part I
suppose I actually did look--a modern flapper. Certainly with the short skirts everybody wore then, and with bobbed hair, I could not have looked as old as I was--twenty-six.
But all the superficial gaiety in which I indulged could not make me forget the problem paramount in my mind, and I found myself actually reverting to the study of this man and that man, and wondering whether I would consider him fitted for the role of foster father, in name only. However, the men on board were for the most part very young, and there was but one who looked fairly good to me in this respect. I found out he had a responsible position in a bank, and from his own remarks he evidently had known wealth all his life. He might do, I thought drearily. Then I would shake myself out of this mood and join the young people in their games or talk. But when we landed at Havre, the one man I had quietly been making a study of proceeded to follow his own divergent itinerary, and I forget all about _him_ as a husband possibility.
There were about twenty-five in the Armstrong Party, in which Helen Anderson seemed to be the star traveler. Being with her, I always had the best accommodations. In Dijon, therefore, after ten days in Paris and its environs, we were given separate rooms at M. and Mme. Lachat’s very picturesque little home. We were to be in Dijon for several weeks, attending the University of Dijon, and going on sight-seeing trips into the adjacent mountain country. The Lachat home had a perfectly charming little garden, shut in all around by a high wall common to many French neighborhoods. Our rooms overlooked the garden, that of Miss Anderson being on the second floor and mine on the first.
Everything thus far had been of absorbing interest to me, and I found Dijon none the less so, with its quaint, narrow streets, quainter homes and smugly contented people. The inhabitants were more than willing to talk French with us struggling foreigners, and I managed to learn more of their language during the few weeks I was there than in the previous six months at Northwestern University in Evanston.
And I was gradually learning other things I had not known well when I landed--for instance, the value of the franc, both to them and to me. At Havre the porter had been bold to ask me for “an American dollar bill, _s’il vous plaît_,” and I had handed him one, for I really felt he meant to give me back some change. But he did not, and I determined that if that was what they charged us Americans for carrying a bag down one flight of stairs, I would do the tipping in my own way after that! I found that the servant class over there was more than Americanized in this respect, and I gradually “caught on.”
Miss Anderson and I, as well as several of the other members of the Armstrong Party, were assigned for our meals to the boarding house of Mme. Daillant, a rosy-cheeked woman whose husband dealt in wines and who herself kept up the expenses of the home, I perceived, chiefly by taking boarders. Around our table sat an interesting group: an Italian _avocat_, several Norwegians, four Americans, including Miss Anderson and myself, and M. and Mme. Daillant, their attractive young daughter of about eighteen, and one other, a French lady. The Italian and I struck up a friendship, and often we took long walks, carrying our own dictionaries and consulting them quite frequently along the road to make ourselves understood to each other in the French language.
_92_
The latter part of July, having grown quite a bit bored with Dijon and not taking seriously the course offered the students at the University, I, as well as others in the Armstrong Party, decided upon going into Switzerland. Miss Anderson remained in Dijon, saying she did not wish to incur the additional expense inasmuch as she had been many times to Switzerland.
Geneva was our destination, and there was rare beauty in the mountain scenery enroute there from Dijon and later in the city itself. I stopped at the Hotel de la Paix, and my room, from the small balcony of which I could view the lake and afar off the snowy-capped Mt. Blanc, was both French in artistry and American in practical comforts.
I had noted in the morning paper, which was a Paris edition of a New York paper, the progress the Harding party was making through Alaska. I felt here in Switzerland, almost by myself, as though I were in another world. I felt as though I were walking through a picture-book. Even the friendships I was making seemed of the picture-book sort. I was more real to myself when I dreamed, for when I dreamed I was invariably taken back to more familiar surroundings, oftentimes spending whole nights either with my sweetheart or with our daughter.
I had promised my sister Elizabeth I would try to get fat, and she had made her appeal on the ground of keeping my appearance, telling me I was not at all presentable when so thin. So I had endeavored to eat as much as possible and the traveling around had not made it difficult. And the food here at the Hotel de la Paix was fine, _par excellence_. Mr. Harding used to tell me that to him it was a real pleasure just to sit and watch me eat when I was hungry, for I seemed to so enjoy my food. He used to order things he thought perhaps would tempt me or things I told him I had never eaten; I remember he taught me to eat artichokes, things I had never heard of until then. I was quite a hick. Mr. Harding himself could with ease carry considerable weight. He was very tall--fully a head taller than I. Nevertheless, I used to tease him, when, upon observing that he was not eating as heartily as usual, he would confess that he was on a self-imposed diet, “to keep his stomach down.” “Why, you’re not too fat to suit me, darling,” I would say. “What d’yuh mean, ‘keep down your stomach’?” Then, with head on one side and the adorable smile I loved, he would lean over the table and whisper, “So I can hold you closer, you darling!”
_93_
I remember it was on a Saturday, the 28th of July, that I went, by myself, up Lake Geneva to Territet. The others had planned a mountain trip to Chamonix, but I preferred the water trip. As our tidy little white steamer glided slowly away from Geneva it scattered before it flocks of snowy pigeons that find a welcome home, there along the lake front, and from my chair against the railing I watched dreamily their fluttering escape far away on the turquoise surface of the water. There was the delightful coolness of mountain air and the clear blue of the skies to make it a day among days for sight-seeing.
In my English Literature class at Northwestern I had, that spring, been studying Lord Byron’s _The Prisoner of Chillon_, and I was looking forward eagerly to seeing the Chateau of Chillon, which is at Territet, the last stop our tiny steamer would make.
