Part 8

He felt good, good to the core. When he had filled the bucket and drawn it up, the splashing water itself seemed to laugh in the early sunlight. Brent stood in the street and washed, stripped to the waist, dipping his head into the cold water and letting it run over his chest and shoulders. A little spiral of blue smoke had begun to climb like some magic plant up the wall of Manon’s house, and Brent could hear the crackling of wood in the stove. Manon was busy before her ten-mile walk to Ste. Claire.

An hour later she was standing at the top of the flight of steps leading to the street, her bag in her hand, her face upturned to Brent’s. It was a happy face with gentle eyes, the flicker of a smile playing about the mouth.

“Au revoir.”

He held her hand for a moment.

“I will look after everything.”

“And take care of yourself, Paul. I will not forget the tobacco.”

She turned and went down the steps, turned again at the corner by the stone house, and looked back at him with a kind of smiling solemnity. The morning sunlight was on her face, and her plain black dress showed up against the white stonework.

“Au revoir.”

Brent raised a hand like a man uttering a benediction.

He remained standing there after she had gone, filling his pipe with the last dust that was left in his pouch, and smiling without realizing the smile in his eyes. For Brent was happy, extraordinarily happy, and life seemed very good to him that morning. He was conscious of strong and simple purpose, and of the man’s job ready to his hands. He was conscious, too, of being trusted; and Manon’s faith in him was the most precious thing that his hands had touched for many years. He felt that he had a new heart in a new body—that he had begun to love these ruins because of their human significance. There was hope in the air, and the spring was coming.

“Off with your coat, man,” said Life; “swing your hammer and drive your saw. Sweat—sweat and feel good. It is the simple things that matter.”

Brent had the ultimate philosophy of life ripening in his heart. He had worked back to the wholesome state of using his hands, nor were they the hands of a machine minder or of a clerk fribbling with a typewriter or a pen. Yesterday he had worked with a ferocious forcefulness; to-day his body moved like silk, easily and with a smooth balance; his hammer went true to the mark; he had no sense of hurry or fatigue. He was above his work, its master, and in a mood that could open its eyes to the world and catch glimpses of the strange beauty that is everywhere.

In his resting moments, or when he was ready to start off with a load, he would stand for a little while and stare at the graining of a piece of timber, the dark shadows that seemed to hang in the bare woods, the sunlight on the hill, or the way some broken bit of wall cut a zig-zag out of the blue of the sky. His contentment was so complete and so pleasant that he could not help questioning it, turning it over and over like a man examining something that he has found.

“I wonder if I should get bored here—fed up?”

He laughed.

Boredom seemed so far from the mood of the moment; yet he chalked “boredom” on the black-board of his mind, and tabulated all the facts he could accumulate on the subject. He could not remember feeling bored as a boy, except in church and at school, when the buoyant youngster in him had been repressed. His marriage and too much “business” had brought other and more subtle forms of self-repression. He had been very badly bored during the thirties. And he had been short of exercise, wholesome sweat of body and of soul.

“Yes, but this is only an adventure,” said the voice in him.

But was it only an adventure?

He had pushed the gig along the Rue de Rosières, and had begun to unload the timber, stacking it in the back room on the right of the passage. Each time he carried in a length of timber that reached from the floor to some twelve feet up the wall, he found himself thinking, “Another rafter for Manon.”

“Mon ami,” he thought, using those words of hers, “why worry? We fools are always looking six months ahead and missing the glass of wine on the table.”

He decided that he would not be a creator of problems, but march straight ahead towards the broad sweep of this new horizon.

Brent spent the rest of the day in dismantling the framework of the largest of the huts, and in carting the timber to the café. The work had gone so well that he now had nearly all the material he needed for the rough work on the house, and the material included a couple of deal doors and four window-frames. One of the huts in the field on the road to Rosières had a wooden floor, and Brent made up his mind to salve that floor, for the boards would be invaluable when he came to dealing with three upper rooms. Just before dusk fell he trundled the barrow over to the factory and brought back a load of lime, making a second journey for some sand. The first job on the morrow would be the re-bricking of the holes in the walls, and after supper, when the moon rose, he went out again with the barrow and collected bricks.

