After working at the huts till ten o’clock, Brent walked back to the
Café de la Victoire by the light of the moon. He was tired, dead tired,
but his weariness was full of a pleasant sense of physical satisfaction;
he had done the best day’s work in his life, and if his hands were sore
and his back one huge ache, what did it matter?
Manon had gone home earlier to light the stove. She heard Brent’s
footsteps on the pavé, and ran out to meet him.
“Partner, I’m tired.”
He laughed over it, for he was a little exultant.
“I never thought that we could do it, rip off a hundred sheets and get
them carted and stacked here. I have knocked half the weather boarding
off that hut.”
Manon enveloped him in a soft atmosphere of sympathy, applause,
gratitude.
“Go down and sit by the fire. The water is boiling. What shall it be,
tea or coffee?”
“Coffee. Your coffee?”
The tired yet happy note in his voice touched her. She had been thinking
a great deal about Paul while she was watching the stove grow red and
waiting for the sound of his return. In all her experience of life—and
a woman can see an abundance of life in a little French café—Manon had
never met a personality quite like Paul’s. This little widow knew men
through and through, yet Brent had puzzled her until that moment when he
had sat astride the roof of the hut and betrayed the sensitive prudery
of a sentimentalist. She liked him none the less for that, though it
added to the complexity of the adventure. Manon was not a prude, and
Paul was not a Frenchman. She realized the significance of the fact, nor
did the possible unexpectedness of this man’s romantic boyishness bore
her. She was piqued by it. Most men are so obvious.
She had a meal ready for this tired man of hers, a man whose body had
performed a tour-de-force, and whose happy weariness was ready to eat,
drink, light its pipe and relax before the fire. Manon was glad of
Brent’s tiredness, even as she was glad of his strength. She wanted him
in that mood of happy relaxation. She saw the white stones of the
cellar’s vault bright with candle light and the glow from the stove. The
water bubbled contentedly in the saucepan. The arm-chair from the école
stood embracing the warmth from the fire. And Manon was sensitively
alert to the impression that the homeliness of the place would make on
Paul. She had been busy here, exerting a woman’s forethought, not for
purely selfish ends, but because a woman’s shrewdness may become
involved in the things that she does for a particular man.
“You have earned that chair.”
He took it, after protesting that it should be hers. She saw him lie
back and melt into enjoyment of this atmosphere of simple comfort.
“I say—this is good.”
His eyes wandered—and then fell to watching Manon, Manon whose hands
were busy in his service. He became aware of the pleasantness of Manon,
and that it was good to look at her, good to feel her near. As she leant
forward over the stove to fill the coffee-pot Paul noticed the brown
depths of her eyes, the shadowy curves of her nostrils, the pretty line
of her mouth, her frank forehead, and the white fulness of her throat
and chin. He observed a little brown freckle rather quaintly placed in
the centre of her left lower eyelid. Her hands were plump and strong,
with straight, well-formed fingers; generous, capable hands. He was
aware, too, of a perfume, a personal aroma that was subtle and wholly
French.
“Voilà!”
She drew the table close to the stove.
“How is that?”
“I am being spoilt,” said Brent.
That was exactly what she wanted him to feel. The memory of this evening
was to have a particular significance.
“You amazed me to-day.”
She was pouring out his coffee.
“I never saw a man work with such ferocity.”
“I enjoyed it.”
“Yes, but you must not work too hard. And I am not going to talk to you
until after supper.”
“Talking is food,” said Brent, “if one happens to be interested.”
Now Manon’s attitude towards Brent had developed since she had realized
how easily he could be affected by the swaggering cynicism of a man like
Louis Blanc. Hitherto she had not been conscious of any particular
attitude towards this comrade of two days. The adventure had opened with
such verve and simplicity that she had not bothered her head about the
social complexities, but the coming of Bibi and Paul’s instant reaction
to the challenge in the big Frenchman’s sensual eyes had compelled her
to look at Brent more closely. She guessed that he had a thin skin, and
that he was the sort of good fellow who fell into a panic if anyone
accused him of behaving like a blackguard. Like many sensitive men he
was extraordinarily diffident. An audacious beast like Bibi would
squeeze out all his self-confidence.
“What a comfort it is to have you here.”
Brent looked surprised, pleasantly disconcerted.
“In what way?”
“Because you are rather unusual. Most men—Oh!—well—you know what I
mean.”
It was the beginning of her conscious effort to humour her man. Paul was
a sentimentalist, but Manon had a philosophy. She knew that life is
always a bit of a scramble and that in Beaucourt life was going to be
rather primitive and savage. Paul’s skin was too thin. She had a feeling
that she would have to guard his sensitiveness—prevent his
impressionable good nature from being at the mercy of hard people. Brent
lacked hardness. She had an idea that this lack of hardness had been the
cause of his failure.
“But you can’t make a soft man hard,” she said to herself; “it must be
done some other way.”
She felt that Brent had that queer passion for ethical self-expression
that plain people call “self-sacrifice.” She sensed it vaguely at first,
and she could not have translated the impression into words. It was a
thread, an intuition, and she followed it.
