Grey Silk, by Celia Pargeter

An original novel extract set in the twentieth century.

Aunt Hester arrived from Bath in the station fly with three trunks, a hatbox and an opinion of everything. She stepped down into our yard holding her skirts clear of the mud as if it might bite, and her first words to my mother were, ‘Margaret, you have let the hens into the front garden again.’

She was my mother’s elder sister, though she looked, in her grey silk and pearl buttons, like somebody’s visiting duchess. At tea she examined the bread before buttering it. She ran one gloved finger along the parlour mantelpiece and studied the result without comment, which was worse than any comment. When my brother laughed with his mouth full, she simply raised one eyebrow, and he stopped as though a tap had been turned off.

I kept out of her way for two whole days. On the third, she found me in the hayloft with a book I was not supposed to be reading, and I waited for the storm.

It did not come. She climbed the ladder, rather stiffly, settled herself on a bale in her grey silk and held out her hand for the book. She read the page I had been reading, then turned back to the beginning.

‘Dreadful nonsense,’ she said. ‘I adored it at your age. Shove up, child, and don’t tell your mother.’

What impressions does the writer create of Aunt Hester?

You must refer to the language used in the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.