Brent had not entered the cellar since Manon had left it, and at the end of that long day when he had taken his food cold, and between heroic spells of work, he went down the flight of steps into the darkness of the place. He stood holding the ground sheet aside, aware of a something that was Manon, a faint perfume—a perfume that had clung about her clothes. It made Brent think of a bed of gilliflowers on an evening in May.

He smiled, lit the candle, and glanced round the cellar. Manon had tidied everything before leaving. The cups and plates were white and clean on the shelves, she had made the bed, and left the stove filled with wood ready for a match. Old Mère Vitry’s picture of the Sacred Heart stood on the table, leaning against the wall. Brent found himself looking at it.

“There’s something in that—after all,” he thought; “and yet she says that she is not a Catholic!”

He lit the stove and watched the yellow flames climb up through the wood, and his thoughts were with Manon and her religion. These old beliefs, superstitions, as he had learnt to call them, these woodland shadows and red blaze of sunset glass, those saints, and martyrs, miracles, the wine that was blood, the tears, the terrors, the quaint paganism that lingered like sunlight on the dark edge of the eternal mystery! He had a feeling that the very soil of Beaucourt was saturated with this most human essence. It was like the sap in the roots of the plants and trees. The moderns were educated; they were—in the mass—very material people. Even these French peasants were children of the age of reason, and yet the sap was there under their feet, the mystic heritage of centuries. That was how Paul felt it in the person of Manon Latour. The scientific farmer thinks of his artificial manure and is apt to forget the spring. The miracle has got lost inside the machine. Yet the orchards put on their white garlands like girls who feel the great mystery within them.

“One always comes back to it,” said Brent.

And Manon had knelt in the ruined church of Beaucourt and then told him with a child’s frankness that her religion was her own. Of course it was hers. She was as full of religion as the soil was full of spring. She had not been smothered in a town. She did not sell herself; there was more than mere sense under her petticoat. She had a soul.

“Queer, isn’t it?” thought Brent. “A modern man would think you were a bit cracked if you started talking about a soul. A few hundred years ago he would have felt insulted if you had taken it for granted that he hadn’t one. We’re too damned clever; that’s what’s the matter with us.”

Yet he went to bed a mixture of mystic and materialist. One of the blankets had the faint perfume of Manon’s clothes.

“Smells like the spring,” he said to himself.

And then he fell to gloating over that mass of wood and iron he had stacked in the rooms above.

“Well, what about it?” was the retort of the mystic-materialist. “Even a Bradbury has a potential soul. Depends on what you do with it, of course.”

Manon, meanwhile, was sitting in Madame Castener’s cottage at Ste. Claire. She had reached the hill above Ste. Claire about noon, and had looked down on the village flashing its white walls behind the sun-splashed tops of the poplars. The completeness and the unravaged tranquillity of Ste. Claire had shocked her a little after the ruins of Beaucourt. What luck there had been in the war! Yes, but Beaucourt and its wrecked houses had produced Paul Brent, and to Manon—the woman—Paul Brent had begun to matter.

Veuve Castener’s Flemish face hung out a look of massive surprise when Manon walked into the cottage.

“What! You back?”

“Yes, I am here,” said Manon to this obvious lady; “have I changed?”

Madame Castener wiped her mouth with a corner of her apron.

She was a heavy woman—all bulges and protuberances—a big cow, but kind. A widow, she lived alone. Her married son, Etienne, had the cottage next door.

“There is something to eat.”

Manon took off her cloak and hat.

“Who told you that I was staying at Beaucourt?” she asked.

Veuve Castener never hurried herself. She sat down again at the round table, put a bit of bread in her mouth, munched it, and then replied:

“A man, ma chérie.”

Manon laughed, and fetched herself a plate and knife and fork from the dresser.

“And they say men do not gossip!”

“It was that fellow who used to keep the hotel at Beaucourt.”

“Oh, Bibi!” said Manon, with casual scorn. “I suppose he wanted to find out how long I was staying at Beaucourt. That fellow ought to have been killed in the war.”