“This fine weather cannot last,” she said with apparent vagueness.
She filled his cup a second time.
“And to-morrow? What will you do to-morrow?”
He knew at once what he meant to do, and she respected the quiet and
orderly way in which he had mapped out the work.
“I shall bring the timber across. The rafters of that big hut will be
the right size for us over here. Nothing like having all your material
on the spot, and under your eyes,—especially as there seems some chance
of competition.”
He frowned when he thought of Bibi, and Manon was prompted by that
frown. She thought of altering her plans, and she was curious to see
what effect such an alteration would have upon Brent, but she wanted her
change of purpose to develop naturally and not to appear as a sudden
decision forced on her from without.
“More coffee, mon ami?”
“Please. It’s so jolly good.”
“No more to eat?”
“Not another mouthful.”
She looked at the bully beef, the biscuits, the carton of jam—and the
unappetizing dryness of this fodder gave her her first suggestion. She
made a little grimace, and waved a hand over the table.
“You poor man. Now, if only we had a savoury omelette and some spinach!
I must change all this. That is obvious.”
She appeared to reflect.
“Yes, you must have fresh food,—eggs and butter and vegetables. If I
went three times a week to Ste. Claire——”
Brent had brought out his pipe, and then slipped it back again into his
pocket. The gesture was full of significance.
“Smoke.”
“Not here.”
“But I like the smell of it.”
“As a matter of fact, I am at the end of my tobacco.”
“Quel dommage! But this is a tragedy. It is obvious that I must go to
Amiens; I may be able to buy English tobacco there.”
He corrected her.
“What a conscience you have! But, mon ami, could you spare me to-morrow?
Could you carry all that wood?”
“Easily.”
“And if I stayed away three days?”
She saw that he was not in the least dashed by the suggestion. In fact
he approved of it.
“I shall want that saw.”
“Yes—and blankets. It must be so horribly cold up there, and you were
quite snug before I came. Oh, mon ami, I have an idea.”
He looked up at her questioningly.
“Well——?”
“It will take many days to put a roof on the house, will it not?”
“A fortnight—perhaps more.”
“And then there are the doors and windows.”
“Yes.”
“The weather will change. Rain and wind—mon Dieu! And you, under those
pieces of tin! Be quite honest with me, Paul; would it not be more
sensible for me to stay at Ste. Claire and leave you the cellar—until
the roof is on?”
She watched Brent’s face, and discovered nothing but a faint shadow of
surprise, a surprise that was momentary and transient. He leaned forward
and stirred up the wood in the stove with an old iron bar that they used
for the purpose. The glow from the wood shone on a calm face, and Manon
saw that it had cost him no effort to adjust life to the new atmosphere.
“A sound idea,” he said, feeding more wood into the stove.
Perceiving no resistance, Manon let the new plan develop itself.
“It is not that I am a coward, mon ami, or afraid of a rough life.”
“You are no coward,” he said with quiet conviction.
She showed a sudden animation that flowed with the full flood of the new
idea.
“I can hire a horse and cart in Ste. Claire, and I must see what can be
bought at Amiens. I could drive over here twice a week, and if I started
very early in the morning I should be able to spend most of the day
here, cook for you, and help you when you needed a second pair of hands.
And then, there is the garden.”
“The garden’s important.”
“Yes, our living this summer. I could work in the garden and sow seeds,
and I could use the horse and cart to collect things for you. I must
think of my good partner’s comfort.”
Brent stared at the fire.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said; “I am not the one to be considered. I
am thinking of you.”
They had been skimming the surface, but those words of Brent’s went down
beneath the conventional crust.
“Mon ami, you are very unselfish.”
“It’s not that. A man has to think of things—other things than bricks
and timber; and when there is a woman about, a man has to think of her.”
Manon was silent for a while, and in her heart of hearts she knew that
Paul was right. She had used her intuition and her shrewdness to bring
the adventure into sympathy with this man’s simple sense of honour, and
now that the thing was done she felt that Paul was happier.
“What a good man you are!”
He smiled at her and said nothing.
“You think of others before yourself. And how exciting it will be when I
drive over and see what you have done; each time there will be something
fresh, a new piece of roof, a door, a window.”
“It will be just as exciting to me—the finest game I ever played in my
life.”
She frowned a little over that word.
“Game—game! You English are always thinking of games.”
“The word does not fit; I should not have used it. It is more than a
game.”
Manon looked at her knees, possessed by a feeling of gentleness and
humility. She knew now that she had been right about Brent, utterly
right in her reading of his simple and sensitive character. He was no
ordinary man, nor was his inspiration the inspiration of the ordinary
man. Brent gave. Most men take.
“It is very strange,” she said, “that you should be so good to me. I
think—somehow—that doing good things is as pleasant to you as the
tobacco you smoke in your pipe. Is it not so, monsieur?”
He nodded.
“Perhaps there’s reason in it.”
“I am very lucky.”
And then she added,
“How good to be able to trust you—with everything! It is like feeling
that God is near.”