illustration of a young girl looking out a window at ghostly figures

The Open Window

by Saki

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Student Question

What prank does the girl play on Mr. Nuttel in "The Open Window"?

Quick answer:

In "The Open Window," Vera pranks Mr. Nuttel by fabricating a ghost story. She tells him that her aunt's husband and brothers, who supposedly died in a bog three years ago, are expected to return through the open window. When the men actually arrive, Mr. Nuttel, believing them to be ghosts, panics and flees, revealing the extent of Vera's deception.

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Vera is feeling bored and rebellious. As a Victorian girl, she is confined to the house and probably spends most of her time reading escapist fiction. She has heard the same conversations among the grown-ups so many times that she has them memorized. She knows exactly what her aunt will talk about when entertaining a visitor. She even knows that one of the hunters will burst out singing, "I say, Bertie, why do you bound?" The idea of creating a ghost-drama occurs to her, and fate arranges it so that the perfect victim comes calling just at tea time. Framton Nuttel is a neurotic and a hypochondriac. He is a stranger in this part of the country. He is down here for a "nerve cure," making him especially susceptible to Vera's story.

“Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers...

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went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favorite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.”

The open French window in this cold climate and at this late hour serves to substantiate Vera's falsehood that her Aunt Sappleton lost her mind because of the tragedy and has been expecting her husband and her brothers to return every evening for the past three years. When Mrs. Sappleton arrives to greet the visitor, she plays the part in the little drama that Vera knew she would play. Framton Nuttel believes he has gotten himself into an awkward situation with a crazy woman who expects three dead men armed with shotguns to appear at almost any moment. It never occurs to him that this "self-possessed" fifteen-year-old girl could or would make up such an utterly fantastic story. But then the climax comes just as Vera expected. Mrs. Sappleton suddenly reacts to something she sees through the open window.

“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 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...

The three hunters accompanied by a spaniel exactly fit the description Vera had previously given of them. Three ghosts are bad enough, but three ghosts armed with shotguns are too much for Framton's already fragile nerves. He flies out of the house and goes running up the road and out of sight. It isn't until the three men enter through the tall window that the reader understands the trick the girl has played. Mr. Sappleton is very much alive, as are the other two hunters and their little dog. They have only been gone for a day and not for three whole years. Vera is a good actress as well as a good story-teller. it is her look of "dazed horror" that frightens Framton more than anything else. The three main characters, Vera, Framton Nuttel, and Aunt Sappleton, are perfectly "cast" for the roles they play in this classic story.

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