“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.