She sat down and helped herself to the very plain food that was on the table.

“So Bibi is starting a scandal, is he? How droll!”

She looked at her good friend, who continued to munch like a cow chewing the cud. There were no treacheries and no surprises in Veuve Castener; she was always the same, rolling along like a big wagon that would never land you in the ditch. Her imperturbable stupidity was an asset, weight on a critical occasion, ballast during a storm. Nothing ever threw her into a state of excitement. It was possible that when the Last Trump sounded she might keep all Heaven waiting while she mended a hole in her stocking.

Veuve Castener had helped at the Café de la Victoire before Manon’s marriage. Her very slowness made her loyal, for when she had grown fond of a person there was no time for her to grow tired. Friendship, like her petticoats, seemed to last with Veuve Castener for ever.

Manon was in a dilemma. Had she felt free to do so, she would have told her friend everything, for Marie Castener was to be trusted; but Manon held herself bound to keep Paul’s secret. He was at her mercy, and Manon had a sense of honour.

“I must tell you about Paul,” she said: “you did not know that I had found a partner?”

“I know nothing till I am told, my dear.”

“Not even when Bibi——?”

Marie gave a fat shrug.

“Oh—a man like that! A stallion who comes and neighs on your doorstep. I’m deaf on those occasions.”

“What a good soul you are. Well, I found Paul Rance at Beaucourt; he had arrived there before me, and he had been using his head and his eyes. That leads to another confession, does it not, Marie? Paul had lived in England for seven years before the war. He joined the English army. He used to come to my café,—a quiet fellow who looked at you and said very little, but I did not find out what Paul was till the day of the retreat.”

She described the burying of her treasure, and the coincidence of Brent’s appearing on the scene.

“Yes, he helped me that day, and the money is still hidden there. Paul stayed behind after I had gone; he had the body of a friend to bury, an Englishman, and he was taken prisoner because he remained behind to bury his friend. That is the sort of man Paul Rance is. He came to see me when he was released from Germany, and we struck up a partnership. He is over there—in Beaucourt—putting a roof on my house.”

Veuve Castener absorbed all this information with bland stolidity. She had always had such faith in Manon’s shrewdness that it never occurred to her to explore the affair on her own account. Her inertia accepted things. She sat in a chair and was content with what was given her. A most comfortable woman.

“So Beaucourt is not so bad as you had feared?”

“It made my heart weep,” said Manon; “but it seems that I am one of the lucky ones. The walls are there, and Paul is very confident that he can make the house fit to live in.”

Marie folded her hands over her apron. She had pleasant and pastoral visions of a beneficent future for Manon. Naturally these two had arranged the matter; when the house was ready they would marry; it was an excellent thing for Manon. The romance was so obvious to Marie Castener that she swallowed and digested it, and thought no more of the matter. A very comfortable woman.

“You have a man left to work for you. You are lucky.”

“He is such a good fellow,” said Manon.

“And Monsieur Blanc was annoyed. He will visit you here; I could not get rid of the fellow.”

Manon frowned.

“Most men are such fools. I wish you would put Monsieur Bibi in your cauldron and boil the conceit out of him. But, Marie, I want Etienne to drive me into Amiens, and perhaps you will come with me. Will it be possible to-morrow? I will pay Etienne for the horse and his time. I have things to buy in Amiens.”

Veuve Castener saw no impossibility in driving to Amiens. It was an adventure, and she would not have to use her legs.

“I will arrange it with Etienne.”

Manon spent the evening in drawing out a list of all that she and Brent needed.

At the end of the list she jotted down a rather cryptic note.

“Try and get hold of a pistol for Paul.”

XVII

The expedition to Amiens started at an early hour. A big brown horse pulled the big brown cart, with Manon wedged in between Veuve Castener and her son. Marie, her round red face shining from the wrappings of a black shawl, overflowed with a great bunching of skirts over one mud-guard, her right arm round Manon’s waist. Etienne, equally big and heavy, overflowed on the other side. Manon looked like a child between them—the centre of intelligence between two bulging bodies. Her eyes were bright, for Manon was happy.

