The locked gate

An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.

Margaret reached the house after dusk, but the iron gate stood fast beneath the rain. Beyond it, the windows showed small squares of yellow light, each one too distant to reveal a face. She raised the envelope towards them, as though its seal might carry her message across the garden. The wind pressed the hedge against the railings.

She called once, then listened. Nothing answered except the loose sign above the lodge, striking the wall at regular intervals. Margaret tried the gate again and found, tied to its latch, a strip of white cloth. She unfolded it with shaking fingers. The first line had been written in her father's hand, but the words below had been washed into a grey blur. A light moved behind the nearest window and disappeared.

Analyse the ways the writer's language and structure convey Margaret's difficulty in delivering her message. Support your answer with references to the passage.