“The Open Window” by Saki – Read Through and Vocabulary

(My adapted modern version)

“My aunt will be down shortly, Mr Nuttel,” said a confident fifteen-year-old girl. “In the meantime, you’ll have to put up with me.”

Framton Nuttel smiled politely. Privately, he doubted whether these formal visits to a series of total strangers would help calm his nerves, as they were supposed to.

“I know how it will be,” his sister had said as he was preparing to move to this quiet countryside retreat. “You’ll shut yourself away and speak to no one, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I’ll give you a few introductions to people I know there. Some of them were quite nice.”

Framton wondered whether Mrs Sappleton, one of the people his sister had put him in touch with, came into the “nice” category.

“Do you know many people around here?” asked the niece, after a comfortable pause.

“Hardly a soul,” said Framton. “My sister stayed here about four years ago. She gave me introductions to a few people.” He said this with a tone of distinct regret.

“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” continued the self-assured young girl.

“Only her name and address,” admitted the visitor.

The girl said, “Her great tragedy happened just three years ago; that would be after your sister’s time.”

“Her tragedy?” asked Framton. Somehow, in this peaceful countryside, tragedies seemed out of place.

“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,” said the niece, gesturing towards a large French window that opened onto the lawn.

“It is warm for this time of year,” said Framton. “But has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?”

“Out through that window, three years ago today, my aunt’s husband and two young brothers went off for their day of shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor, all three were trapped in a treacherous bog. It had been dreadfully wet that summer, and places that were safe in other years gave way without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.”

Here, the girl’s voice lost its calm and confident tone and became falteringly human. “Poor aunt always thinks they’ll come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. She keeps the window open every evening until dusk. Poor aunt, she often talks about how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and her youngest brother singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did to tease her, because it got on her nerves. You know, on still, quiet evenings like this, I sometimes get a creepy feeling that they’ll all walk in through that window.”

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making 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; “my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn’t it?”

She rattled on cheerfully about her husband and brothers’ hunting pursuits. To Framton it was all purely horrible. His hostess was clearly distracted, her eyes constantly straying to the open window and the lawn beyond. What an unfortunate coincidence that he had paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

In a desperate effort to turn the talk to a less grim topic, Framton announced, “The doctors have ordered me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of all strenuous exercise.” Framton laboured under the delusion that total strangers were eager for details of his ailments.

“No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention – but not to what Framton was saying.

“Here 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 a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “I said, Bertie, why do you bound?”

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat, barely noticing the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate as he fled in panic. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid an immediate collision.

“Here we are, my dear,” said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?”

“A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton; “could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodby or 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 is terrified of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”

Inventing stories at short notice was her speciality.