Some of the seats on the observation deck were arranged so that they faced each other, as in a train, and my heart suddenly jumped as I stared at the front page of a foreign graphic sheet which the man opposite me held at a visible angle. Mr. Harding was pictured on his trip with some Indians, and the pose was so natural, with his straw hat, and cane in his hand, that I felt the hot tears come in my eyes and a great heaviness in my throat. The man lowered the paper just in time to find me straining toward it, and thereupon offered it to me. But I shook my head and thanked him. I determined, however, to buy a copy immediately upon my return to Geneva.
At the Chateau of Chillon I strolled through the maze of big stone rooms, and finally found myself down in the dungeons where stand “the seven pillars of Gothic mould.” I met very few other tourists in my roaming, and the sense of mediaeval days crept over me realistically there in the stillness.... I imagined I was the daughter of an indulgent but uncompromising father, living there in a great lonely castle, shut off from the whole world. The room of the Duchess So-and-So was my own room now, and it was my window which gave out onto the glassy waters of Lake Leman. Here, tonight, my Prince Warren would come to get me! I would jump from this window into his arms, into his boat which would carry us both away, away forever, where my beloved prince and I could live happily ever after! Then, finding myself in the tower, I planned my escape in case my angry old father should imprison me. But this escape was difficult to devise and so I dropped out of the make-believe world and my roving mind took me back to the newspaper picture I had seen a few hours before on the lake steamer. He had looked a little tired, and I hoped they would not drag him all over Alaska to speak and to shake hands with people. I wondered if he were not perhaps thinking about me at that very moment, and the great love I felt for him surged through my being. How good it would be to get back to him! Already it seemed to me I had been away from him and from my precious baby girl an eternity. And it was still three weeks until we should sail on our return to America!
_94_
I shall never forget that night in my room at the Hotel de la Paix. It was yet early when I reached Geneva from my day’s trip, and after I had eaten my dinner and bought the paper containing Mr. Harding’s picture, I retired to my room for early sleep. But my thoughts were too full of Mr. Harding and I could not sleep. His face seemed very near to me, and I switched on my light again and studied the picture in the graphic sheet. The more I studied it the more tired he looked to me, until I thought in terror, “Heavens! I wish they would let him alone!” I slipped into my negligee and walked out upon the tiny balcony and drank in the loveliness of a moonlight night on Lake Geneva.
Across the lake, beyond Mt. Blanc Bridge which connects the two sections of the city, sounded the gay laughter of late diners. “Winers” I thought, absent-mindedly. There is considerable difference in time between Alaska and Switzerland, and I wondered where Mr. Harding was then and what he was doing. It was nine o’clock by the little watch he had given me in 1917. Perhaps he was thinking of me, too, and that was what brought him so vividly before me.
I stood there thus meditating, when over the waters, clear in the mountain air, floated to me a familiar song, an old-time favorite from a musical comedy, “The Prince of Luxemburg.” The words, which I remembered quite distinctly, at first seemed a reassuring answer to my fears, and I mentally fitted them to the air as it was played and replayed by the little cafe orchestra:
“Say not love is a dream, say not that hope is vain! Say not that cruel fate will redeem Perfect joy with pain. Look, oh, look not beyond--joy so near! True hearts may ne’er despond, for love knows naught of fear. Love breaks every bond, and love, true love, is here!”
But instead of happy “Say not” negations the lines seemed to sing themselves into positive affirmations of ill, and I struggled vainly to banish the prophetic sadness that pervaded the atmosphere of my thoughts just as it had during my last talk with Mr. Harding in the White House in January. Persistently this line haunted me, “Cruel fate will redeem perfect joy with pain,” until it seemed like a sinister night-song as I lay in my bed longing for merciful sleep. I had come over here to forget, certainly not lugubriously to anticipate a future which, in spite of every unfavorable circumstance, held promise of much happiness. “Perfect joy with pain, perfect joy with pain--perfect joy--perfect pain--perfect joy--pain”; the words droned themselves into my drowsy consciousness until at last I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke it was very early morning. I remembered with a sense of shrinking terror my own thoughts of the night before, and the haunting imaginings from which I fain would flee before they gripped me hard again. Something told me I should have prayed for Mr. Harding instead of spending my time in worry, and it seemed strange I had not thought of it the night before. So I turned my face toward the pillow now and tried to ask God to protect him from all harm and take good care of my baby and him for me until I returned to both of them. Then I slept a while longer.
_95_
I wakened to find a brilliant day awaiting me, and I was to spend it with my Italian friend who was to arrive in Geneva that morning. We hired a taxi and drove up through the mountains, listening with amusement to the very informative guide as he pointed out this estate or that peak with all the flourish of a proud possessor. He spoke alternately in English to me and in French to both of us. We viewed the Rhone and Arve Rivers from a topmost peak and marvelled how they retained their own colors of brown and turquoise blue even as they flowed far out into Lake Geneva.
It occurred to me that this fellow, this guide, seemed almost too typical of other loquacious guides I had observed, and after our return to Geneva, I said to him as we got out of the taxi, “You speak very much like an American.” He answered with embarrassment, “Well, I am kind of an American. You see, I was born in _St. Louis_.” Unfortunately I could not repeat this to my escort in French accurately enough for his full appreciation.
During my stay in Geneva, remembering that Mr. Harding had assigned Angela Arnold’s husband to a post in Switzerland, and that they were supposed to be living in Geneva then, I endeavored to locate Angela. I could not remember her husband’s name, however, and the American consul with whom I talked over the telephone said there were so many attaches there that it would be almost impossible to locate them unless I could definitely identify them by the husband’s surname. So I did not get to see her. The following day we all returned to Dijon.
