Test z angielskiego - nowa matura - poziom rozszerzony

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.

Framton Nuttel tried to say something flattering. Privately he doubted whether these visits to total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

'Do you know many of the people round here?' asked the niece.

'Hardly a soul,' said Framton. 'My sister was staying here, at the rectory, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.'

'Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?' pursued the young lady. 'Only her name and address,' admitted the caller.
'Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,' said the child.

'Her tragedy?' asked Framton.

'You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,' said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.
'It is quite warm for the time of the year,' said Framton.

'Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. Their bodies were never recovered. 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. Sometimes on quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will 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 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.'

She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton, it was all purely horrible. 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. It was certainly unfortunate that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.
'The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,' announced Framton.

Mrs. Sappleton suddenly brightened into alert attention. 'Here they are at last! Just in time for tea!'

Framton shivered slightly. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house. In a chill shock of fear 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.

'Here we are, my dear,' said one of the men. 'Who was that who bolted out as we came up?'

'A Mr. Nuttel,' said Mrs. Sappleton; 'could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodbye or apology. One would think he had seen a ghost.' 'I expect it was the spaniel,' said the niece calmly; 'he told me he had a horror of dogs.

He was once hunted into a cemetery by a pack of stray dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.'

Romance at short notice was her speciality.


adapted from: H.H. Munro, The Open Window