The Empty World

by D. E. Stevenson

  “I don’t know,” said Jane. She pinched herself to see if she were real; it seemed so extraordinary to be sitting here talking to this amazing girl about whom she intended to marry. Even in her extreme youth Jane had not been addicted to confidential bedroom talks with her girl friends.

  “Well, are you thinking of any of the others?” enquired Iris. “Maule now, what do you think of Maule?”

  “I hardly know him,” Jane expostulated feebly. “And anyhow, what does Maule think of me?”

  “He’d have you tomorrow,” Iris assured her. “They all would — I mean they all want a wife, and they all know somebody’s got to be left out — see?”

  Jane saw.

  “I want Joe,” Iris continued. “Joe Bunce, you know. I suppose you’re surprised, but Joe’s really my own kind more than the others. I wouldn’t have to live up to Joe. I could just be myself. Joe and I could be very happy together in the cottage at the garage. Joe wouldn’t want late dinner and dressing-up — he’d be kind and dependable.”

  “Well, why not have him?” enquired Jane very reasonably.

  “Because he doesn’t want me. It was Maisie he wanted, and she took John Farquhar. And the question is, should I go for Maule — who would have me like a shot — or wait for Joe?”

  “I should wait,” Jane replied.

  “Of course, there will be one of the others left — one of the pilots,” Iris said thoughtfully. “Alice can’t marry both of them. Alice is a cut above me, you know, though she was my maid. I picked her up in Hollywood, literally starving, and she’s been a goldmine to me. She’s good family, you know,” said Iris in awed tones. “Her uncle’s a lord. She knows what’s what, Alice does. She gave me a lesson in spoons and forks — which to use for what, you know — and, when I threw a swell party, she kept me straight about the wines — you can’t kid Alice.”

  “What was she doing starving in Hollywood?”

  “Came out to make her fortune like lots of others,” Iris replied, “and couldn’t get a job. She hasn’t the kind of face for films, and she’s stiff — can’t forget she’s an O’Connell.”

  Jane nodded, it was a living description.

  “So you see Alice will take her pick of those boys. That’s what riled me when I saw her sail off like that. I was riled. I didn’t really want them you know, I wanted Joe, but I didn’t see why Alice should sail off with them both.”

  “Yes,” said Jane. She also felt unaccountably “riled” with Alice.

  “Oh dear!” Iris said. “What a nice talk we’ve had! I’m so glad you’ve come. We’re friends now, aren’t we?”

  “But you know nothing about me,” Jane reminded her.

  “I can guess,” replied Iris calmly. “A home in the country with brothers and sisters. A good school — boarding school, of course, and games — tennis and hockey. Then Oxford and Cambridge. I expect you had a flat in London, and went to lots of concerts —”

  “You’re not far out,” Jane said in surprise.

  “I’ve read some of your books, you know,” Iris said, cuddling down in bed. “They’re pretty stiff, but I quite enjoyed them. I liked the one about Queen Elizabeth; she was a hussy, wasn’t she?”

  Jane was surprised again. She did not know that she was read by film stars. Some of her surprise must have been apparent, for Iris looked at her and giggled attractively.

  “I’ll tell you the honest truth. I had to play in that Queen Elizabeth film — the one about her and Raleigh — and the producer made us all read books about the period. Yours wasn’t so dry as some.”

  Jane laughed, and said she was glad of that. They parted for the night on the best of terms.

  “You’ll leave the door open, for company, won’t you?” Iris said as she turned off the light. “And I’ve put a hotwater bottle in your bed. Maisie told me to —”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Travelling Abroad

  While Jane was making good her escape from Bolton’s gang, and Maisie was getting married, Alice O’Connell, David Fenemore and Tom Day were touring Europe in Sir Richard’s plane. They went first to Brighton, and then crossed to France, and visited Rome, and Naples, and Venice. Wherever they went they found the same complete silence, the same absence of life, the same dreadful emptiness. Alice had always wanted to see these places — she had read so much about them, and had seen them so often in pictures and on television — but now she almost wished that she had left it alone and kept her visions. St. Mark’s Square without the gay panorama of colours, without the pigeons, without a sound of human life, was a dreary spot, and it was the same with all the other places they had visited — the whole world was like a tomb.