_96_
I heard very rarely from my sister Elizabeth about Elizabeth Ann. This worried me quite a bit, but then, I thought, impatient with myself, worry was my very mind’s shadow, and likely she was fine and having a good time on the farm. My mother was a faithful correspondent, however, and I was continuing to correspond with other friends, even keeping up a desultory sort of correspondence with the Northwestern University instructor, so I hung around the little apartment of the Dijon University _concierge_ almost hourly to get my mail. As a matter of fact, Elizabeth had a good reason for not being able to write oftener, for I learned afterward what I had not known before I sailed, and what, if I had known, would have kept me from sailing at all. That was that my sister had undergone in my absence a severe operation in Chicago, and had entrusted the baby to her husband’s father and mother on the farm while she was in the hospital.
I had promised Mr. Harding that I would write to him. Indeed, he did not have to ask me, for I knew I would want to anyway. Letters were a medium of expression of my love for him which I could not lightly abandon. But I could not, obviously, _mail_ any of them. I kept them in my trunk, adding a little each night to what I knew, from experience, he would term a veritable feast when I gave them to him in the fall. Little wonder, staying so close to him in this way, and being unable to banish fears about him, that I was torn mentally in what had been my serious resolve to forget!
The Italian was very attentive and, I discovered, was highly intelligent. How would it be, I thought, if I married _him_ instead of an American, and made him the convenience-father of my child? He spoke often of coming to America, where he might very likely settle permanently. He was manifestly fond of children. And he was a gentleman. It was a thought, anyway.
_97_
In Dijon, Madame Daillant’s little garden behind the house provided a gathering place for her boarder-guests as they dropped in for meals, but the evening of August 1st, 1923, it was conspicuously deserted. I found it so when I, going on ahead of Helen Anderson, entered; so I threw myself down into one of the empty chairs and picked up a newspaper. It was very warm and I fanned myself with the paper before opening it. A curious country this, I thought, looking around at the graveled walks, the rickety benches, and the walls surmounted by overturned glass jars on sticks. In parts of the country where I had been it was very beautiful, and it had proven rather diverting. But oh, where could one find a country to equal our own United States! How really shabbily the middle classes here lived! The daughter of Mme. Daillant, a pretty girl, with abundant dark hair and creamy skin, and cheeks pinked by nature to an enviable glow, a pianist, too, of marked ability--what prospects had she in this place? An American girl of her class might rise to fame with like beauty and equal talent. But, it seemed to me, I could see this pretty creature growing old and fat like her mother, with nothing save a drab fate awaiting her. One of the young men in our Armstrong party who also dined at Mme. Daillant’s _pension_ had pleaded with me to stay close by when Mlle. Daillant was in the vicinity for, he said, she attached herself to him with leechlike persistency, and he knew how these French people tried to rope one in. Poor girl! No doubt my American friend provided for her the most romance she had ever known.
I opened the paper. My heart stopped; then pounded. My head swam and I went limp. “HARDING HAS PNEUMONIA, BUT WORST FEARS ALLAYED.” I read the headlines over and over--_over and over again_. As the words gradually sunk meaningfully into my consciousness an indescribable terror seized me. I crushed the paper in my hands and let myself out the little gate into the wider, freer space beyond the garden. My lips were dry; I put my hand to my forehead to steady myself. I wondered why I did not faint. I never fainted, no matter how badly I felt. I have never to this day fainted. So I did not faint then. I only paced up and down, experiencing a mental anguish I had hitherto never known. A thousand suggestions of action came to me. They tumbled about in my poor brain in utter confusion, but from among them I was able to choose the first to be acted upon: I would rush back to Paris immediately, and thence to America by the first boat.... No, that would not do.... I must “act natural” before these people and get out of the city without arousing any suspicions. “Now is the time to summon all your courage, Nan,” Mr. Harding had said to me over the telephone when I pleaded with him to see me in New York shortly after the baby’s birth. I seemed to hear him say it now. I tried to shake myself into common sense; to tell myself everything was all right; he was ill but he would recover!
I seemed to go over, during those brief moments, my years with Mr. Harding--our whole love-life together, even up to the time I had seen him last, suffering from a terrible cold and looking, oh, so tired and miserable. I remembered hearing Mrs. Harding one time tell how “Warren” was pathetically afraid of pneumonia, above all other ills. I remembered so dearly the things that had seemed to throw such an atmosphere of finality over our last visit in the White House--his little parting advises, our lingering kisses, his general despair. And vividly did I recall my forebodings just five evenings before in Geneva. And the memory of each dark thought added terror to my heart.
Miss Anderson found me a few minutes later, having followed the lead of the open gate. I read the headlines to her through dry lips and held the partially crushed paper up for her to see. “All paper talk,” she said shortly. She bade me come in, as dinner was being served. I could not tell her why I was so vitally concerned over the illness of the President of the United States, and she, of course, thought it was but natural sympathy for a man who had been a family friend. “You’re silly to take paper talk so seriously,” she reproved. I followed her into the house and found my place at the table. “‘Just paper talk,’ as Helen says,” I told myself in desperate hope. “Now go on and eat your dinner or you’ll be ill yourself from worry and lack of food.” So I forced food down and passed dishes to and fro and listened to voiced speculations from those around the table, particularly those in our American party, about the probable severity of President Harding’s illness.
Mlle. Daillant was endeavoring as usual to dazzle the American at her right with charms and conversation, and part of me listened apathetically to this babble of French while the other part continued the contemplation of the newspaper report and an advisable course of action ... the Italian shot solicitous glances my way throughout the meal, but I could only raise dull eyes to him ... maybe I ought to marry him, I thought ... he was a nice fellow ... maybe if I married him, or somebody, it might relieve Mr. Harding’s mind of much worry even though we both would suffer in other ways as a consequence of such marriage ... the Norwegian professor’s wife looked as though she had been weeping, though her eyes were always red, I thought ... a cold, maybe, for she kept wiping her nose ... what did these people know of tears, anyway! Mlle. Daillant’s laugh rang out and she repeated in rapid French to the rest of the boarders something her American had said which had amused her.... I wondered how it would seem to have no care beyond an ardent wish to capture an attractive blond American boy.... Good heavens! I hadn’t even enough money left for a passage!... I would borrow ... yes, I must go ... these meals were interminable.... I looked at Helen Anderson and she understood. I excused myself, and I even had enough presence of mind to nod to my hostess and murmur the customary “_Bonsoir, Madame; à demain!_” as I passed out.
