The Lumber Room

The Lumber Room Published in 1914 as part of H.H.Munro (Saki)’s short story collection, ‘Beasts and Super- Beasts’, ‘The Lumber Room’ is a humorous story woven around the constant conflict between two worlds – the world of children on the one hand and that of adults on the other. As the story opens, Nicholas, an imaginative little orphan boy finds himself suffering the punitive measures of a self-appointed and authoritarian Aunt Augusta. He is “in disgrace” because he refuses to eat his bread-and-milk in a bowl, which contains a frog. Scolded for speaking nonsense, Nicholas insists that there is indeed a frog in his dish, “since he had put it there himself.” Then Nicholas is scolded further for his audacity in taking a frog from the garden. However, Nicholas cannot understand what wrong he has done and perceives only the older person's misjudgment in categorically telling him that there could be no such creature in his bread and milk. Denied the supposed privilege of going to the sands of Jagborough, an expedition that his aunt “hastily invented” to punish him for his “disgraceful conduct”, Nicholas informs his aunt that his cousin Bobby will not enjoy himself since his boots are too tight and his other cousin has scraped her knee. On her expressing annoyance at Bobby’s not having told her about his boots, Nicholas points out that Bobby had told her about it twice but his aunt often does not “listen when we tell you important things”. Changing the subject, Aunt Augusta imperiously tells Nicholas, "You are not to go into the gooseberry garden” because of being in disgrace. Feeling that it is possible to be in disgrace and be in a gooseberry garden at the same time, Nicholas feels that his aunt’s reasoning is flawed. However, he has no intention of trying to get into the garden as he has other plans. He knows that his aunt believes he will try to steal into this “forbidden paradise” and will keep a watch on him. In order to “keep her on self-imposed sentry-duty” for most of the afternoon, Nicholas manoeuvres his way toward one of the garden doors, but then doubles back and goes into the library, where he takes down the key to the lumber room that “was carefully sealed from youthful eyes”. Once inside the lumber room, lit only by a high window, Nicholas is met with a world that stirs his imagination. A room in which Aunt Agatha keeps all the beautiful and creative things of the house locked away is “a storehouse of unimagined treasure” for Nicholas. It is a true representative of a child’s fun-filled and imaginative world and is symbolic of what the dull, unimaginative and boring world of adults lacks. In comparison, the gooseberry garden that Aunt Augusta is fiercely guarding, is “a stale delight, a mere material pleasure”. Every single item in the lumber room stirs the imagination and creativity of Nicholas. A piece of framed tapestry becomes a living story of a hunter who has shot an arrow into a stag and is being pursued by several wolves. Quaint candlesticks twisted in the shape of snakes, a teapot “fashioned like a china duck” and a carved sandalwood box with little brass figures of bulls, peacocks and goblins nestled in it, all delight and interest Nicholas. As he turns the pages of a book with coloured pictures of exotic birds, he is fascinated by “a whole portrait gallery of undreamed-of creatures”. He cannot help smiling on hearing his Aunt Augusta screaming out his name in the gooseberry garden, claiming to be able to “see him all the time”. Soon the angry cries give way to a shriek and a cry for help. Locking the lumber room, Nicholas enters the front garden, calling out to his aunt. She responds, informing him that she has fallen into the empty rain-water tank. Acutely aware of the thrilling power of his highly inventive mind, Nicholas makes the most of the opportunity to take revenge on his spiteful aunt for constantly abusing her authority. So, when she asks him to fetch the small ladder under the cherry tree, Nicholas quickly replies, “I was told I wasn’t to go into the gooseberry garden.” The aunt countermands, “Don’t talk nonsense. Go and fetch the ladder.” Still Nicholas objects, saying her voice does not sound like his aunt’s. Vehemently, the voice from the tank orders the ladder. Nicholas asks if there will be strawberry jam for tea and the aunt assures him that there will be, though she privately resolves not to give Nicholas any. Nicholas argues that the voice cannot be his aunt’s, because she had told him the previous day that there wasn’t any, though there were four jars in the store cupboard. He thereby indicates to his aunt that she is not as virtuous, truthful and upright as she pretends to be. In imitation of the hypocritical tone with which she exaggerates the minor misdemeanours of the children, equating them with grave sins, Nicholas gleefully tells his aunt that she is “the Evil One tempting him to be disobedient.” “Childish discernment” tells Nicholas when to walk away and a kitchen maid eventually sees the trapped aunt and rescues her. At teatime that evening, there is a threatening silence. The children return from Jagborough, disgruntled that the tide was too high to have enjoyed the sand. Bobby is yet in a bad temper and the aunt sits in “frozen muteness.” Also silent with his mind full of thoughts of the lumber room, Nicholas imagines that the huntsman on the tapestry will escape with his dog while the wolves devour the deer. Perhaps he visualises his own life in the story on the tapestry with his aunt being the ‘hunter’ and he, her defenceless victim. Or, on a more positive note, perhaps in his imaginative, fertile mind, he sees himself as the hunter who is able to use trickery and strategy to save his child’s world that is so full of beauty and life from being smothered and crushed by wolves like his tyrannical aunt and the dull, mundane, lacklustre reality of the adult world. .

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