The Empty World Read online

  THE EMPTY

  WORLD

  A ROMANCE

  OF THE FUTURE

  D. E. Stevenson

  © D. E. Stevenson 1936

  D. E. Stevenson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1936 by Herbert Jenkins.

  This edition published in 2019 by Lume Books.

  Table of Contents

  PART I

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Storm

  CHAPTER TWO

  “No Lights”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Land Ho!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Empty City

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Mr. Noah the Second”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Taking Stock of the Survivors

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “He Will Always Hate Me”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Adventures in an Empty World

  PART II

  CHAPTER ONE

  Arrivals at Bardsholme

  CHAPTER TWO

  Settling Down — and a Wedding

  CHAPTER THREE

  “The Log of the Survivors”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Travelling Abroad

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Worse Than Any Wild Beast

  CHAPTER SIX

  “If Only We Had a Doctor!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Adventures in Fairtown

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sheep’s Clothing

  CHAPTER NINE

  A Well-planned Accident

  CHAPTER TEN

  Bolton, Ackrington and Greig

  PART III

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Blackbird Bungalow

  CHAPTER TWO

  Shallowdale and Its King

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Glovers’ Villa

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “A Most Extraordinary Document”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “The Thunder — Clouds Gather”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Revolution in Arcadia

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There Is Something I Must Tell You

  PART I

  Comets importing change of times and states

  Flourish their silver tresses in the sky.

  King Henry VI.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  The Storm

  There was a large crowd gathered at the aerodrome when Jane Forrest drove down there to take the midday airliner to London. She leaned forward and spoke to the chauffeur.

  “What is all the fuss about, Banks?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied, swerving to avoid a group of young girls who were craning their necks to see over the paling and were quite oblivious to the sound of the horn.

  “Perhaps they have come to see you off,” suggested Maisie Walker, Miss Forrest’s secretary, who was also in the car.

  “Most unlikely,” Jane Forrest said, with a smile and a lift of her straight brows. “Most unlikely, Maisie. The great warm-hearted citizens of New York would not dream of coming all this way to see a writer of historical novels. Now that I come to think of it I believe Iris Bright is leaving today for Europe —”

  “That’s it,” put in Banks. “It’s Iris all right. These are just the kind of guys that would turn out for Iris.”

  The crowd was held in check by the aerodrome officials, and, on showing her tickets, Jane and her secretary were taken in charge by a somewhat supercilious-looking youth, and conducted down a narrow lane of sightseers to the flying-field.

  The transatlantic airliner rested on her slip like a large cruiser about to be launched. And indeed that was exactly what she was, only the element into which she was to be launched was air, and not water.

  “Isn’t it pretty, Miss Forrest?” Maisie said, as they approached. “It’s one of the new ones. Look, Miss Forrest, there’s its name, “The Black Prince,” written on the side.”

  Jane agreed with her companion. The airliner was a pretty sight; she was painted black and silver, and her lines were so graceful that, in spite of her size, she looked light. She was built for speed and comfort and safety, and Jane felt that the men who had designed her knew their job. The Transatlantic Air Liner Company was well established in that year of grace 1973; it was no more dangerous to go by air from New York to London than to go by sea. The crossing took twelve hours, and the route was marked by huge floating depôts where the liner could descend if anything went wrong — But this seldom happened, for the pilots on this route were the pick of the Company’s large staff. Jane Forrest had flown over to America three months ago, to lecture on her latest book, and she was now flying home.

  The crowd in the immediate vicinity of the airliner consisted almost entirely of notabilities in the Film World, who had come to see the famous Iris Bright start off for the conquest of Europe; and of Radio experts and newspaper-men who had come to see them do it and tell the world about it. Jane pushed her way through, closely followed by Maisie. They were just in time to see the film star receiving her presents of fruit and flowers and candy from her admirers, and to hear the end of the farewell speech from that king of Filmland, Harold Hansome, who had risen quite an hour before his usual time to be present at the occasion. It was now Iris Bright’s turn to reply. She stepped forward into the ray of television, which was to distribute her picture to a hundred million homes, and, turning her head gracefully towards the microphone, said in cooing tones, “Say, it’s just grand of you folks to give me such a send-off. I shall be thinking of you all when I am far away. I guess I shan’t be long coming home again — there’s no place like home — I guess I shall be homesick some —”

  “Iris, my own little baby girl!” cried a voice in poignant accents; a beautifully dressed woman with white hair launched herself from the crowd and clung to Iris despairingly. “Come back soon to Mother — come back soon, Iris —”

  The televisor moved a fraction of an inch to get a better view of the parting kiss.

  “Goodbye, Mother dear,” Iris said, in trembling tones.

  Jane climbed into the liner, and took her seat in the dining-saloon, for she had breakfasted early. She was somewhat bored with the film star and her adorers. What extraordinary people they were to display their intimate emotions to the world for advertising purposes! They must be made of different material from other people, thought Jane, who preferred not to display any emotion whatsoever even to her friends.