It seemed good to be able to walk fast, and as I directed my steps toward Mme. Lachat’s, I tried to reason sanely with myself. Why, Mr. Harding had a superb constitution! It was only the physical drag of responsibility and worry which had overcome him. Maybe he did not even have pneumonia! When he was inaugurated Brigadier-General Sawyer, Mrs. Harding’s personal physician, had issued a statement something like this: “President Harding represents the finest there is today in America--morally and physically and mentally.” Although I did not credit Dr. Sawyer with being a particularly good physician, I knew that Mr. Harding’s general health had been excellent before he went into the presidency, except for a few minor ailments now and then. I remembered how strong he was, how he used to pick me up and carry me about the room in his arms. I remembered how I grew to think he was made of iron and was surprised if he expressed a wish to sleep occasionally! I expected him to stay awake and talk with me all night.
I remembered one night how he had come into New York from a speaking engagement up in New England somewhere and had closed his eyes almost as soon as he touched the pillow, and how I, piqued to tears, had lain away from him, silently, wordlessly, hurt, until he whispered, “Nan, darling, come close to me! Why, Nan, you’re not crying?” And how sweetly he had gathered me into his arms, and how ashamed I had been when he confessed, with his usual embarrassment over indisposition of any character, “I have a ripping headache, dearie; please forgive me!” And I had rubbed his head with my finger-tips until he went off to sleep, and then I had stayed very close to him and just looked at his dear face and worshipped him. Oh, God, how sweet he was! How I wished now I might fly to him over this hopeless space between us, and take him away from _every_body, and nurse him to strength and smiles again!
That night I dreamed fitfully. I arose in the morning, unrested, and hastened immediately to the Dijon railroad station, where I knew I could obtain the latest papers from Paris.
_98_
The papers dated August 1st, which I bought on the morning of the 2nd, caused me to take hope. The headlines were reassuring. “PRESIDENT MUCH BETTER; GIVES PREPARED SPEECH; HIS SECRETARY HANDS TO PRESS HIS ADDRESS HE PREPARED FOR DELIVERY IN SAN FRANCISCO.” That was more like _news_, I thought joyously. I hurried back to Helen Anderson with the paper. My Italian friend met me on the way. I translated into French as best I could the good news. Helen Anderson had explained to the people at the boarding house the evening before that I had come from the President’s home town and had known him from childhood. My Italian friend smiled broadly. _Now_ would I go to the theatre with him that evening? he asked. Yes, I said, I would go.
I felt as though I ought to be gay. Mr. Harding would want me to. Maybe my prayers were of avail, after all, and I breathed another prayer, this time one of thankfulness. I went to school that day. I laughed with the others at the funny mistakes we all made. I could have shouted all the day long, so relieved did I feel, and so thankful.
That evening my friend called for me and we dined together, and drank more wine than usual, and afterwards laughed with sheer joy at strange French comedy which I did not at all understand. We sat in a box. My friend was most agreeable; his face reminded one of some of the heroic bronze faces on plaques. He called me “Ninon,” which he informed me was French for Nan. I giggled to myself when I reflected how funny it would really be to marry a man who knew but two or three words in my language. Yet when I thought about it I decided this very fact might prove an important factor in making him desirable for my peculiar marriage purposes. But he was, after all, a very likable man, and some girl might marry him for love of him alone. On our walk home after the theatre, he proposed marriage to me again, for the severalth time, and, as he bent to kiss my hand, I said to myself audibly in English, “It would be a crime when he seems so genuinely fond of me.” He looked up at me pleadingly. “_S’il vous plaît, Ninon, parlez en français!_” I smiled softly and shook my head. “_Je vous a dit, simplement, ‘vous êtes un bon ami.’_”
_99_
That night, Thursday, the 2nd of August, 1923, I dreamed a strange and terrible dream. I had retired about twelve; I had not been long in bed, and _surely_ had not even closed my eyes, though when I seemed to come to my senses I realized I _must_ have been dreaming. My room, in the corner where my bed stood, was dark, and when I realized what a horrible nightmare I had experienced, I sprang out of bed like a shot and over to the wall to turn on the electric light. I looked at my watch. Why, I had been in bed for three whole hours! Seven o’clock in America--Elizabeth Ann’s bed-hour. My heart was beating violently and I shook all over. I passed an icy hand across my hot forehead. Yes, I was awake, all right, now. God! What a ghastly dream! I opened my shutters and breathed deeply of the sweet-scented garden air. A million stars blinked down at me.... Peace, peace, there was peace everywhere but in my heart. I turned off my light and crept back into bed. Strange how really cold it got here at night; I should not have stood those few moments at the window. I was trembling like a leaf; my teeth chattered and my heart was still pounding up into my throat. My mother had taught us children at home many things to repeat before we fell asleep and mechanically I whispered these things now to myself--the Lord’s Prayer, the 91st Psalm, the 23rd Psalm. I repeated them all, over and over, but I knew not what I was repeating. My conscious mind was reviewing my dream in minute detail for the morbid satisfaction of the mental devils which seemed to possess me. I was conscious again of _a something_ above me, to the left. It seemed to be floating through the air. It was shrouded about with white clouds which seemed not to hide it from view but rather to protect it in its slow mount upward. _What_ was I seeing! God! A coffin! A coffin draped with, and trailing about it, American flags, and heaped with red, red roses! A coffin, ascending on my left, rising so slowly that it seemed suspended in mid-air, yet ever moving upward and away from me. How blood-red were the roses! And the crimson stripes of the trailing flags stained the clouds! The whole, mounting majestically, lifted by an invisible force, upward, onward, protectingly shrouded by white, white clouds!
