Read 4.50 From Paddington for Free Online Page A

perfect.”
    Miss Crackenthorpe hesitated a moment before saying: “My father is elderly and a little - difficult sometimes. He is very keen on economy, and he says things sometimes that upset people. I wouldn't like -”
    Lucy broke in quickly:
    “I'm quite used to elderly people, of all kinds,” she said. “I always manage to get on well with them.”
    Emma Crackenthorpe looked relieved.
    “Trouble with father!” diagnosed Lucy. “I bet he's an old tartar.”
    She was apportioned a large gloomy bedroom which a small electric heater did its inadequate best to warm, and was shown round the house, a vast uncomfortable mansion. As they passed a door in the hall a voice roared out:
    “That you, Emma? Got the new girl there? Bring her in. I want to look at her.”
    Emma flushed, glanced at Lucy apologetically.
    The two women entered the room. It was richly upholstered in dark velvet, the narrow windows let in very little light, and it was full of heavy mahogany Victorian furniture.
    Old Mr. Crackenthorpe was stretched out in an invalid chair, a silver-headed stick by his side.
    He was a big gaunt man, his flesh hanging in loose folds. He had a face rather like a bulldog, with a pugnacious chin. He had thick dark hair flecked with grey, and small suspicious eyes.
    “Let's have a look at you, young lady.”
    Lucy advanced, composed and smiling.
    “There's just one thing you'd better understand straight away. Just because we live in a big house doesn't mean we're rich. We're not rich. We live simply - do you hear? - simply! No good coming here with a lot of high-falutin ideas. Cod's as good a fish as turbot any day, and don't you forget it. I don't stand for waste. I live here because my father built the house and I like it. After I'm dead they can sell it up if they want to - and I expect they will want to. No sense of family. This house is well built - it's solid, and we've got our own land round us. Keeps us private. It would bring in a lot if sold for building land but not while I'm alive. You won't get me out of here until you take me out feet first.”
    He glared at Lucy.
    “Your house is your castle,” said Lucy.
    “Laughing at me?”
    “Of course not. I think it's very exciting to have a real country place all surrounded by town.”
    “Quite so. Can't see another house from here, can you? Fields with cows in them - right in the middle of Brackhampton. You hear the traffic a bit when the wind's that way - but otherwise it's still country.”
    He added, without pause or change of tone, to his daughter: “Ring up that damn' fool of a doctor. Tell him that last medicine's no good at all.”
    Lucy and Emma retired. He shouted after them:
    “And don't let that damned woman who sniffs dust in here. She's disarranged all my books.”
    Lucy asked: “Has Mr. Crackenthorpe been an invalid long?”
    Emma said, rather evasively: “Oh, for years now... This is the kitchen.”
    The kitchen was enormous. A vast kitchen range stood cold and neglected. An Aga stood demurely beside it.
    Lucy asked times of meals and inspected the larder. Then she said cheerfully to Emma Crackenthorpe:
    “I know everything now. Don't bother. Leave it all to me.”
    Emma Crackenthorpe heaved a sigh of relief as she went up to bed that night.
    “The Kennedys were quite right,” she said. “She's wonderful.”
    Lucy rose at six the next morning. She did the house, prepared vegetables, assembled, cooked and served breakfast. With Mrs. Kidder she made the beds and at eleven o'clock they sat down to strong tea and biscuits in the kitchen. Mollified by the fact that Lucy “had no airs about her” and also by the strength and sweetness of the tea, Mrs. Kidder relaxed into gossip.
    She was a small spare woman with a sharp eye and tight lips.
    “Regular old skinflint he is. What she has to put up with! All the same, she's not what I call down-trodden. Can hold her own all right when she has to. When the gentlemen come down she sees to it there's