  A few minutes later there was a soft gliding movement, the liner rose, circled once round the aerodrome, and then shot off towards the east.

  Jane ordered her light lunch with some care, for she had reached an age when food mattered, and she had a slight inclination to embonpoint which her friends found attractive, but which was a source of anxiety to herself. The head waiter was helpful, and recommended the salad and the cold ham. He was an Englishman, tall and rather nice-looking, with smooth fair hair. Jane chatted with him a little, for there was nobody else in the dining-saloon and she was of a sociable disposition. She elicited the information that this was his fortieth trip on the same route, and that he found the life a trifle monotonous. Their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of a tall man of about sixty, dressed in a beautifully fitting grey lounge-suit. The waiter sprang to attention. “This way, sir,” he said; “I kept your usual seat.”

  “Thank you, Frederick,” replied the newcomer, taking the seat opposite Jane, and reaching for the menu.

  Jane studied his face and liked it; she liked the clearcut features and the firm straight mouth, but, most of all, she liked the blue humorous eyes with the little wrinkles at the corners. When he had ordered his lunch,
he looked up and smiled at her.

  “You are Jane Forrest, are you not?” he enquired in a deep musical voice. “I heard one of your lectures.”

  Jane admitted her identity; it was pleasant to find herself not entirely unknown to fame even though she could not boast the popularity of a film star. She looked with growing interest at the man who remembered her; he was very attractive, she thought.

  The dining-saloon remained empty, save for themselves and the silent, dexterous waiter, so they were able to talk without interruption. They talked about Jane’s lectures and about books, and wandered on by easy stages to present-day affairs. Jane saw by the ticket above his seat that her companion was Sir Richard Barton, and realised that she was talking to one of the biggest newspaper proprietors of the modern world. She drew him out on the subject of international diplomacy, and found his views interesting and unusual.

  “You don’t air your views in your papers,” Jane said, with a whimsical glance of her dark-grey eyes.

  “Good heavens, no!” cried Sir Richard. “Papers are made for the majority, not for the minority. You’ve got to give your readers what they want, or they would not hand over their pennies. What they want nowadays is sentiment and flap-doodle — the brotherhood of man and the motherhood of woman. Sometimes I try to give them a little pill wrapped up in jam — What do you think of our Iris? — to change the subject.”

  “But you are not changing the subject,” Jane said smilingly. “She’s the jam, isn’t she?”

  “Well, what do you think of her?” he repeated.

  Jane did not at once reply. It was a difficult subject to embark upon with a newspaper proprietor. Sir Richard, presumably, admired the young woman (she provided an immense amount of copy for his newspapers). He might think that Jane was jealous if she criticised the star, and she was too honest to be able to enthuse about her.

  “Well?” enquired Sir Richard.

  “Well,” replied Jane, and laughed. “What do you want me to say? I think she is beautiful, of course.”

  “Yes, she is, and that’s about all,” Sir Richard said gravely. “I think it is a disquieting sign of the times when people ask for nothing else except beauty.”

  “There may be more in her than you think.”

  “That is true,” Sir Richard said, “but, if so, it only accentuates my point. Her admirers do not ask for anything more; they don’t want it. They are content to see her on their screens looking beautiful in every conceivable situation. I believe her flat in Hollywood has a televisor fitted in every room.”

  “Amazing,” Jane agreed.

  “There is a televisor fitted to this liner,” Sir Richard continued. “And, if I know anything about film stars, Iris is being screened at this very moment — unless of course she suffers from air-sickness,” he laughed, and then frowned. “What is the world coming to? There is no peace anywhere, no peace on land or sea — no peace even in the air. All day and all night the air hums and drums with messages, or music, or pictures; I’m too old for it.”

  “I often think I would like to have lived before television became universal,” Jane admitted.

  “Before wireless of any description,” Sir Richard urged. “Before telephones, and motor-cars, before trains. I should like to go back to Dickens’ period —”

  “But I like modern plumbing,” put in Jane.

  “You’re laughing,” he said. “You’re treating the thing as a joke; but it is far beyond a joke, and it is getting worse every year. Every year somebody invents something new — some new devilish machine to make our lives a burden —”

  “That was a queer thing about the disappearance of Sir Arthur Willis,” Jane said, feeling that it was time to change the subject. “Is there any more about it in this morning’s news?”

  “Not very much,” replied her companion. “You saw that he had disappeared from his car on the way to an important operation, I suppose. Most of these disappearances are voluntary — people losing their memory or pretending to do so, but Willis is a very stable sort of man — I know him well — and I feel sure he must have been kidnapped. The police say they have a clue.”

  “They haven’t found that other man yet,” Jane said. “I mean the one who disappeared last week with his wife and two little boys — he was a surgeon, too, wasn’t he?”

  “Glover is a physician,” replied Sir Richard, “and a very clever one. His case is different because his family vanished too. I should think he must have been in difficulties of some sort, and decided to clear out. It’s not an easy thing to do the disappearing trick nowadays, but he seems to have managed it successfully.”