So he had come to me! He had come in this way that I might be the first to know he was leaving this earth! He himself, tired unto death, lay hidden beneath the folds of the crimson-striped flag he had so loved, revealing to me only the symbol of his going, the beautiful cradle of his last restful sleep! Perhaps he had been too tired, too tired to bend over me, too tired even to murmur before he went away, “I love you, dearie!” But I knew. I understood. He meant to waft me sweet kisses in his sleep. Yet later he would come back, come back to hold me close, and I would feel his presence, even as we were wont to waken to sweet consciousness in each other’s arms, realizing with keen morning wakefulness the bliss of reciprocal touch ... yes, now he must sleep.... How beautiful the roses! They hung in tangled masses over the edge of the coffin, mingling their blood-red with the crimson and white stripes ... how gentle the Hand that steadied the coffin ... a Hand that sensed his weariness and guarded well his slumber ... going upward, heavenward, away from me--away from _me_! Oh, God! No, not away.... I stared, wide-eyed, fearfully fascinated, _knowing_, yet not daring to move, feeling instinctively the futility of lifting human hands in an effort to stay the coffin in its slow flight heavenward.... Even as one transfixed I lay, moving only pitifully frightened eyes to watch the coffin fade slowly out of sight, protectingly enveloped in the white, white clouds...!
With a shock I came back to conscious thinking and sprang from my bed to switch on the light. God! what a horrible nightmare it had been, I thought as I lay in bed now reviewing it and mechanically repeating the Lord’s Prayer ... the Psalms ... over and over.... “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters”.... Oh, God, how glad I was that it had been only a dream! I thought as I fell asleep.
_100_
When, on the following morning, August 3rd, I arose, pale-faced, to rush down to the Dijon station for my paper, I wept for joy to read the headlines. He was much, much better! There, I thought, that _proved_ that dreams “go by opposites” as I had often heard people say, for I had _dreamed_ that he was dead, yet he _lived_! How good was God to keep him safe for me! In spite of dreams and heavy heart I had found him alive and getting better each minute. Tears of gladness streamed down my face.
This was Friday. I remembered there was to be a dance that night for the foreign students. I would attend that! I would buy a new dress of brightest color and I would be gay indeed! I would evidence my gratitude by banishing from this moment all apprehensive thoughts. I would possess myself of a new spirit, a spirit of happiness born of gratitude for my beloved’s recovery. He was _all right now_. He was so strong, how foolish for me to imagine ... how we would talk about all this after I was back in America and made my first visit to the White House! And I would tell him of all my fears and he would smile and hug me and say adorably, “You _do_ love me, don’t you, dearie?” Oh, _how_ I loved him!
I smiled at passers-by as I skipped along to buy “something new.” The lady in the dress shop was eager to please me. “_Je desire une robe, madame, avec beaucoup le coleur jolie!_” I informed her gaily in my best French. I selected one with cerise predominating. I had a large evening hat which would do finely, and I would wear my black satin slippers and sheerest black stockings.
Next I must have my hair washed and cut. I was wearing it straight that summer. I went into what appeared to be a well-conducted beauty parlor. “_Je desire ma cheval coupé et laveé!_” I informed the attendant, a man, at the desk. He looked puzzled. I repeated my statement, taking off my hat and running my hands through my hair. I had noticed that the several ladies who were being either curled or combed had turned to look at me in undisguised amusement, but then people were always amused at my French. So I repeated the statement the second time more loudly, generously enabling the amused ladies and attendants to have another smile at my expense. _They_ didn’t know how happy I was. What did I care if I provoked their laughter. Everybody should laugh. Everybody should be gay. The President of the United States was fast recovering. He was sick, but he was getting well! My sweetheart! My darling!
“_Certainment_,” I said, smiling, “_cheval--laveé--coupé!_” He burst into unrestrained laughter. The attendants burst into unrestrained laughter. The ladies who were getting curled or combed burst into unrestrained laughter. And I laughed, too, though I knew not what had so greatly amused them.
“_Cheval--cheveaux_----,” explained the attendant between spasms. “Oh, I know!” I said in English, then I laughed with them. Mistakes we traveling Americans had made in plenty, but never, I am sure, had anyone topped this one, and never, I am sure, will that attendant forget that he one day received the strange request from an American woman to “_have her horse washed and cut_!”
Smelling much too strongly of cologne, which my attendant had insisted was the proper thing to sprinkle on one’s hair after a shampoo, I flew home to show Helen Anderson my new dress. She came into my bedroom. “Mr. Harding is _much_ better,” I told her with a smile. “Didn’t I tell you,” she answered, “that was probably all paper talk?” I nodded, glad to acquiesce. We talked about the dance that night and both planned to go. “I have a few more things to do downtown,” I said, “and will run and do them now--or, rather, immediately after luncheon,” I decided, seeing by my watch that it was almost time to go to Mme. Daillant’s.
_101_
By one-thirty that afternoon I had finished my purchasings, having found at the last minute some gaily colored handkerchiefs which I felt I would buy right then for gifts when I returned to America. My money was low. I had wired Captain Neilsen once for $200, which he had sent almost immediately to me by cable, having cabled him in Paris of my anticipated need. This fund was fast diminishing. I would have to cable him for more. I was glad I felt free to do so, because it was impossible for me to cable Mr. Harding or for him to cable money to me. On my way home I stopped at the _patisserie_ for some ice cream. These afternoons in southern France were very warm. Some of the girls who were in our Armstrong Tour were there and I sat down with them. We talked about the party that night and our school work.