And Veuve Castener chattered. It was her way. A silent woman when things were quiet, she became conversational in a cart, or when she was turning the handle of the “cream separator,” or pounding dirty clothes in a tub. Adventitious noises seemed to stir her to animation, and the more noise there was, the more she talked.

“Yes, that fellow Louis Blanc is staying at Baudry’s farm, though I would not have a man like that inside my house. Always after the women, though what they can see in the man, heaven knows. Big, of course, and a swaggerer, but with a face like a goat.”

“There are two sorts of women,” said Manon, “those who are attracted by a blackguard and those who are not. Oh, to be sure, a man like that is very successful.”

“I prefer a quiet man—a man who can always be found. Besides, what do women expect?”

“Say—what do they want? A man like Bibi has what most of them want. He just gets hold of them in the barn—or anywhere, and the rest happens. But we are shocking Etienne.”

Monsieur Castener grinned. He was laconic, slow, not interested in anything but his little farm, and he had a wife whom no other man ever bothered to look at.

“That fellow Bibi talks big. He has all the news.”

“Yes; what was that you heard him say the other night in Josephine’s café?”

“He said such a lot,” growled Etienne.

“But about Beaucourt?”

“Beaucourt? He talked as though Beaucourt belonged to him. Said there was a fortune in Beaucourt. France is ruined, you know—but there’s salvation in the English and Americans. Sentimental people. Running about to see the battlefields and graves.”

Manon lifted her chin. She was quick, and through the clumsy disorder of Castener’s words she had a glimpse of the ambitions of Bibi. But why did he boast about them? For Bibi was no fool.

“He means to make money,” she said; “but that hotel of his is a rubbish heap.”

“They say he has plenty of cash. Talks about hiring men; and the timber he has been buying and the army stores. It seems, too, that they are going to repair the factory at Beaucourt, and put in new machinery.”

“I see,” said Manon, glimpsing more and more of Louis Blanc’s possible plans. She understood, too, why Bibi would not be pleased at the idea of rivalry in Beaucourt; he had never been gentle with people who got in his way.

But the day and its temper were so buoyant that Manon put Louis Blanc and his plans aside, and gave herself up to pure enjoyment. The road ran through the pleasant country south of Amiens, a country of wooded hills and deep valleys, all green and brown and purple under the blue sky. The tops of the poplars flashed in the sunlight, in the ditches, and along the banks crept the first shimmer of the year’s greenness. Now and again a great white cloud came sailing over the hills, or, passing between the sun and the earth, threw a mass of shadow upon some brown field or wood.

Etienne knew a little auberge in the Rue Belu by the river where he put up his horse and cart, and Manon and Veuve Castener went off together. Both of them carried string-bags, and a Frenchwoman’s string-bag has an immense capacity.

“We cannot carry everything,” said Manon. “After dinner I shall have to ask Etienne to drive round with the cart.”

Manon bought the smaller things first—coffee, vegetable seeds, haricots, sugar, nails, a few oranges, matches, candles. In an hour she had tired Veuve Castener’s legs, and fat Marie trudged back to the inn. Nor was Manon sorry to be left alone. Her shopping had little moments of intimacy that she did not wish to share with another woman; and she had Paul in her thoughts, and details upon that list of hers that had arrived there as the result of her own observing eyes. Moreover, the excitement of the adventure had invaded Amiens, and Manon found Amiens sympathetic and ready to respond to a little woman who was going back to the ruins. Certainly the prices were extortionate, for shopkeepers are the same all the world over, but Manon fought; that short little nose of hers and her firm chin belonged to a fighter, and the French love argument. She stood squarely to the counter, smiling, hitting out with perfect good-humour, a sturdy little woman quite capable of looking after her own affairs.

She bought blankets, four of them, half a dozen sheets, and a couple of pillows. There was a battle over the blankets; they were poor things, and Manon said so.

“It would seem, monsieur, that you will insist on the refugees sleeping in their petticoats. Where is all the money to come from?”

She contrived to get thirty francs knocked off the price of the blankets.

