by Saki
THE OPEN WINDOW
“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessedyoung lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.”
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should dulyflatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt thatwas to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formalvisits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helpingthe nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
“I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing tomigrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and notspeak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever frommoping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the peopleI know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.”
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he waspresenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nicedivision.
“Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when shejudged that they had had sufficient silent communion.
“Hardly a soul,” said Framton. “My sister was staying here, at therectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters ofintroduction to some of the people here.”
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued theself-possessed young lady.
“Only her name and address,” admitted the caller. He was wonderingwhether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. Anundefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculinehabitation.
“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,” said the child; “thatwould be since your sister’s time.”
“Her tragedy?” asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spottragedies seemed out of place.
“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an Octoberafternoon,” said the niece, indicating a large French window that openedon to a lawn.
“It is quite warm for the time of the year,” said Framton; “but has thatwindow got anything to do with the tragedy?”
“Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and hertwo young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never cameback. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground theywere all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been thatdreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other yearsgave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered.That was the dreadful part of it.” Here the child’s voice lost itsself-possessed note and became falteringly human. “Poor aunt alwaysthinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brownspaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as theyused to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it isquite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, herhusband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, heryoungest brother, singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did totease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimeson still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling thatthey will all walk in through that window—”
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when theaunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late inmaking her appearance.
“I hope Vera has been amusing you?” she said.
“She has been very interesting,” said Framton.
“I hope you don’t mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “myhusband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they alwayscome in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, sothey’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men-folk,isn’t it?”
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds,and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purelyhorrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort toturn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that hishostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyeswere constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond.It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid hisvisit on this tragic anniversary.
“The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mentalexcitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physicalexercise,” announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespreaddelusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for theleast detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure.“On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,” he continued.
“No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at thelast moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention—but notto what Framton was saying.
“Here they are at last!” she cried. “Just in time for tea, and don’tthey look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a lookintended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring outthrough the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shockof nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the samedirection.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawntowards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one ofthem was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders.A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they nearedthe house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “Isaid, Bertie, why do you bound?”
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, thegravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlongretreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge toavoid an imminent collision.
“Here we are, my dear,” said the bearer of the white mackintosh, comingin through the window; “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was thatwho bolted out as we came up?”
“A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton; “couldonly talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-byeor apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.”
“I expect it was the spaniel,” said the niece calmly; “he told me he hada horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on thebanks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the nightin a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foamingjust above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”
Romance at short notice was her speciality.