“Oh, by the way,” one of the girls remarked casually, “did you know that President Harding was dead?” Like a knell, afar off, I heard a clock strike two.
I never saw that girl afterwards, so I do not know what she and the others thought of my conduct. I felt momentarily that I should faint. “Where did you read that?” I demanded. (To myself I was saying, “God! These varying reports will kill me! _Why_ do they print such things!”) “On the bulletin board in the Square,” she answered.
I gave the waitress some change, picked up my parcels with trembling hands and rushed out into the street. I made immediately for the bulletin board. It was several blocks away. I was suddenly so tired I thought I could not possibly walk so far. The sun was very warm. My heart pounded and my cheeks felt strangely hot. And I kept trying to wet my dry lips with an equally dry tongue. Aloud I was saying to myself as I ran along, “Oh, that could not be, that could not be; of course it is a mistake; oh, God, that just _could_ not be!”
Two university boys tried to stop me as I ran, calling after me something about the dance as I shook my head and ran on. I did not stop until I reached the bulletin board. I was tense and faint when I got there and was clutching my little packages in hands that shook. The glare of the sun was in my face as I stared up at the bulletin board and tried to decipher in French much too difficult for me the news about President Harding. A good many people stood about, also reading. I turned to ask one of them, but remembered that they could only tell me in French what the bulletin board said, and I could as well make it out myself. I steeled myself and laboriously translated the bulletin. The word _mort_ I knew, of course, meant death. Oh, God! Yes, that was it. I translated words meaning eighteen hours. Yes, that was it. He had been gone now for eighteen hours! Eighteen hours dead! “_How_ does it read, really?” I asked in a strained voice of a man beside me. But he only shook his head. “_Je ne comprends pas_,” he said.
Oh, it is difficult for me to bring this picture back to my mind! I can remember it as plainly as though it were yesterday, and all the horrible sensations of the shocks I experienced come over me anew. The world seemed without bottom. Things suddenly lost their meaning. The world, people, life itself, were like a horrible nightmare. I felt, like the coffin, as though I were balanced in mid-air. I could not ground either myself or my thoughts.
_102_
I turned away from the bulletin board and walked blindly up the street. The fact that I was conscious of the direction in which I was going seemed to me an assurance that I had not yet lost my mind. But it would go. Yes, I was sure of that. I could not, after I had _realized_ that my beloved had gone away from me, live on. But indeed even to this day it has seemed to me that I have not fully _realized the reality_ of Mr. Harding’s passing. He had been to me not mortal but immortal; he just could not die.
Strangely enough, I did not cry. I could not cry. My head thumped mercilessly and it seemed to me I was conscious of passers-by looking at me, but I could not see wherein I was misbehaving. I was sane. I was maddeningly sane. I knew that in my hands I still carried the little colored handkerchiefs, and that I was on the main street. And I wondered why I had not thrown the handkerchiefs away. All the way up through the long street that is the main thoroughfare of Dijon I walked. What was there to do? Where was I to go? What did it matter? How strange that this should happen to me and I could not feel it within my heart to cry!
I remember a street car coming alongside of me in that narrow street. It seemed to bring me back partially. It was a long walk home, and I was very, very tired. Yes, I was so tired I might faint. And people might then find out, if I fainted and lost my mind and talked, that I was President Harding’s sweetheart. I could not afford to faint. I would take the car back home and I would be safe, once I was with Helen Anderson.
God, what torture to sit in that car! There were five or six blocks to ride, and they seemed interminable. The man called my stop--it was _Place Octobre 30th_--queer name for a street. October 30th! It was the 22nd of October that Elizabeth Ann was born--the 22nd of October just four years ago that fall. Elizabeth Ann! Our daughter. _His_ daughter, and he had never seen her! And he was gone! Oh, no, no! It must be a mistake! I was asleep again and it was a horrible dream. If he were dead I would be crying. I pinched myself very hard and felt the hurt keenly. I could not remember ever having felt such queer pressure around my heart or such heaviness in my head. I reached our garden gate and mechanically let myself in with the great key I carried.
I entered my room. On the bed lay the cerise dress. Was it possible that I could actually have enthused over a mere dress? Was it I who had entered this room less than three hours before in high spirits? Good God, how meaningless everything seemed! How blank! I tried to ponder the meaning of _death_ as it now affected me. But my mind was in a daze. I could not pin my thoughts to contemplative consideration of anything save the sickening emptiness and gnawing pangs I was conscious of within. The effects of the bulletin-board statement were very real; but the full significance of the statement itself I could not grasp. The possibility that I should eventually awaken to the full import of my sweetheart’s passing seemed remote, for _to me_ he continued to live. Only the world-void and the dullness of an inactive mentality seemed real then.
Helen must have heard me turn the key in the garden door, for she now called downstairs to me. I answered her. I even went to the foot of the stairs and called up to her in a voice that seemed strangely detached from me, “He is dead, Helen!”
She came downstairs to my room. I was sure that something would snap within my brain and I would be wholly without power of reason. So I must tell her. In incoherent fashion, and in a strange, hollow voice, I related to Helen Anderson how Mr. Harding was my sweetheart. As I listlessly revealed to her fragments of my strange story, Miss Anderson’s face grew flushed from shock. I wondered vaguely at her changing expressions. I was puzzled that she should utter an exclamation when I told her that the Elizabeth Ann I talked so much about was President Harding’s child--and mine!