Then she went in search of bargains, and found a shop that was kept by a little widow. The widow had children to feed, and was ready to fight for them with her finger-nails. The two women talked—and Manon did not try to fight the widow. They spent half an hour chatting to each other, exchanging confidences, and refusing to use their claws.

“It is very hard for all of us,” said Manon, “and you have five children. Mon Dieu!—I have none, but my house is in ruins.”

The woman let Manon have some red cotton for two duvets and several lengths of cretonne for curtains at a price that was honest.

“We women should not devour each other.”

The widow kept a cosmopolitan sort of shop. Manon saw men’s shirts hanging up, and a pile of blue linen trousers on one of the shelves. She knew that Paul had one solitary suit of clothes—clothes that would soon be ruined by the rough work on the house. She bought him two good shirts, two pairs of blue linen trousers, a pair of heavy corduroys, and a black alpaca coat. Manon smiled to herself as she fingered the things and chatted to the widow. There was a suggestive homeliness about buying these clothes for Paul, and she found the future strangely full of him. He seemed to have taken his place in Beaucourt, and she saw him moving about in these blue trousers, sleeves rolled up, head bare, hammering, sawing, fixing doors and windows, scrambling about the roof, indefatigable yet rather silent. She was growing quite familiar with the set and intense look in his blue eyes when he was at work. He had good shoulders and strong arms, and a clean, fresh skin. Yes, she liked Paul, the man. And it would be so easy to hurt him. This good fellow needed a protectress.

Manon wandered in a happy mood through Amiens. She was very alive, and the life of Amiens pleased her. She idled into the cathedral and rested there awhile, breathing in the soft grey tranquil atmosphere of the place, a young woman who knew nothing about Gothic architecture and was not worried by that horrible notion that it was her duty to appreciate the beauty of the building. She left a franc in the alms box and went out in search of a tobacco shop. Manon had a little breeze with the woman who kept it—for it is quite unnecessary to let oneself be cheated even if one has been sitting in a cathedral. A few blunt remarks, with blood to Manon, and she went elsewhere. Two tins of “Capstan” and some French mixture very rich in latakia were put away in the string-bag. The price was horrible, but was she not getting Paul’s sweat for nothing?

She did not forget the dictionary, though it was not a new one; newness might rouse suspicions if it happened to fall into other people’s hands. Last of all she bought a saw, a plane, a folding measure, some garden tools, and a soldering set. There were plenty of leaking pots and pans in Beaucourt, and Paul was a man of resource.

The Casteners were waiting for her at the auberge, and they sat down to dinner. Marie waited to know how Manon had fared with her shopping.

“These shopkeepers are villains.”

“Oh, well, they have children, most of them,” said Manon, thinking of the widow. “I have not done so badly. I suppose we shall all get bargains in heaven.”

They drove round to collect Manon’s bulkier merchandise, and then left the grey spire of Amiens behind them. Veuve Castener had been counting the number of houses they passed that had been damaged by shell-fire during the war. She began to be talkative, stimulated by the rattle of the wheels, and detailing the gossip of some of the French soldiers who had been sent home to their farms.

“Yes, worse things happened than the wrecking of houses. There are those sluts who became too friendly with the Boche. Pierre Ledru was saying the other day that there were French girls who had hidden German soldiers—their lovers. Ledru swore that one girl was shot by her own brother for taking food to a Square-head who was hiding in a wood.”

“It’s easy to be virtuous—over here,” said Manon; “but men are the same all the world over. I know what it must have been like in those occupied villages, especially if you had any looks.”

“A Frenchwoman should always be a Frenchwoman.”

“Mon ami, people do all sorts of strange things when they are starving. But why talk of these tragedies? Look at the sun over there. I love the big impartial sun, he gives the same chance to everybody.”

“That’s right, mother,” said Etienne; “we haven’t had the boot on our faces like those people nearer the frontier. Besides a man has got such a pull; he can talk a woman’s honour away if she won’t give him what he’s after.”

“Etienne is a man of the world,” said Manon.

Veuve Castener grunted. She did not like being corrected by her son.