THE PATH OF TRUE LOVE
Nanny was cross. She had lost her bubbling merriment and her family
wondered.
"Sis, I believe you will be an old maid, all right. I'm beginning to
see the signs already," her brother lazily told her one day when to
some innocent remark of his she made a snapping answer.
Mr. Ainslee laughed.
"You aren't reading the signs correctly, Son," he said. "Nan's
crossness can be interpreted another way. It's my private opinion that
Nanny's in love."
Whereupon Mr. Ainslee dodged for he fully expected that Nanny would
hurl a pillow his way. But Nanny didn't. She turned a little white,
caught her breath a little hurriedly and then stood looking quietly at
the two men. When she left the room her father was a little worried
and her brother a little uncomfortable.
"I guess we'd better let up on the teasing, Dad," the boy suggested in
the serious, soft voice that had been his mother's, the mother who had
never teased.
"I wouldn't hurt Nanny for the world," penitently murmured Mr. Ainslee.
"I had no idea--oh, Son," he suddenly groaned, "I wish your mother was
here to look after us all."
And the great diplomat who was known and welcomed at the courts of
great nations was suddenly only a plain man, crying out his heart's
need of the loved woman he had lost so many years ago.
And because the boy was the son of the woman for whom his father
grieved he knew how to sympathize and comfort the man.
"I've missed her too--lots of times--even though, Dad, you've been the
most wonderful father two kids ever had."
The man stared out into the sunny world outside the windows and all
unashamed let the tears fill his fine eyes.
The boy, seeing those tears, all at once remembered now many times,
when he was an unheeding youngster, he had seen this same father
sitting at the departed mother's desk with his head pillowed in his
arms.
"Dad," the boy's awed voice questioned, "is love a thing as big and
terrible and lasting as that?"
The man wiped his eyes and smiled.
"Yes, Son, love is as wonderful and lasting and in a way as terrible as
that. It was wrong of me to tease Nanny. But I have been worried
about my motherless girl. I'd like to see her happily settled.
Somehow I've never worried about you."
"No," and the boy smiled an odd little smile that showed just how he
had missed a mother's petting, "it's always mothers that worry about
the boys, isn't it?"
At this second revelation and blunder Mr. Ainslee was so startled that
he forgot to go in search of Nanny.
As a matter of fact Nanny had left the house. She wanted to go to the
knoll and think over carefully certain matters that had been puzzling
her of late. But she dared not go to the grove on the hilltop. For
only half an hour before she had seen Green Valley's young minister
walking up to her old seat under the oaks. Perhaps if her father had
not said what he did--Nanny frowned impatiently, then sighed and walked
down the road to Grandma Wentworth's. She told herself that she was
going down to visit Grandma and tell her the week's news. But she was
really going to find heartease and because at Grandma's she would hear
oftenest the name that now had the power to quicken her heart beats and
bring her a pain that was strangely edged with joy.
Grandma was weeding her seed onions and very sensibly let Nanny help.
Nanny's fingers flew in and out and because she dared not tell her own
heart troubles she told Grandma about Jocelyn and David and the foolish
bit of gossip that had come between them.
"I think, Grandma, somebody ought to do something about it. Can't
you--"
Grandma shook her head.
"Nanny," Grandma mourned, "I'm afraid to meddle in things like that.
Love is a wonderful strange thing for which there are no rules. And
the hearts of men and women must all have their share of sorrow. For
it's only through pain and endless blunders that we human folks ever
learn. I've seen strange love history in this town and lots of it.
And I've learned one thing and that is that each heart wants to do its
loving in its own way without help or hindrance from the rest of the
world. So we'd best say nothing and let David and Jocelyn find a way
out of their trouble and misunderstanding."
But Nanny, with all the impatience of youth, rebelled.
"It's foolish," she stormed, "when just a dozen frank words would
straighten it out."
"Yes--a dozen words would do it," sighed Grandma, "But think, Nanny,
what it would cost David to say those dozen words--or Jocelyn."
"Conventions are foolish. Honesty is better."
