Troublesome Comforts

Troublesome Comforts

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Title: Troublesome Comforts A Story for Children
Author: Geraldine Glasgow

Release Date: May 23, 2006 [eBook #18437]
Language: English
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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