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Search - Paying Guests

Paying Guests
Author: E. F. Benson

a selection from CHAPTER I: Bolton Spa, justly famous for the infamous savour of the waters which so magically get rid of painful deposits in the joints and muscles of the lame and the halt, and for the remedial rasp of its saline baths in which the same patients are pickled daily to their great relief, had been crammed... more » all the summer, and the proprietors of its hotels and boarding houses had been proving that for them at least rheumatism and its kindred afflictions had a silver if not a golden lining. Never had Wentworth and Balmoral and Blenheim and Belvoir entertained so continuous a complement of paying guests, and even now, though the year had wheeled into mid-October, and the full season was long past, Mrs. Oxney was still booking rooms for fresh arrivals at Wentworth during the next two months. In fact she did not know when she would get off on her holiday, and as long as this prosperous tide continued to flow, she cared very little whether she got off at all. Though she did not want money, she liked it, and though she liked a holiday, she did not want it. The existence, or rather the names, of Balmoral, Blenheim and Belvoir was a slight but standing grievance with Mrs. Oxney, the sort of grievance which occasionally kept her awake for half an hour should it perch in her drowsy consciousness as she composed herself to sleep and begin pecking at her mind. 'For naturally,' so she thought to herself in these infrequent vigils, 'if a lady or gentleman was thinking of coming to Bolton Spa, and wanted comfort and, I may say, luxury when they are taking their cure, they would look at the Baths Guide-book, and imagine that Balmoral and Blenheim and Belvoir and Wentworth were all much of a muchness. And then if they chose any of the others they would find themselves in a wretched little gimcrack semi-detached villa down in the hollow, with only one bathroom and that charged extra, and the enamel all off, and cold supper on Sunday and nobody dressing for dinner. Not that it's illegal to call yourself Balmoral, far from it; for there is nothing to prevent you calling your house "Boiled Rabbit" or "Castor Oil," but those who haven't got big houses ought to have enough proper feeling not to mis-call them by big names.' Mrs. Oxney's grievance was as well founded as most little vexations of the kind, for certainly Wentworth was a very different class of house from Balmoral and Blenheim and Belvoir, which, though it might possibly be libellous to call them gimcrack, could not be described as other than semi-detached. There could not be any divergence of opinion over that point or over the singleness of their bathrooms and the cold supper on Sunday. Wentworth, on the other hand, was so entirely and magnificently detached that nobody would dream of calling it detached at all: you might as well call a ship at sea detached....

ISBN-13: 9781849027021
ISBN-10: 1849027021
Publication Date: 6/25/2010
Pages: 212
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Benediction Classics
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

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Carly C. (ccwriter) reviewed Paying Guests on 3/28/2007 + 186 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 3

If you loved Benson's "Lucia" books as much as I did, this is right up your alley!

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SALLY W. (thameslink) - reviewed Paying Guests on 4/3/2007 + 723 more book reviews

A delightful English romp from the author of the "Lucia" books.

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Pamela L. (paml) reviewed Paying Guests on 8/15/2006 + 2 more book reviews

Depiction of British upperclass at a spa resort in the 1920's. As in Benson's Lucia series, the characters interact clueless of their own faults and the results are often hilarious.

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Christina M. (halfcaff) reviewed Paying Guests on 1/15/2006 + 39 more book reviews

E.F. Benson (1867-1940) is one of the great English humorists. Novelist, essayist, and biographer, he published almost eighty books, including fifty works of fiction. He is perhaps most famous for the Lucia series... [publisher]

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Genres:

Literature & Fiction >> Humor & Satire

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