The peril that lurked in the Pommard

HENRI DUVERNOIS

The tale of a kinship that threatened to turn the wine of merriment into the water of lethe

In his studio, Auguste-Hippolyte Pleque, the fashionable portrait painter, was picturesque in wide, flapping trousers and a black velvet jacket; and his hair and beard, of a warm and lively red, flamed magnificently from his white silk shirt with its languorous open collar. But when he walked abroad, Auguste-Hippolyte was a different man. Then, his only affectation was to be conspicuous for nothing save, perhaps, a sober elegance.

These elegant excursions were, however, infrequent; for he had no motor-car as yet, and he shrank—nay, such was the height of his sensibility that he positively recoiled—from the promiscuity of public conveyances. So he merely strolled along the Avenue du Bois, where he was apt to run into some of his wealthy acquaintances who might sit for him; or else, he looked in at the Quartier Monceau, where he was sure to encounter his fellow artists and his masters. Always industrious since his earliest youth, he was neither a dreamer nor a Bohemian. A highly practical common sense had led him to envisage for himself a career adorned at intervals by official recognition, awards, and profitable commissions, and flowering exquisitely into the single blossom of a rich marriage.

As an artist, he was blessed with what is called "a delicate touch", and made a specialty of reproducing, in his paintings, the texture of velvets, plush and pearls. So great was his dexterity in the portrayal of patent leather shoes that a fashionable shoemaker had asked permission to use one of his paintings as an advertisement. AugusteHippolyte refused, with a flattered smile. He was really an excellent young man, assiduous in his devotion to his work and free from the torturing fires of temperament. He worked hard at his calling, and his progress was slow but sure; but he would have been equally at home in the profession of law or school-teaching.

About once in every two years, he went home to his native village, to visit his father—who still wore wooden shoes—and his mother, a stout, kindly woman whose only interest was in her house-keeping. Auguste-Hippolyte was fond of them, but he always urged them, rather pointedly perhaps, never on any account to set foot in Paris; it was a dangerous city, he told them, where innumerable accidents were always occurring. M. and Madame Pleque were gently acquiescent. They had a little money and kept a small shop, half grocery, half drapery They had a tremendous admiration for their son, Auguste, who had painted a rather gaudy portrait of them with M. Pleque in a black coat and Madame Pleque in a gown of purple velvet, a necklace adorning her throat and rings on her fingers. This elegant and sprightly attire, needless to say, was born entirely of the artist's imagination; but to the proud parents, it was almost as if their son had actually given them the black coat, the necklace and the rings. Their pride in him, after that, reached a height which their friends found almost annoying.

"The proof that Auguste is what they call a genius," M. Pleque would point out, over and over, "is that he took us just as he found us, me in my smock and Eugenie in her apron, and that in two minutes and three strokes of his brush, he dressed us as you see us in the portrait!"

Life was drifting along very pleasantly for Auguste-Hippolyte, and he was contented in the esteem of his teachers and of his fashionable acquaintances—when, one day, he met his old cousin Emma in the rue de Prony. Cousin Emma was a large, hearty woman with a vigorous moustache, and she was carrying, at the moment, a market-bag full of provisions topped by a fine frenzy of cabbage-leaves. Auguste, in embarrassment, at once became absorbed in the window display of a nearby laundry; and he was gazing with the utmost concentration at a. dress shirt with a bosom composed of a thousand tiny pleats, when:

"My dear boy!" cried Cousin Emma.

He turned with a start, affecting great surprise.

"Cousin Emma!"

"Are you getting near-sighted?"

"A little—yes—"

"You ought to buy some glasses."

"Besides, I'm absent minded, like all artists."

"Oh, I forgot—that's so! You are an artist. Have you been decorated?"

"Not yet."

"Do you belong to the Academy? You must work hard, my boy."

"I do work, Cousin Emma."

"Oh, yes—yes, I suppose so." Cousin Emma was gently skeptical.

"I have received a second medal."

"Then there must have been a first—?"

"Of course!"

"Well, then—that's not so much for you to boast about, after all!"

