\u201cMy aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,\u201d said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; \u201cin the meantime you must try and put up with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come.\u00a0 Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know how it will be,\u201d his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; \u201cyou will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping.\u00a0 I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there.\u00a0 Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice division.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know many of the people round here?\u201d asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.<\/p>\n
\u201cHardly a soul,\u201d said Framton.\u00a0 \u201cMy sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.\u201d<\/p>\n
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you know practically nothing about my aunt?\u201d pursued the self-possessed young lady.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly her name and address,\u201d admitted the caller.\u00a0 He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state.\u00a0 An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer great tragedy happened just three years ago,\u201d said the child; \u201cthat would be since your sister\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHer tragedy?\u201d asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,\u201d said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is quite warm for the time of the year,\u201d said Framton; \u201cbut has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOut through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day\u2019s shooting.\u00a0 They never came back.\u00a0 In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog.\u00a0 It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning.\u00a0 Their bodies were never recovered.\u00a0 That was the dreadful part of it.\u201d\u00a0 Here the child\u2019s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human.\u00a0 \u201cPoor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do.\u00a0 That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk.\u00a0 Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing \u2018Bertie, why do you bound?\u2019 as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves.\u00a0 Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
She broke off with a little shudder.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope Vera has been amusing you?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has been very interesting,\u201d said Framton.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope you don\u2019t mind the open window,\u201d said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; \u201cmy husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way.\u00a0 They\u2019ve been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so they\u2019ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets.\u00a0 So like you men-folk, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter.\u00a0 To Framton it was all purely horrible.\u00a0 He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond.\u00a0 It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,\u201d announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one\u2019s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure.\u00a0 \u201cOn the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo?\u201d said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment.\u00a0 Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention\u2014but not to what Framton was saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere they are at last!\u201d she cried.\u00a0 \u201cJust in time for tea, and don\u2019t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!\u201d<\/p>\n
Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension.\u00a0 The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes.\u00a0 In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels.\u00a0 Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: \u201cI said, Bertie, why do you bound?\u201d<\/p>\n
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel-drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong retreat.\u00a0 A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid an imminent collision.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere we are, my dear,\u201d said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window; \u201cfairly muddy, but most of it\u2019s dry.\u00a0 Who was that who bolted out as we came up?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,\u201d said Mrs. Sappleton; \u201ccould only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived.\u00a0 One would think he had seen a ghost.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI expect it was the spaniel,\u201d said the niece calmly; \u201che told me he had a horror of dogs.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Romance at short notice was her speciality.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t