Read Ellis Peters - George Felse 10 - The Knocker On Death's Door for Free Online Page A

together, was pretty rigid. The air seemed to clarify as soon as the men were out of the way. Like a sudden change of wind sweeping the mist from a battlefield.
    “Hugh has told me so much about you, Miss Cressett.” (She’d known that was coming, sooner or later! It meant: Be careful, I’m warned, I’m on the alert!) “He thinks very highly of you. Do tell me something about yourself, my dear, I don’t think I’m acquainted with your family. What was your father?”
    “He owned the same garage we run now.
His
father was a very early motorist in these parts, a pioneer, and Father followed in his footsteps. And so has my brother David— Hugh’s partner…”
    “Ah, yes, of course. I know from Hugh that your brother is in trade.” It sounded like a category, the way she said it, and probably it was. “And where were you at school, Miss Cressett?”
    Dinah told her, bluntly: the village primary, then the secondary modern at Abbot’s Bale. “I wasn’t an academic type. Mine are mostly manual skills. I keep house. Quite well, I believe. At least no one complains.”
    “I’m quite sure you are good at everything you attempt. One feels so out of date these days.” Her long fingers strayed languidly among her pearls. The long, straight lines of brow, nose and chin, in profile, looked like a caricature of Edith Sitwell. The grey hair, drawn closely back into that great knot on her nape, weighed down her whole head and shoulders into an effete arc the moment she relaxed her guard. “In my day gels were educated to such different ends. We had not to reckon with trade, of course… This has become such a commercial world, has it not?” She leaned back with a sigh, and all the oblique grey planes of her face, and shoulders, and fleshless bust slithered downwards into a pyramid of discouragement and decay. “The name Cressett is old… are you connected with the Northamptonshire Cressetts, by any chance?”
    “I doubt it,” said Dinah cheerfully. “But I don’t suppose there’s anyone in my family who can trace his ancestors back more than three generations, four at the most, so of course we could be. As far as I know, we’re Middlehope stock from way back.”
    The old lady closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, perhaps praying for strength. The catechism went on steadily: What were your mother’s family? What are your interests? Are you fond of music? You play of course? (Naturally a lady plays the piano, however badly.)
    Thank God, they were coming back. There went the outer door, hollowly closing, and in a moment more the two brothers came rather quietly, rather warily, into the room. At least the Traminer was real enough, Hugh had a bottle in one hand and a corkscrew in the other. They bore themselves, Dinah thought, a little stiffly, as if there was some related awkwardness even between them. They had so little in common that with all the goodwill in the world communication might well be an effort for both.
    “Dinner’s ready,” Robert said. “Will you come, Mother?”
    Over dinner it was much easier, though the table in the large, chilly room, even when reduced to its minimum proportions, was too big for comfortable conversation between four people. But at least there
were
four of them, and every time the catechism showed signs of being resumed Dinah could answer monosyllabically, and then address some quick remark to one of the men, even if Hugh did not anticipate her need, as he frequently did. She had felt a certain amount of childish curiosity about the meal itself, and the manner of its presentation. Would the old lady have cooked it herself? Not much doubt that she could, that was one of the things gels in her day had been expected to master. But in all probability on this occasion the cooking had been done by the same local help who brought in the dishes. Plain, good English cottage cooking, nothing elaborate and nothing expensive. And having installed the joint and vegetables on the