  “And then there were two students who disappeared,” Jane said thoughtfully. “Medical students, weren’t they? It seems funny so many people disappearing within a few days of each other — I wonder if there could be any connection —”

  “Not likely,” Sir Richard replied. “The strain of modern life is very great, and brain disturbances are increasing. People feel that they can’t go on, and yet they are so bound up with life that they can’t stop.”

  The atmosphere which had been grey and leaden and heavy since early morning began to get even heavier. Jane felt languid, and her head ached.

  “It feels very thundery,” she said to Sir Richard.

  He agreed. “We are flying much higher than usual,” he added. “I suppose it is to get above the storm.”

  Jane looked down, the sea had vanished, beneath them dark clouds rose and sank. Short gusts of hot wind blew in at the ventilators. The liner rose higher and higher, Jane’s ears began to sing and she had a queer sensation in her head.

  “We must be very high,” she said, a trifle breathlessly.

  “Very high indeed,” agreed Sir Richard.

  By this time they were well above the clouds, they looked down on them and saw that they were smoky, and tinged with a lurid glare. It was much colder in the higher atmosphere, Jane drew her fur coat round her shoulders.

  “I’ve seen lots of storms,” Sir Richard said, “but never anything like this. It looks as if there were something tremendous brewing down there.”

  He had hardly spoken when the clouds beneath them were rent by a blinding flash, and a crash of thunder nearly broke their ear-drums. The liner staggered as if she had been struck, and slipped sideways into space — a roaring wind caught her and twisted her round, threw her up into the skies and down again. Like an autumn leaf in a gale she twirled and spun, then, quite suddenly she was righted and steadied, and she began to climb, running before the south-west wind like a ship in full sail.

  At the first crash Jane had clutched the window-rail, and she held on to it during the chaos which followed. She saw the floor slide away from her and rise again; the dishes on the table crashed on to the floor, knives and forks flew about the saloon, tumblers hurled themselves at the roof, or smashed themselves against the walls. In those few moments a dozen thoughts surged through her brain — struck by lightning … is this the end? … Is the liner done for? … And if so, what? … A plunge into the Atlantic and finish … Not a bad way to end up. She thought of her sister, Agnes, and the small Agnes who was her god-child. They will be glad of my money, Jane thought, without rancour. She thought, too, of her new book which was being published next week, and regretted that she would not be there to see its début.

  Suddenly she realised that things had quieted down. Sir Richard was picking himself up off the floor where he had been clinging to the leg of the fixed table. He dusted himself with a handkerchief, and enquired anxiously whether she was hurt.

  “No,” said Jane frankly. “Not hurt, only terrified. What on earth happened?”

  “I don’t know,” replied her companion, gazing round the wrecked saloon and selecting two undamaged chairs from a pile of débris. “No idea what happened. I thought we were done for — there was something queer about it.”

  “Very queer,” Jane said, trying to emulate Sir Richard’s calm manner. “Very queer indeed. It felt w
icked somehow. Do you think we are safe now?”

  “I should think we are through the worst,” he replied. “Look here, I had better ring and get this mess cleared up, hadn’t I?”

  He rang, and the head waiter appeared, looking rather white, but perfectly calm and collected.

  “Send somebody to clear up this mess,” Sir Richard said, pointing to the broken plates and glasses and the medley of smashed chairs which lay in the saloon.

  “I’ll do it myself, sir,” said the waiter. “Just give me a minute or two to sort out the mess in the pantry. My assistant is in hysterics, so he’s not much use — he’s a foreigner, of course.”

  Sir Richard laughed. “Never mind clearing up just now,” he said. “I believe I was a bit hysterical myself — get three brandies instead.”

  “I will, sir, if I can find any whole glasses,” said the man. “You never saw anything like the mess, sir. Everything smashed to bits — how we’re going to serve luncheon is more than I can tell.”

  “Anyone hurt?” inquired Sir Richard.

  “Not so far as I know, sir. The chef has burnt his arm a bit on the electric heater, but it’s nothing much — though you would think he was half dead the way he’s groaning. I’ll fetch the brandy, sir.”

  He hurried away, and presently returned with a bottle of liqueur brandy, and three cups. “Glass all smashed, sir,” he said apologetically.

  “Well, I’m glad the brandy wasn’t,” Sir Richard said, pouring out a liberal helping into each cup. “Here you are, Frederick.”

  The three of them drank together. Jane was very glad of hers (for the experience had been shattering), she felt the warmth of it send the blood coursing through her veins.

  “To a safe passage,” Sir Richard said, raising his cup. They all drank to a safe passage. At this moment the door of the dining-saloon slid open, and a tall slight figure in the flying uniform of the T.A.L.C (Transatlantic Air Liner Co.) came into the room. He selected a chair from the wreckage in the corner, carried it over to a table, and sat down.