  The silence and emptiness had its effect upon the three travellers; they became silent themselves, they spoke less and less, and mostly in subdued voices. They found themselves walking on tiptoe down the broad deserted streets. The only things that came up to Alice’s expectations were the pictures. She had always loved good pictures, and now, at last, she could indulge herself to her heart’s desire. She went to all the galleries, and sat there for hours, gazing her fill, while the other two walked about the towns, or sat and smoked silently in the lounge of some hotel.

  One day when they were in Rome, Alice was sitting in the new gallery which had just been opened some weeks before the cataclysm; she was gazing delightedly at a picture by a modern artist — a man called Feruzzi — who had amazed the world of art by his marvellous sense of form and colour. The picture which appealed to Alice especially hung by itself on a wall in an inner room. It was the artist’s conception of a Carnival, a battle of flowers. In the centre a man and a girl were dancing together, they were beautiful and happy, full of life and energy and youth. The crowd had drawn back a little to give them space, and were watching with interest and amusement. Some of the people in the crowd were pelting the couple with flowers — the cobbles of the little street were strewn with flowers. Some of them wore paper caps or streamers of multicoloured ribbon. In one corner of the picture an old woman was sitting — an old flower-woman with a wrinkled yellow face like a withered pippin. Alice thought she had rarely seen such a truly beautiful face, every line upon it, every crease, told of kindness and happiness and goodness. The whole effect of the picture was of simple happiness, of enjoyment and good fellowship.

  Tom and David came in while Alice was still sitting here.

  “We wondered where you were,” David said quietly.

  “I like sitting here,” Alice replied. “The people are so real that I can’t believe they are — all gone.”

  “They are having a good time,” Tom said thoughtfully.

  “Do you like the picture very much?” David enquired.

  “Better than any picture I have ever seen,” said Alice.

  “We’ll take it with us,” said David.

  “Take it with us!” cried the other two in amazement.

  “Why not? There’s nobody to see it here — if Alice likes it she may as well have it —”

  He went away and returned after a little while with a ladder. Between them they took it down from the wall and carried it away. Alice followed in a kind of daze. She saw, now that David had pointed it out to her, that there was no reason why she should not have the picture, and every reason why she should, but all the same she looked over her shoulder uncomfortably as they went through the empty streets with their treasure. It was difficult to shake off the habits and conventions of a lifetime in a few short weeks.

  After that incident they turned homewards. None of them were enjoying their tour. David was still furious with Jane, he spoke very little about it, but his anger was still simmering in his heart. They went home in short stages, stopping when they felt inclined and staying a night or a couple of nights when the place pleased them.

  One night they stayed at Monte Carlo. It was a glorious evening; David and Alice walked on the famous terrace together, and tried to construct the past. The sky was bright with stars, the Mediterr
anean splashed gently on the shore below.

  Tom sat in a long chair smoking a cigarette and watching them as they strolled up and down. He felt rather out of it, but that was his fault more than theirs. He had deliberately withdrawn himself a little, leaving them together when he could do so without making it obvious. Tom was sure that these two would marry each other — he was very fond of them both, and the thing seemed inevitable, and somehow right. The more he saw of Alice the more he liked her — she was good enough for David, he could give her no higher praise than that. Tom sighed and crushed the end of his cigarette under his heel — he was very lonely. He thought — if only I could have a dog it wouldn’t be quite so bad. A dog was so companionable, so trusty and affectionate. You could give your heart to a dog without harming yourself or anybody else. Dogs understood when you were under the weather; they thrust a wet nose into your hand, or looked at you with anxious brown eyes, or jumped about barking and wagging a friendly tail, inviting you to forget your troubles in a game.

  It was that night that Alice had her dream. She awoke from it bathed in perspiration, screaming at the top of her voice. The two men rushed into her room, and found her sitting up in bed with staring eyes.

  “You haven’t gone!” she said. “Oh heavens, I thought that you had gone and left me.”

  David patted her hand. “It was only a dream,” he said, “you know perfectly well we wouldn’t leave you —”

  “It was so real,” Alice said in a shaking voice. “I thought I woke up and found you gone. I went down to the hangar and the plane had gone too. I rushed round the place looking for you, and there wasn’t a sign of you — there was nobody — I was alone.”

  “It was only a dream,” David said again.

