclaim 'Woe to the vanquished!' Shall I wrap up a little twentyfive franc jar for you?"

Charming spot! Everything there was fresh and graceful, down to the pale rose wrapping-paper with the baby-blue cord. The cash-box affected the form of a jewel case, on which the shepherd Acis was playing the flute for Galatea. The paper money was kept in a bergamot sachet. The account book had the form and binding of a suggestive almanac. The air was saturated with the perfumed spray from vaporizers which were called into service repeatedly. Passing vagabonds would sniff these unusual odours with disgust. Mme. Begureuil was assisted by a homely and slovenly attendant who never showed herself and was delegated to perform the more indelicate tasks at the back of the shop. The proprietress devoted all her leisure moments to the attentive examination of her features: by dint of staring at herself she had ceased to see herself as she was, and her illusion was helped out by the semi-darkness of the store. Thus, she could attribute the chastity of her mature years to one of those inexplicable renunciations, such as sometimes overtake young actresses at the height of their careers.

"Love," she would say, "no longer interests me, except in others."

One day as she was engaged in pasting on an artificial eyelash, she abandoned the lash, pressed the bulb of a vaporizer, and stepped forward to receive a young girl who was entering.

"What do you wish, mademoiselle?"

But the new-comer held out her hand to her.

"Good day, Auntie! You do not recognize me? I suppose I must have grown."

"Ah!" exclaimed Mme. Begureuil, changing her tone. "It is Lucienne!"

"Lucienne Métu; yes, Auntie."

"Well, sit down."

And Lucienne told her story. Her mother, a widow, was barely subsisting at GarenneBezons, on a tiny income. So she should get out and do something, shouldn't she? She had decided to come all alone on the tram, bravely, to find her Aunt Emma; because it is natural in times of misfortune that she should turn to someone inside the family, even though some members of that family had been kept apart for years, as a result of quarrels in which she had had no part. Lucienne would be satisfied with any kind of work. She had already had experience in various lines, though with not very good results. She had taught French to some Brazilians, who had dismissed her on the pretext that she had written "Monsieur Pablo da pas fait son devoir d'hortaugraphs et Mademoiselle Lola ses contes d'aritmaitigue. Je demande pour eux un painsomme." She had sold handkerchiefs in lots, and she had been the maid of an actress.

"And I am not yet twenty!" she concluded with pride.

MME. BÉGUREUIL uttered a cry which contained mingled jealousy, regret and admiration. Twenty! Lucienne was a pretty girl, quite plump and solidly built—and she had kept the credulous nose and the naive eyes of childhood. It was obvious that she was not at all malicious, and that she possessed the most pronounced characteristic of her family, the Métus distinguishing themselves by a kind of animal-like obtuseness.—But twenty! Twenty, that is, in hair, in teeth, in health, and in cheerfulness—with a bosom that would have enchanted a draughtsman of the year i885, and a light pink complexion fit to be pasted on a box of soap! At the mere sight of her, so challenging in her youthfulness, Mme. Begureuil trembled. . . . She reached a sudden decision.

"Take off your hat," she ordered. "An idea has occurred to me. I am going to try you out. All you will have to do is to agree with everything I say: that is not difficult. But we must see if we can't brighten you up a bit, I must admit."

"Very well, Auntie. I have had friends: an engineer, a cabaret singer, and a dealer in guano. . . ."

"I didn't mean that. What do you think I am? By brightening you up I mean teaching you how to please the customers, to get them to buy things, and to avoid blunders. You will call me Mme. Begureuil."

"Yes, Auntie. I am quite satisfied. It smells so good here!"

"Put your hat in that closet and come stand alongside me. Just one piece of advice. Whenever I ask you anything, you will answer me in a deep, grave voice. Do you understand? I am going to explain to you. . .. After a while: here comes someone!"

The vaporizer was already at work again; a client was entering. A good client, to judge by the infirmities which she enumerated: dryness of the scalp, blackheads on the nose, cracked lips, and, above all, dimples, dimples which had been found so pretty by so many people that they had remained, transformed now into wrinkles.

"The wrinkle is a permanent dimple," Mme. Begureuil agreed. "One laughs so much when one is young that one still retains the marks when the desire to laugh is past."

