One of the principal Tourist Agencies saw it very vividly. Louis Blanc had an idea. They were ready to put him on their list and to advertise Beaucourt: “Spend three days in a devastated village. Comfort among the ruins. Unique provincial hotel just rebuilt after being demolished by shell-fire.” They rose to Bibi’s idea, but they were a little sceptical about his scheme for rebuilding the Hôtel de Paris.
“Thunder, but I am getting the stuff,” said Bibi, “and I am getting the men.”
Which was an exaggeration, for neither building material nor labour was to be had at a wave of the hand. Bibi was agitating his case with the Préfet and the Mayor of the Commune; he was trying to buy timber, tiles, army stores, army huts, anything and everything.
And there he stood on the château hill and saw that damned fellow of Manon Latour’s putting up a roof before he—Bibi—had bought a foot of timber!
“The devil scorch his blue trousers, but where did he get that wood?”
Louis Blanc walked his bicycle down the château hill, and left it leaning against the wall by the doorway of the Hôtel de Paris. He went in and had another critical look at this place of his, crunching over the broken bricks, examining the walls, the foundations. The precarious state of the great central chimney-stack was as obvious to him as it had been to Paul; the raw and ragged concavity at the base of it looked bigger than ever, so much so that Bibi’s eyes narrowed and little ugly wrinkles showed about his mouth and nostrils. He was a suspicious beast. A man who is ready to play dirty tricks on others is always imagining them being played upon himself. Bibi climbed down into the hole and examined the brickwork. There were no pick marks upon it, no signs of freshly broken surface, but Bibi was not satisfied.
He went and stood in the Place de l’Eglise and surveyed the stage upon which he was to mount this financial tableau of his. He looked at the church with its broken spire and worm-eaten walls. Yes, the church was just as it should be; the scenic effect of it was excellent; sensible people would leave the church just as it stood, a sensational and picturesque relic. Here was one of the outrages of the great war slap up against his windows; the tourists could stare at the church while they sat at dinner in the salle-à-manger. Bibi suspected that no funds would be available for the restoration of churches. That was excellent. Who wanted churches, unless they were of sufficient interest to be written up in guide-books? The shell-scarred lime trees, ranged round the Place like the pillars of a piazza, had a decorative and realistic effect, and Bibi decided that the lime trees must not be touched. He turned his attention to the Hospice. The Hospice was a very interesting ruin, and Bibi thought of trying to buy the building, visualizing it as an admirable annexe in the event of the scheme proving a success.
The tap-tap of Brent’s hammer echoed faintly through the ruins. The sound was insistent, challenging, busily competitive. It annoyed Louis Blanc, kept up a noise like the yapping of a dog, and disturbed his material visions.
“Confound that fellow!”
He called Brent a foul name, and then walked into the Rue de Picardie. Bibi was jealous of Manon, and jealous of the enterprise she had shown in gathering up the threads of life in broken Beaucourt. A woman had got ahead of him, and Bibi’s vanity felt the insult; women were created to be spectators and to supply the applause. Louis Blanc wanted Manon, and he wanted her house. She was so plump and pretty and provocative, and she would have made such an excellent little manageress, for even tourists like a pretty French madame busy about a house. But Manon had declared war upon Bibi; he had his grudge against her, and since she was only a woman, Bibi transferred the grudge to Brent.