I remember distinctly, even in my state of mental lassitude, that I was secretly amazed at her first question. “Well, how did you ever _do_ it, Nan?” “How did I ever _do_ it?” I repeated. “Why, yes, how could you ‘get away with’ having a child?” It was inconceivable to me, who had loved Mr. Harding for so long, how anyone could primarily feature the obstacles in mentally digesting my story, for love such as ours could encounter no insuperable obstacles to the full expression of its divine nature. But Helen Anderson had never married, and she was a conventional woman.
I stumbled through explanations, and as I reminisced aloud about Elizabeth Ann I found myself quivering anew from head to foot and the hot tears in my eyes. I was now really crying! It eased me. It was not so difficult after that to go on. The tenseness of my body gave place to violent paroxysms of shaking, but the relaxation I felt from talking with someone was great relief to me. Helen directed me to get to bed immediately. I _was_ very tired, I thought, as I crept into bed. Helen stayed with me through the evening, reading to me, comforting me, until I told her I felt perhaps I could sleep. But I was too shaken to be alone, and that night, when I decided I could not stand it one moment longer, I crept upstairs and into Helen’s bed, where I lay shivering in the dark, crouched close to my friend, like a hunted creature.
_103_
My interest in France, in Europe, in the whole world was over now. All I wanted was to get back to America and to Elizabeth Ann. I wondered if Mr. Harding’s funeral would be held before I reached home. I did hope everything was safe so far as our love-story was concerned, for my sweetheart’s sake. Miss Anderson calmed my fears on this score when I spoke to her about it. She said of _course_ nothing would “get out” about a President who had just passed on. But I was afraid, anyway, and I was anxious to get back to take care for him that nothing was said. Of course if anything _were_ said about him, I would lie for him. I could always say Elizabeth Ann belonged to someone else. And he was protected--unless he had left some of my letters or some of my pictures in his desk. But probably his private secretary, George Christian, would obey him and burn those things in his private drawer without looking at them. I feared for Elizabeth Ann. If they _did_ find it out, what might they not do with her! Kidnap _her_ and worry _me_ to my very death? Oh, yes, I must get back immediately.
I did not have sufficient funds to go on any boat outside of the one our Armstrong party was scheduled to return on. And only the day before I had spent about $40 on the cerise dress and other foolish things. I told my Italian friend that my sister “was very ill” and he came to my rescue with a loan of 1,500 francs ($90). Helen Anderson had offered to cable her sister for extra funds, but I did not wish to await the return of her sister’s cable. The $90 would suffice to secure for me a change of cabin in another boat on the French Line, in addition to the amount I was allowed on my regular return passage. The boat, the _France_, would sail the 11th of August. Yes, they would have buried him by the time I reached America, I was sure. My thoughts never ceased. They ran on and on, and sometimes I felt that likely it was the ability to think that had kept me from _losing_ the ability to think.
Miss Anderson, saddened over Mr. Harding’s death, and having had enough of Dijon anyway, left with me, as did a young man who had been with us a good deal on the tour. He accompanied me, in fact, to Havre, at Helen Anderson’s expense, and put me on my boat. I had secured a double cabin all to myself because the clerk saw that I looked ill. And never was I so glad to leave any place in my life. I saw the shores of France recede and turned my face toward America.
_104_
The feeling of unreality which I had been experiencing in connection with Mr. Harding’s death continued, and it seemed to me those days on the ocean enroute home that I possessed two distinct entities: the one, myself, who suffered constantly, underneath her comparative calm, and another who seemed always to be looking on. This second self watched me, I might say watched over me, observing that I did necessary things in a normal manner--that I dressed, breakfasted, talked, read, dined, and even slept. This second self seemed also to approve of my companionships on board, especially with a Swiss Frenchman who sat at my table and who seemed to appreciate that I had been through some kind of ordeal. He thought it strange that I didn’t care to dance, but walked with me and sat with me on the deck and gave me interesting books to read.
The passengers, at my table and elsewhere, very naturally talked about Mr. Harding’s death. I had grown used to hearing him discussed anywhere I might go, and this fact may have helped to make it possible for me to listen to their talk until I could quietly excuse myself or otherwise slip away unobserved.
My funds were almost exhausted. I had cabled Captain Neilsen to have money awaiting me in New York, having received a radio from him that he was soon to leave for an indefinite period. And he had wired me back, “Call for funds at American Express Office.” I had scarcely enough money left to tip the stewards.
Each day there was a pool won by the passenger who guessed the final numeral in the mileage made by the steamer at the end of a certain hour. My Swiss friend, seeming fond of sports of that kind, always bet on some number. I did not know that one who bets must also deposit $6 of the $60 which went to make up the pool and, when he said to me one day, “Put your name down against a number,” I chose 5. Unknown to me he had put $6 into the pool for me. The following day I was informed I had guessed the lucky number. It was long afterward, even here in New York, that I discovered he had made the necessary deposit for me. He seemed at the time I won to be much more pleased than I, saying he “loved to see girls win things.” Inasmuch as I had about $5 left you may be sure the $60 lucky cash came in handy!
Mr. Harding’s generosity had made of me a far more extravagant girl than might have been the case had he not made me feel that I needn’t be so saving. I remember one time when I went to the White House, he said to me, “Nan, darling, do you know how much I have sent you since such-and-such a date?” He added, “Not that I am complaining, dearie; I want you to have everything you want within reason, so long as there is no comment.”
Another time, when he was hugging me so tightly, sitting there on the dilapidated leather couch in the ante-room, I said, “Oh, sweetheart, you are tearing my blouse!” He did not loose his hold of me; simply answered in a voice I knew was smiling, as he sought my lips, “Well, if I tear it, I’ll buy you another one!”