No one is a prophet in his own country, reflected Auguste-Hippolyte, unable to tear his eyes from the market-bag. He was a martyr to his family connections.

"How is Cousin Adolphe?" he asked. "Is business good with him?"

"Where are your wits? Are you still thinking of the hardware shop?"

"I was—"

"We sold out. My husband preferred to take a position."

"Ah!"

"Precisely!"

"A position—?"

"There was a vacancy—oh, an excellent opening—as butler at the Creuil-Diaizes."

Auguste could listen no longer. It seemed to him that the very ground on which he stood was giving way. He stuttered as he said:

"Will you excuse me now? I see a member of the Institute over there. I—I'll see you soon."

He made his escape and went home, shattered with dismay. This was delightful, he mused bitterly. Things were going splendidly —oh, yes! Everything was perfect. His cousin Adolphe was to be butler for the CreuilDiaizes. Auguste sank into a chair and groaned.

The Creuil-Diaizes. ... Not only were they important patrons of art and extremely valuable acquaintances, but they had a daughter, Lucie, with whom Auguste, having looked upon her once from afar, had fallen overwhelmingly in love. And only recently, a mutual friend had promised to present him, not only to Lucie but to the whole family— this fashionable, exquisite and eminently desirable family. Auguste groaned anew.

Mme. Creuil-Diaize demanded of every new portrait painter, in turn, that he should restore her vanished youth, and Auguste felt confident of his ability to do this. Her husband paid for the portraits cheerfully—the price never troubled him. Lucie, an exquisite brunette, had the loveliest blue eyes in the world. Their table was admirable. But now, warned in advance, Auguste would rather have died than endure the humiliation of shaking hands with a cousin who was a butler in this house. Ah, well—one, at least, of his ambitions was crumbling in ruin.

His despair made him feverish, and he had to go to bed. His sleep was disturbed by nightmares in all of which Cousin Adolphe figured alarmingly—a small, thin man, with trim little grey whiskers and all the affability of a good servant and a kindly relative. There was Adolphe, dreadful in his dreaminterrupting the table talk of Auguste and Mile. Creuil-Diaize by leaning lightly above his cousin's shoulder, and then . . . instead of the polite murmur, "Pommard, 1891?" reserved for the other guests, there came to the ears of Auguste, in his dream, the dreadful query of his cousin, the butler:

"Pommard, Cousin Auguste?"

The guests laughed. Lucie turned pale. Adolphe picked up the painter, who had sunk beneath the table, and dragged him away by the heels, saying;

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"At least, I needn't talk to you in the third person!" Then this terrible man addressed the assembled ladies and gentlemen, "I beg to apologize, messieurs et mesdames, for my cousin's behaviour. I'll just take him off to the pantry and make him drink a glass of tonic, and then he can finish his dinner with the rest of us, in the servants' hall. Don't be disturbed—he's used to that!"

Pleque arose in a chill from this ghastly night. He shut himself up at home, and there he duly received, the following day, the anticipated invitation from the Creuil-Diaizes. He made an evasive excuse. That fatal phrase: "Pommard, Cousin Auguste?" still echoed in his ears, as in his dream. For months he did not accept a single invitation to dine out. He was even afraid to dine with the Auponts lest their brother-in-law, who knew the Creuil-Diaizes, might have borrowed their butler.

Grimly this fashionable painter renounced the world of fashion—temporarily, at least.

One day he heard that Mile. CreuilDiaizes had just become engaged to a young artist who had wooed her while he was executing a commission to paint her mother's portrait. This news staggered Auguste, who sought refuge in the Parc Monceau to be alone with his sorrow. But fate did not leave him in solitude. Once more, chance brought him face to face with his cousin Emma. He smiled bitterly.

"I suppose your husband is very busy these days," he said, "with all the entertaining for Mile. Creuil-Diaizes and her fiance?"

"Are you trying to be funny?" Mme. Adolphe interrupted, sternly. "No—I remember—you rushed off like a madman the last time I saw you, without letting me finish what I was saying. I was telling you that Adolphe had found a splendid position with these Creuil-Diaizes—but, unfortunately, he caught a bad cold, and a fever, and died—seven years ago, after being there only three weeks."