The House of Adventure by Warwick Deeping

Over the great wilderness the cuckoo was calling, and the blackbirds sang deep-throated in the orchards. Cowslip time had come and gone; a richer season followed after, with all that wild world rushing into leaf, covering all ugliness with a film of beauty. The old orchards were white in the narrow valley where the stream ran through deep green ways; the trees were snow-trees-rose-edged-floating between the mystery of the woods and upon the blue distance of the horizon. Grass and weeds were springing up everywhere in the streets, in the ruins themselves, threading even the rubbish through with emerald wire. There were blue-bells in the Bois du Renard above the château, and masses of yellow broom waving on the uplands.

Beaucourt came to life with the spring. Wonderful things had happened when that droll, that little wizard of an Anatole Durand had flicked his wand hither and thither. Dust had risen on the roads. A string of lorries had lumbered up the street, and a gang of men had unloaded stores in the green-grey courtyard of the château. The cellars were full of food; the yard itself stacked with timber and iron. On the circle of turf at the end of the avenue of chestnuts stood a white tent with a camp-bed, a chest of drawers, a table, a washing basin, a chair, Anatole Durand's home. He took his meals at the Café de la Victoire, where Brent's hands were keeping pace with the buoyant rush of the year.