  “Let’s go home,” Alice said. “Let’s go home now — at once. I can’t stand this emptiness any more — it’s too — too awful — I can’t stand it. I’m frightened.”

  “Yes, we’ll go home,” David said comfortingly.

  A few days after her arrival, Jane was wakened very early in the morning by the sound of an aeroplane passing over the house. She leaned out of the window and saw it descend in the field. Three people got out, and stood there talking for a few minutes, and, even from that distance, Jane could see that the arrivals were David Fenemore, Tom Day and Alice O’Connell.

  Jane seized her dressing-gown and went downstairs to open the door. It was too early to disturb the household. She stood for a few minutes enjoying the crystal-clear air of the early morning. Dew shone on the lawn and glittered on the leaves of the trees.

  The three travellers approached quietly across the grass. David Fenemore walked with downcast eyes. His face looked stern, almost sullen. Jane saw the expression and knew that he had not forgiven her. Would he ever forgive her? She had saved him by a trick, she had made a fool of him. Her heart beat suffocatingly; she longed to turn and fly back to the safety of her room, but there was no time now, Alice O’Connell’s foot was on the bottom step. She held out her hand in a friendly fashion.

  “I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw you,” Alice said.

  “Yes, I escaped,” Jane said feebly. They were all standing on the steps now; she did not raise her eyes to David Fenemore’s face, she was too afraid of what she might see. It would be difficult to bear it if he would not be friends, but surely she could make him be friends.

  Jane looked at Day, and laughed nervously. “I was obliged to act a part,” she said. “They were dangerous, you know.”

  “I bet they were,” said Tom Day admiringly. “So you kidded them, did you? Good show! David thought you were staying there —”

  “I had to pretend that I was staying,” replied Jane, still speaking to Day, and to Day alone. “It was the only thing to do. It wasn’t pleasant —”

  They were speaking in low tones, so as not to disturb the others, and now they followed Jane across the big hall into the kitchen. She boiled a kettle and made tea while Alice foraged in the larder. The two young men sat down at the table. David was silent and withdrawn. He thanked Jane coldly when she handed him his tea, but did not meet her eyes.

  “How did you get on?” Jane enquired. “Did you find — anybody?”

  “Not a creature,” Alice said. “We toured about and visited different places — it was like a tomb.”

  “So horribly — silent,” Tom put in.

  They talked on for a little, telling Jane something of their adventures; they told her about the picture they had brought home with them and described some of the places they had seen.

  “And now let’s hear about your adventures,” said Alice, smiling at Jane in a friendly manner. “I expect they were really much more exciting than ours. Tell us how you escaped from Bolton’s crowd — and all that.”

  “Yes, tell us about it,” Tom said. “I want to hear how you managed to get away. It can’t have been easy.”

  Jane could not refuse. It would have been churlish to refuse, and she had no wish to make more enemies. One was enough. She took a cigarette and curled herself up in a big easy chair.

  “You’ve made the kitchen very comfortable,” Alice said.

  “Yes, you see, we’re in here a good deal,” replied Jane.

  There was a short silence while Jane tried to arrange her thoughts. She was very nervous. It was to Fenemore that the tale was to be told, and she wanted it to clear the air between them. She summoned all her art to make the tale simple and convincing, to keep her own feelings out of it — she was not going to beg for sympathy.

  I must be bald, Jane said to herself. He will believe the bald truth — he must.

  Jane smiled at Alice. “Well, if you really want to hear about it,” she said, and plunged into her story. She started at the point where the others had driven off, and she had gone back to the mess for her coat. She described the trampling upon the gravel and the shots, and the scene when she came out and saw Frederick Lammer and David Fenemore lying on the ground.

  “I ran out and said — what have you done?” said Jane. “It was horrible, I thought he was dead. They assured me that he was not dead, they had hit him on the head, and he was stunned. One of the men seized hold of me — that dreadful man with the freckles on his hands — I fainted.”

  Jane looked up and saw that her audience was listening with interest. David Fenemore was over at the window fiddling with the blind-cord, but he was listening, she knew he was listening by the position of his head.

