"Romance at a short notice was her speciality." What does this statement mean and tell about Vera in the story "The Open Window?"

Vera can be described as a fun-loving and adventurous girl who is very inventive and shrewd. She uses her ability to think on her feet to be a ruthless prankster. She’s not just a terrific story-teller but is also a great actress. She will concoct stories according to the available situations, and then she will narrate them with such believable earnestness that nobody can doubt what she says.

The word “romance” used in the quote is meant to describe Vera’s ability to come up with fictitious stories and narrate them in an interesting and convincing manner.

Framton Nuttel is a nerve patient and has been in the countryside on his doctors’ advice. He is on a formal visit to Mrs. Sappleton’s house. His sister had advised him to interact with neighbors instead of locking himself up in his room. His sister used to be Mrs. Sappleton’s neighbor before she had moved to some other place some four years ago. Nuttel knows nothing about Vera's aunt.

These are few of the facts Vera learns during her brief interaction with Nuttel. She must have found him to be a gullible person, because when she spots the open window facing the lawn, immediately she is ready with a story to amuse herself at the cost of Nuttel’s gullibility.

Using all her skills of an adept actress and a convincing story-teller, Vera begins narrating her invented story about her aunt, Mrs. Sappleton:

“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago…that would be since your sister's time."

Nuttel is convinced that Mrs. Sappleton’s husband and her two brothers had died tragically by drowning in “a treacherous piece of bog.” Since then, she has been out of her senses. She keeps the widow open, believing they will be back home any time.

Things turn out as Vera had wished. When three men and the dog are seen through the open window walking towards the house, Nuttel is shocked and scared. Believing that he’s watching real ghosts walking towards him, he “bolts out” of the house.

Vera must have been celebrating the success of her prank. But then again, she does so in her unique style. Neither does she burst into laughter nor does she reveal to others what has actually happened. Instead, she wears an expression of pity and seriousness in her face.

When her aunt expresses disappointment over the way Nuttel had left “without a word of goodby or apology,” Vera comes up with another story. She says:

"I expect it was the spaniel…he told me he had a horror of dogs. 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. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."

Quite convincingly, she says this in her uniquely calm, consistent and credible tone.

Thus, we see that the final statement of the story aptly describes Vera:

Romance at short notice was her speciality.