realistic narrative in order to terrify the little nervous man with whom she is forced to sit and has wearied of his timid silence.

Her clever tale blurs the lines between reality and the imagination so effectively that Framton Nuttel is absolutely terrified when he sees Vera's look of horror as Mrs. Stappleton announces, "Here they are, at last!" while her male relatives enter the open window through which they have been described as departing years ago after becoming lost in a bog. "Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it," Vera has told Nuttel, who flees. Furthermore, not only does her tale frighten Nuttel away, Vera also retaliates against her aunt for her tedious tasks. Revenge is sweet for the girl whose specialty is "[R]omance at short notice."

Vera tells the central character, Frampton Nuttel, that three years ago a great tragedy occurred in their family. According to Vera, Mrs. Sappleton's husband and two younger brothers set out for a day of shooting, and did not return. It was concluded that the three, along with their little spaniel, were engulfed in the treacherous bog; their bodies were never found. Vera tells Framton that her aunt, Mrs. Sappleton, speaks frequently about the day the three men and the dog purportedly met their demise, leaving the window through which they exited that day open, as if in expectation of their return. As Vera and Framton sit there by the open window, Vera shudders and tells the visitor that on "quiet evenings like this," she still gets a "creepy feeling that they will all walk in through the window."

Mrs. Sappleton comes in at this point, and, as expected, talks about her husband and brothers, whom she says have gone shooting but will be home soon, coming through the window as is their habit. Framton, who is in a delicate mental state, believes, because of what Vera has told him, that the men in question are dead, and that Mrs. Sappleton is delusional. Disturbed by the ghastly situation, Framton becomes completely unnerved when Mr. Sappleton, the two other men, and the spaniel do indeed appear at the window, and he bolts off in terror. Vera, of course, has misled Framton for her own amusement, and when the family wonders why their visitor has left so pricipitously, she dissembles further, saying that he was most likely afraid of the dog.

Saki specifies Vera's age in the opening sentence of the story.

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."

Saki must have started with the idea of having someone tell a completely false story about three men being sucked into a bog three years ago, so that when the three men returned from hunting, the visitor will take them to be ghosts and will flee in terror. The author chose a fifteen-year-old girl to tell the false story to the visitor because she would be just old enough to be believable but just young enough to be so full of mischief that she would invent such a tale. At age fifteen, Vera is also old enough to be playing hostess as a temporary stand-in for her aunt. The fact that Vera is in the position of a hostess lends further credibility to her story.

We can imagine that at age fifteen, Vera is bored with her confinement in this country manor where nobody ever talks about anything but shooting birds on the moor. Maybe she has sometimes wished that the hunters really would get sucked into a bog. Girls like Vera had no freedom in Victorian times. She must spend most of her time reading books, and because of being stuck in such a narrow world, she undoubtedly chooses escapist reading about travel and adventure. This would give her some of her ideas about hunters being sucked into bogs and men being set upon by pariah dogs in India.

Girls like Vera had nothing to look forward to but marriage. She senses that she is being groomed to be a hostess like her aunt and that she will be expected to talk the same kind of drivel. This may explain why Vera does just the opposite of what is expected of her. She is so convincing that poor Framton believes the three men approaching the open window at tea time must be living dead who have finally returned for tea. This belief is reinforced when Vera's aunt cries:

"Here they are at last! Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"

In saying they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes, Vera's Aunt reinforces the idea that these ghostly figures have been buried in a bog for the past three years and have just climbed out.

Vera is the ideal character to tell the frightening story and set Framton up for the scare of his life. Framton is also the ideal victim for this precocious girl. He is down here in the peaceful English countryside for a "nerve cure" and has been ordered to have "complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise." 

"The Open Window" is a good example of how a skillful fiction writer will create characters to fit the needs of his plot. Mrs. Sappleton is also perfect for the part she has to play. 

Vera is a "very self-possessed young lady of fifteen" who is a story teller. Evidently, she is a very good actress, very good at telling stories (and/or lying with a straight face). First, she finds out how much Mr. Nuttel knows about the people and the area. When he tells her he only knows Mrs. Sappleton's name and address, Vera knows that she can get away with making up a tale about Mrs. Sappleton. Being such a good actress and story teller, Vera knows she can tell Mr. Nuttel (whose nerves are shot anyway) any tale and he would be none the wiser. 

She begins by saying that Mrs. Sappleton's "tragedy" occurred three years ago. Vera is careful to place the incident at a time after Mr. Nuttel's sister had left the area. Vera claims that Mrs. Sappleton's husband, two brothers, and a dog went hunting three years ago and never returned, presumably victims of a bog. Vera indicates that Mrs. Sappleton is deluded and keeps the window open in the hope that they will return (even though, according to Vera, they have been gone for three years, presumed dead). 

Poor aunt always thinks that they will 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. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. 

It turns out that Mr. Sappleton and the two brothers had left that very day. Vera made up the story to toy with Mr. Nuttel. When asked why Mr. Nuttel ran away, Vera continues to lie; she claims that Mr. Nuttel was once chased into a newly dug grave by a pack of "pariah dogs" and he fled when he saw Mr. Sappleton's spaniel. (Note the irony that Vera's name bears resemblance to the word "veracity" which means "truthfulness.")