THE OPEN WINDOW
THE AUTHOR
Hector Hugh Munro, the British novelist and short-story
writer known as Saki, was born in Burma in 1870 and
brought up in England. He travelled widely and became a
successful journalist; for six years he acted as correspondent
for The Morning Post in Poland, Russia, and Paris. He is
best known for his short stories, which are humorous,
sometimes with a touch of black humour, and full of
biting wit and bizarre situations. Some of his short-story
collections are Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches, The
Chronicles of Clovis, and Beasts and Superbeasts. He also
published two novels, The Unbearable Bassington and
When William Came. Saki was killed in France during the
First World War, in 1916.
THE STORY
Children often have vivid imaginations, and fewer
inhibitions than adults about giving the imagination full
rein. Perhaps the division between fiction and reality, truth
and lies is a tiresome adult preoccupation, best ignored by
any young creative artist.
Framton Nuttel is a man with a nervous disposition. He
has come to stay in a quiet country village, to rest and relax
and take care of his poor nerves. His sister, briskly
determined to ensure he has a social life, has given him
letters of introduction to various local people, whom she
had met a few years previously. Framton dutifully makes a
formal visit to a Mrs Sappleton, and is greeted by her niece,
a young lady of fifteen, who, while waiting for her aunt to
appear, kindly undertakes to explain to the visitor a little
of the family’s history . . .
The Open Window 93
state. Anundefinable something about the room seemed to suggest
THE OPEN WINDOW masculine habitation.
‘Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,’ said the child;
‘that would be since your sister’s time.’
4" y aunt will be down presently, Mr Nuttel,’ said a very self- ‘Her tragedy?’ asked Framton; somehow in this restful country
-I » -I-possessed young lady of fifteen; ‘in the meantime you must
■
spot tragedies seemed out of place.
try and put up with me.’ ‘You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which October afternoon,’ said the niece, indicating a large French
should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly window* that opened on to a lawn.
discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more ‘It is quite warm for the time of the year,’ said Framton; ‘but has
than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total that window got anything to do with the tragedy?’
strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he ‘Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband
was supposed to be undergoing. and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They
I know how it will be,’ his sister had said when he was preparing never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe*-
to migrate to this rural retreat; ‘you will bury yourself down there shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece
and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places
ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning.
the people 1 know there. Some of them, as far as 1 can remember, Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of
were quite nice.’ it.’ Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became
Framton wondered whether Mrs Sappleton, the lady to whom he falteringly human. ‘Poor aunt always thinks that they will come
was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with
division. them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is
‘Do you know many of the people round here?’ asked the niece, why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor
when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion. dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband
‘Hardly a soul,’ said Framton. ‘My sister was staying here, at the with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her
rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of youngest brother, singing, “Bertie, why do you bound? as he always
introduction to some of the people here.’ did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know,
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret. sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy
‘Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?’ pursued the feeling that they will all walk in through that window —’
self-possessed young lady. She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when
‘Only her name and address,’ admitted the caller. He was the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being
wondering whether Mrs Sappleton was in the married or widowed late in making her appearance.
I
94 The Eye of Childhood The Open Window 95
‘I hope Vera has been amusing you?’ she said. In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the
‘She has been very interesting,’ said Framton. lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms,
‘I hope you don’t mind the open window,’ said Mrs Sappleton and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung
briskly; ‘my husband and brothers will be home directly from over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels.
shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice
snipe in the marshes today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor chanted out of the dusk: ‘I said, Bertie, why do you bound?’
carpets. So like you men-folk, isn’t it?’ Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his
birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into
all purely horrible. Fie made a desperate but only partially successful the hedge to avoid imminent collision.
effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious ‘Here we are, my dear,’ said the bearer of the white mackintosh,
that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and coming in through the window; ‘fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry.
her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and Who was that who bolted out as we came up?’
the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that ‘A most extraordinary man, a Mr Nuttel,’ said Mrs Sappleton;
he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary. ‘could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word
‘The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had
mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of seen a ghost.’
violent physical exercise,’ announced Framton, who laboured under ‘I expect it was the spaniel,’ said the niece calmly; ‘he told me he
the tolerably wide-spread delusion that total strangers and chance had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery
acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and somewhere on the banks of the Ganges” by a pack of pariah” dogs,
infirmities, their cause and cure. ‘On the matter of diet they are not and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures
so much in agreement,’ he continued. snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make
‘No?’ said Mrs Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn any one lose their nerve.’
at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert Romance at short notice was her speciality.
—
attention but not to what Framton was saying.
‘Flere they are at last!’ she cried. ‘Just in time for tea, and don’t
they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!’
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a
look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was
staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes.
In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat
and looked in the same direction.