  “They allowed me to lock myself into the Commandant’s room, and I slept for hours. When I woke I was hungry, so I went down and found them having a meal. It was then that they gave me my choice — it was not really much of a choice — I could stay with them as a free comrade, or as a prisoner. I chose to stay as a comrade, for I saw that I should find it easier to escape, but I was obliged to convince them that I really wanted to stay. They told me that Captain Fenemore was a troublesome prisoner, and that they intended to shoot him in the morning. Bartoluzzi had shot at him once, and missed. He assured me that he would not miss next time. Bolton agreed, after some persuasion, to allow me to speak to Captain Fenemore and to make him go away, they didn’t want to be bothered with a prisoner. I knew there was only one way of doing that — I took the one way —”

  “What d’you mean?” The voice from the window was hoarse and strained.

  “I took the one way of making you go,” Jane said in a low voice. “Nothing that I could have said — no threats or persuasions would have made you go away and leave me in those men’s power.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him they had decided to shoot him,” Alice suggested.

  “Because he would not have gone,” was the firm reply.

  David Fenemore was knotting the blind-cord industriously. “Go on,” he said.

  Jane went on. She went on with increased confidence, for she felt she had made her point, and made it neatly, without undue emphasis. She felt that his anger had abated. She told of her life with the gang, of her escape and her drive
through the night. She told them how she had been pursued, and had hidden in a tree, and how Greig had remained behind to search for her. She told them of the accident, and the sheets of flame running down the road, and her discovery of the bungalow on the hill. Jane had warmed up to her story by now, she described the bungalow vividly, the quiet room with the comfortable chairs, the table laid for two. She told them that she had gone to bed feeling very sad and depressed, and had been awakened in the morning by the sun shining on her face, and how a blackbird on a tree outside the open window had sung to her of courage and hope.

  When she got to the blackbird she was interrupted by a sneering laugh. David Fenemore had turned round, and was looking at her with a furious gaze.

  “How very pretty!” he said, his voice shaking with rage. “Very pretty indeed. Miss Forrest would make an excellent novelist. Her gifts are quite wasted as a historian.”

  Jane rose and faced him … it was too much … her heart was hammering wildly.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “How dare you speak to me like that?”

  “I mean you are not speaking the truth,” he replied brutally. “When you made up that charming story you had forgotten that there are no birds.”

  Jane stepped back as if she had been struck, she leant against the chair.

  “No birds!” she said in a dazed voice. “But there was — it was a blackbird.”

  “Pah!” said David Fenemore. “Lies and lies and lies.”

  He walked out of the kitchen with a heavy tread.

  The little colony — or large household — settled down to a quiet and comfortable existence. Miss May had undertaken the housekeeping and proved herself very competent in this department. She did the catering and arranged the meals — the other women took it in turns to cook. Each person “kept” his or her own room. Farquhar was head gardener, and Tom constituted himself head chauffeur — he was also messenger boy to the community and ran into Fairtown two or three times a week to do the shopping, returning with piles of tins and bottles and anything else that seemed good to him. It all worked very smoothly, and Sir Richard was able to record in his book that “everyone seems to be settling down happily.” Perhaps he was not strictly honest when he wrote this, for David Fenemore was not settling down, but Sir Richard did not see very much of David and may have thought that it was David’s nature to be quiet, morose, and slightly irritable. Miss May thought otherwise, she saw a good deal that other people missed. The others were taken up with their own personal affairs, Miss May was not. She regarded life in the empty world as a play (it was not real to her), and she watched the play with the same eager interest that she had given to theatrical productions in the past, when she and Ethel had treated each other to a couple of seats in the Upper Circle at the “Prince of Wales,” or the “Haymarket.” She went about the house in a neat overall, belted at the waist, and her eyes and ears took in everything that happened. Romance was the great pleasure in Miss May’s life, she had never had a romance herself, but she enjoyed other people’s romances vicariously. There had already been one wedding at Bardsholme — a beautiful wedding, Miss May thought — she longed for another wedding. Who would be the next, she wondered. Would Jane marry Sir Richard — or perhaps Maule? Which of the airmen would Alice choose? It was strange that Iris — who was far and away the best looking of the survivors — should be so long in acquiring a man. Miss May wondered who she wanted. On the surface everything was quiet, but, beneath the surface, Miss May was sure there were currents and rocks. She sensed the strange antagonism between David and Jane, she knew that Bunce still desired Maisie. There were few things hidden from Miss May’s blue eyes.