"Yes, honesty is always best. But truth is something that lovers find
hardest to manage and listen to. And you know, Nanny, even a happy
love means a certain amount of sorrow."
"Does it?" the girl wondered.
"Yes," said Grandma softly, "it does, as I and many another woman can
testify. I'm only hoping that a love great and fine will come to
Cynthia's boy and that it won't cost him too much."
"Why," asked Nanny carelessly, "should life be easier and richer for
him?"
"Because long before he was born his mother paid for his birthright and
happiness with part of her own, and if God is just and life fair then
her courage and sorrow ought to count for something and her loss be his
gain."
"Hadn't you better tell me the whole story, Grandma?" begged Nan.
"It isn't exactly all mine to tell. But some day I dare say I shall."
Grandma rose and glanced mischievously at the girl.
"Nanny, I'll tell you the day you come to me and tell me you're in
love. Not engaged, you understand, but in love."
Again Nanny whitened and caught her breath and then looked quietly at
Grandma in a way that made the dear old soul say hurriedly:
"There, there, child, I didn't mean to meddle or hurt."
To herself she added, "We're all blundering fools at times. And why is
it that youth always thinks that all the world is blind and stupid?"
Grandma's penitent mind then recalled the box of pictures that
Cynthia's son had brought down to show her the night before. It still
stood on the living-room table. So the wise and tender soul sent Nanny
in to fetch it.
They sat on the back steps and looked at pictures of Cynthia in her
far-away home in India. There were pictures of her husband and the
brown babies and of their neighbors. But mostly the pictures were of a
boy, a drolly solemn little fellow. Nanny exclaimed again and again
over these and the one of the boy holding a pet hen in his arms she
fairly devoured.
"What a darling kiddy he was," she laughed tenderly. "No wonder his
mother loved him so."
"He ought to be a fine boy. His mother paid a big price for him,"
Grandma told her.
But Nanny didn't hear. She had just discovered that there were two of
those boy and hen pictures and she wondered if--
Just then Grandma spied a hen in her lavender bed and went off to shoo
her out. And while her back was so providentially turned Nanny
Ainslee, an honorable, world-famous diplomat's only daughter, coolly
and deliberately tucked the picture of a little boy and his pet hen
down into the bosom of her gown.
Shortly after Nanny said she guessed she'd have to be going, that it
was getting late and that she had had an argument with her father just
before she came and had been short an answer. But that she had just
this minute thought of something to say.
Grandma let her go without a word because she thought that, like
herself, the girl had seen Cynthia's boy coming down the hill and
wished with girlish shyness to be out of the house when he came. But
Nanny had not seen him, had not been watching the roads, so taken was
she with her guilty secret. Her surprise when she almost ran into him
was genuine enough.
His face lighted at sight of her.
"I spent the afternoon up on the hill. I thought maybe I should find
you there. It was rather lonesome."
He had evidently forgotten and forgiven her rudeness on the hilltop
that day when they had been up there together. Nanny was suddenly so
happy and confused that she could think of nothing to say except to
make the formal little confession:
"I have been visiting Grandma Wentworth and looking at pictures of you.
You were a mighty nice little boy in those days."
The new softness in her words made him look at her wistfully for a
second but the hint of laughter that went with it made him cautious.
This lovely, laughing girl had hurt him several times and had laughed
at him. He meant to be careful. So he said gravely and politely:
"Did you see the pictures of my mother?"
"Yes. She must have been a wonderful and an adorable mother."
That made him happy. He wanted very much to turn and walk back with
her, this girl whose presence always brought him such pleasure. But
she had forbidden him to do this. It seemed that in his home land
women were wonderfully independent creatures.
So he let her go on alone and with a disappointed heart. For Nanny had
hoped that he would ask and she had meant to let him. With the
disappointment came the taunting memory of her words to Grandma
Wentworth: "Honesty is best. A dozen words would do it."
That evening when her father clumsily tried to make amends Nan said
carelessly:
"Never mind, Dad. I _am_ in love--with a little boy and his pet hen."
But she had the grace to blush. And that night as she slipped the
picture under her pillow she said a little defiantly:
"Well--what of it? All is fair in love and war."