E-text prepared by David Clarke, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustration.
See 18437-h.htm or 18437-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/3/18437/18437-h/18437-h.htm)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/3/18437/18437-h.zip)
TROUBLESOME COMFORTS
A Story for Children
by
GERALDINE ROBERTSON GLASGOW
[Illustration: At the Seaside (frontispiece)]
Thomas Nelson and Sons
London, Edinburgh
Dublin, And
New York
TROUBLESOME COMFORTS.
CHAPTER I.
Mrs. Beauchamp sat in a stuffy third-class carriage at Liverpool Street
Station, and looked wistfully out of the window at her husband. Behind
her the carriage seemed full to overflowing with children and paper
parcels, and miscellaneous packages held together by straps. Even the
ticket collector failed in his mental arithmetic when nurse confronted
him with the tickets.
"There's five halfs and two wholes," she said, "and a dog and a bicycle."
"All right, madam," he said politely, "but I don't see the halfs."
"There's Miss Susie, and Master Dick, and Miss Amy," began nurse
distractedly, "and the child in my arms; and now there's Master Tommy
disappeared."
"He's under the seat," said Dick solemnly.
"Come out, Tom," said his father, "and don't be such an ass."
Tom crawled out, a mass of dust and grime, not in the least disconcerted.
"I thought I could travel under the seat if I liked," he said.
"Oh, if you _like_!" said his father; but nurse, with a look of despair,
caught at his knickerbockers just as he was plunging into the dust again.
"Not whilst I have power to hold you back, Master Dick," she said.--"No,
sir, you haven't got the washing of him, and wild horses won't be equal
to it if he gets his way."
"Well, keep still, Tommy," said his father.
Tommy squirmed and wriggled, but nurse's hand was muscular, and the
strength of despair was in her grip. Mrs. Beauchamp realized that in a
few minutes the keeping in order of the turbulent crew would fall to her,
but for the present she tried to shut her ears to Susie's domineering
tones and Tommy's scornful answers. Susie always chose the most
unsuitable moments for displays of temper, and Mrs. Beauchamp sighed as
she looked at the firm little mouth and eager blue eyes. She felt so
very, very sorry to be leaving Dick the elder in London--so intolerably
selfish. Her voice was full of tender regret.
"It seems so horrid of me, Dick. It is _you_ who ought to be having the
holiday, not me."
"Oh, I shall manage quite well," said Mr. Beauchamp cheerfully. "It is
rather a bore being kept in London, of course, away from you and the
chicks"--this came as an afterthought--"but I hope you will find it plane
sailing. I want it to be a _real_ rest to you, old woman."
His eyes wandered past her sweet, tired face to the fair and dark heads
beyond, of which she was the proud possessor, and his sigh was not
altogether a sigh of disappointment. Mrs. Beauchamp glanced at them too,
and the anxious line deepened between her eyes. She pushed back with a
cool hand the loose hair on her forehead. "It is an ideal place for
children," she said--"sand and shells; and they can bathe from the
lodgings."
"You will be good to your mother, boys," said Mr. Beauchamp. He was
directly appealing to Tommy, but he included the whole family in his
sweeping glance. "Don't overpower her.--And, Susie, you are the eldest;
you must be an example."
Susie flounced out her ridiculously short skirts with a triumphant look
round. "I _am_ a help, aren't I, mother?" she said.
"Sometimes, dear," said her mother, with rather a tired smile.
"And you won't bother about me, Christina?" he said.
"How can I help it, darling?"
She leant farther out of the window, but one hand held firmly to Amy's
slim black legs--Amy had scrambled up on to the seat, and was pushing the
packages in the rack here and there, searching for something.
"There is the guard; we are just off, I suppose. O Dick, how I wish you
were coming too! But I will write as often as I can.--Susie, be quiet. I
cannot hear myself speak."
"Well, mother," said Susie, shaking back her hair, and poking the point
of her parasol between the laces of Dick's boots, "look at the way he has
laced himself up; you said yourself he was to do it tidily. And his face
is smutty already; look at him."
"Good-bye, Dick," said Mrs. Beauchamp. The train was moving smoothly out
of the station, and she leant out as far as she dared, to get a last look
at the erect figure.--"There, Susie, father is out of sight. Leave the
boys alone."
Susie frowned.
"She'd better," said Tommy, in a choked voice.
"Now you're going to be naughty," said Susie.--"I know they are,
mother--they always begin like that; they're clawing at me with their
sticky fingers. Mother, tell them not to; I didn't say anything."
"You are a beastly blab," said Tommy defiantly.
"Tom, what a word! Sit down by nurse and look out of the window.--Susie,
it is really your fault--you are so interfering."
"I'm not interfering," said Susie, aggrieved. "I'm helping you to keep
them in order."
"Well, _don't_. I would rather manage them alone.--Don't squabble, boys;
there's plenty of room for every one."
"O mother--" said Amy.
Mrs. Beauchamp still held unconsciously on to the slim black leg, but the
sudden movement of the train had jerked Amy off the seat. She clung for a
moment to the rack, but her hand slipped, and she fell headlong on to the
opposite seat, and there was a dull thud as her head crashed on to a
little wooden box.
"It's all right, darling," her mother said, and she held her close in her
comforting arms.