Paying Guests by E.F. Benson — Read

The warmth and clemency of October which till now had been so pleasant, and had permitted Miss Howard to make so many notable sketches of noon and evening and night without the risk of catching a chill, completely collapsed during the dark hours, and piercing blasts from the north-east with volleys of half-frozen rain rattled on the windows of Wentworth. Colonel Chase, who often attributed much of his magnificent robustness to the fact that he always slept with his window wide open, top and bottom, had a most alarming dream that Mrs. Holders, with whom he was playing bridge in a restaurant car on a train which was oscillating very much, laid an odd-looking card resembling the ace of hearts, yet somehow different from it, on the table and said, "That card gives me the rubber doubled and redoubled." As she spoke the oscillation increased and the card began to give out sharp reports, and he woke to find his blind blowing out horizontally into the room and cracking like a whip, while the solid walls of Wentworth trembled in the gale. He jumped out of bed, and at the risk of undermining his health by closing the window, shut and bolted it. Mr. Kemp was more fortunate, for knowing that the night air was poison to him, he always slept with his window closed, shuttered and curtained. But even so the driven sleet awoke him, and observing by his luminous clock that it was a quarter past two, took a cup of hot milk and a rusk. Warmed and comforted he turned over in bed without a single twinge from his left hip, which was so surprising that he lay awake a long time and wondered whether it was Mind. Soot poured down Mrs. Holders's chimney, but she could not help that and instantly went to sleep again.

The gale had not abated when the guests began to assemble for breakfast, sleet still rapped at the panes, and the house was bitterly cold, for who, wailed Mrs. Oxney, could have expected so sudden and diabolical a change of weather? As soon as she got down, she ordered wood fires to be lit in lounge and drawing-room and smoking-room, for coal must be husbanded as long as the strike continued, and sent the gardener to kindle the furnace of the central-heating. But the dining-room certainly was like an ice- house at breakfast: Miss Howard's hand shook as she poured the milk over her porridge, Mr. Kemp sent Florence upstairs to get a rug for his knees, and Colonel Chase, in an appalling temper, put on a cap, which he pulled down over his ears, a long woolly muffler and a great coat. He did not really feel cold, but it was only right that Mrs. Oxney should be filled with remorse at not having foreseen the change, and having omitted to have the central-heating put on in anticipation of it. Seeing that she was looking at him, he turned up his coat collar and gave several painful coughs.