BUT the remedy was at hand—the remedy, this little jar of cream which seemed so insignificant. The customer hesitated at the price, and was just about to retire at the purchase of twenty centimes worth of white pins, when Mme. Begureuil launched her final argument:

"But let me show you. . . . Madame Lucienne, stand up.... Eh bien! Madame, my assistant, who uses this cream, is forty years old."

"Forty!" the customer exclaimed.

"Her oldest boy is a gunner at La Fere. Isn't that so, Madame Lucienne?"

And Mme. Lucienne, understanding what was expected of her, answered in a cavernous voice:

"Yes, madame, I was forty the sixth of last month."

"And you can tell the truth to madame; come, tell it, Mme. Lucienne, there is no disgrace. Before you found this cream, you were almost disagreeable in appearance. And now it has removed her moustaches, effaced her crow's feet, and cleansed the complexion to the point where she is taken for the sister of her son, the daughter of her husband, and the granddaughter of her father."

The customer was overwhelmed, and she acquired successively a jar of salve, two bottles of perfume, some pencils, a restorative lotion, and an eyebrow brush. And Lucienne Metu was definitely installed, despite her candour.— Nevertheless, at the end of some weeks, her role as a woman of forty began to grow irksome, particularly as she found it humiliating when gentlemen were present.

"All right," said Mme. Begureuil. "Can you imitate the voice of a little girl reciting a fairy tale?"

"Listen!" Lucienne replied, "You will see; it is my strong point, I have entertained people by doing that:

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Maître Corbeau, sur un arbre perce, Tenait dans son bec un fromaze. . . ."

Henceforth she was employed in promoting a hygienic foulard which was intended to fill out insufficient chests.

"You understand; don't get it wrong," the proprietress repeated. "For the cream, you are forty; for the foulard, you are fifteen. In case the same customer should buy both, say nothing."

Lucienne was delighted with this diversion. She lisped:

"I am fifteen yearth old, and before I uthed the Java foulard I wath almoth ath flat ath a pancake."

And she called Mme. Begureuil mamma.

Meanwhile, Madame's peace of mind was troubled by a Monsieur Ledombricque. He was a brisk gentleman with hair dyed black, who dressed with old-fashioned elegance, and was very probably myopic. As he put in his appearance at the shop quite frequently, Mme. Begureuil became uneasy, and thought at first that he was attracted by her niece. She was deeply moved and filled with great pride when she discovered that he was really coming for her and that he was paying her court in the most discreet, most tender, and most superannuated manner. In order that he might have an opportunity to declare himself, at each of his visits she would send Lucienne away on some pretext or other, and would expatiate on the deplorable situation of a widow who was still young, and alone in the world with a child of fifteen:

"When she was born, I was twentysix years old," she simpered. "I am old, very old; I do not want to hide my age from you."

In response M. Ledombricque would knead her hands eloquently. One evening he came just as these ladies were about to close the store. His dress and his feverish excitement betrayed the tenderest of sentiments; but at the very moment that Mme. Begureuil was preparing to dismiss Lucienne, she was called by the attendant in the rear of the shop.

"My child, since we are alone," said M. Ledombricque, "here are twentyfive francs; hand me a jar of cream, quick. I should like to look a little young. . . . But she must not know of this, by all means! . . . And the cream will do somegood, at least?"

Mme. Begureuil was returning; she heard, and her heart beat tenderly. Still, this poor M. Ledombricque would make a very enviable protector. . . . As to Lucienne, she wrapped the ointment in rose paper and tied it with a baby-blue cord. And she finally responded, in her most cavernous accents:

"Will the cream do some good! But, monsieur, look at me! I am forty years old. My eldest son is a gunner at La Fere. Before I found this cream, I was disagreeable in appearance. It has effaced my crow's-feet. . . . Why, there is mamma!"

M. Ledombricque started, turned around, beheld the object of his love with disillusioned eyes, and fled. Mme. Begureuil, pale beneath her rouge, was vacillating between rage and a desire to faint. But Lucienne continued, in her natural voice:

"All the same, Auntie, I believe that I am beginning to get some understanding of business!"