The toll-house at dusk
An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.
Clara reached the toll-house as the rain began. The door moved backwards and forwards in the wind, striking softly against its frame. Inside, a lamp burned beside an open ledger. The final entry ended after the words ‘Received from’, and the pen rested in a shallow pool of ink. A cup near the fire was still giving off a faint curl of steam. Clara called for the toll-keeper, but no one answered. His oilskin coat remained on its peg, although there was no shelter for half a mile in either direction.
Give two details from the passage which suggest that the toll-keeper left the room suddenly.
456 exam-style questions on Edexcel GCSE English Language 1.3 Content: prose fiction study requirements, covering 1.3.1 Read challenging prose fiction for the unseen 19th-century extract. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.