This reminds me of an incident in our first sweetheart days of 1917. It was early fall. We were taxi driving, and were crossing the viaduct at 125th Street and Riverside Drive. I knew I would need a winter coat; in fact, at the Carter’s the winter before I had had no winter coat; I had worn the heavy suit the friends in Chicago had bought me and a rather heavy raincoat over it, and very often Miss Carter’s fur piece and muff. I now needed a winter coat badly.
“Sweetheart,” I said, “if I can save $20 toward a new winter coat, will you give me $10?” How can I forget how he looked at me! Or his answer, “Say, you darling, if you save _$10_ I’ll give you _$20_!” And, as a matter of fact, he sent me $50, out of which I bought a coat for $38.
_105_
It was Saturday, August the 18th, 1923, when we sailed into the New York harbor. I had little trouble with my baggage, the only thing of any consequence which I had bought being a big doll for Elizabeth Ann for which I had paid $11 in Geneva. I had early christened the doll “Ninon,” and Elizabeth Ann treasured it.
I went to the McAlpin Hotel. Along the street I observed with aching heart the many signs of a nation’s mourning, and when I went to the window of my room in the hotel the last touch was added; outside hung a huge American flag, at half-mast. The cumulative reaction was too much, and with a sense of mingled anguish in bereavement and relief for my return I flung myself down upon the bed and wept.
I had lived only to get back to Elizabeth Ann, and I could scarcely wait to hold my baby in my arms. My first impulse was to leave immediately for the West. However, I did not know the lay of the land out there, and did not want to take any false steps which would indicate the state of my feelings and lead to exposure of Mr. Harding in any way. It was an absurd thought for me to entertain, to think that after we had been able thus far to keep our love a secret it should come out at this time of all times. But I was so nervous that I suspected everybody of knowing that there was a story, and was as circumspect in my behavior as if I personally had the responsibility of the nation in my keeping.
I immediately wrote to my sister Elizabeth in Chicago to be very careful, and I bought up all the newspapers previous to and following the President’s illness. My purpose in buying them was two-fold. First, I wanted to satisfy myself that there had crept out no breath of scandal during his late days in Canada before he started for San Francisco; and, secondly, I wanted these clippings for my Harding book which I was keeping for Elizabeth Ann.
Having pored over the papers in my room at the McAlpin, and finding no evidence that Mr. Harding had been subjected to worry on account of our secret love, and still awaiting a letter from Elizabeth, I turned my attention to the finance question. I went to the American Express Office and found $200 which Captain Neilsen had deposited for me, awaiting my demand. Captain Neilsen was mighty nice, I thought, to do this for me, and just as soon as I had received the money I was sure Mr. Harding had left for me, I would repay him. I wondered how Mr. Harding had arranged it. Bless him! It hurt me unspeakably to ponder this question. I was absolutely certain, however, that we had been taken care of, our precious baby and myself, and I put the how of it out of my mind.
I felt I should buy a dress for myself which would be in conformity with my mood. My winter coat, the squirrel coat Mr. Harding had made it possible for me to have, was in storage, and so I decided to buy one of lighter weight, a black one, for early fall wear. I spent one afternoon, therefore, choosing a black dress, black coat, black hat and black gloves.
_106_
Finally word came from my sister Elizabeth. She wrote that my brother-in-law, Scott Willits, had planned to study with Professor Otakar Sevcik, who was to teach in New York that winter, and it was too late for them to alter their plans. They were, therefore, coming East as arranged, and would stop at my mother’s, in Athens, Ohio, where I could meet them. Scott had been studying with Professor Sevcik for some time, having been with him in Europe a year, a season in Ithaca, and a season in Chicago.
So I went immediately to Athens, Ohio, to await their coming. Mother surely sensed the grief I had experienced, and set me to work cleaning house for her and getting meals and otherwise trying to occupy my mind. She was teaching in the Training School of the Ohio University, was busy every minute of the day, and it was a relief for her to come home to prepared meals, she said.
In early September I went to Marion. I had become unbearably nervous waiting for Elizabeth to bring my baby, and anyway I felt if I could see and talk to Daisy Harding it would make me feel a shade better. I telephoned Miss Harding immediately upon my arrival. She still lived with her father on East Center Street. It was from this house that the funeral of President Harding had been conducted. Daisy Harding was surprised to hear my voice and invited me to come out immediately. The last time I had seen her was when she had visited her cousin, Mrs. John Wesener, in Chicago, in the fall of 1922, and I had taken my grandfather there to call upon Dr. Harding.
Everything seemed very quiet as I stepped from the trolley in front of Dr. Harding’s and walked across the street to the house. New railings had replaced the old ones which had to be removed from the porch in order to take the President’s casket in and out of the door, and when I observed them the full significance of this struck me like a blow.
Miss Harding came to the door in answer to my ring. She had on an all white serge suit and I thought she was truly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. The pallor of her lovely face was heightened by the deep lights of her eyes and her black hair was combed back from her forehead. How much she looked like _him_! The same understanding seriousness in her eyes, the same facial contour, and much the same sad smile.
We sat in the living-room, the same room in which I had, in July of 1922, seen and talked with Mrs. Warren Harding. Daisy Harding told me many details about the passing of her brother. As she talked I thought I should scream with each word. A portrait in colors of President Harding, a “smiling picture,” hung in that room above the bookcase and beneath it stood a bouquet of flowers. Just as Mr. Harding used to have flowers on his White House desk beside the miniature of his mother, I thought.
The house seemed very quiet. The East Center Street trolley cars rumbled past at regular intervals, the same street cars I suppose that used to pass our house when the “Brittons” lived farther out on the same street. Everything was the same; but everything to me was tragically different.
“That’s the way it is all day long, Nan,” said Miss Harding, calling my attention to a car which drove slowly by while the occupants were gazing curiously at the house wherein we sat. “Thousands and thousands passed his coffin, and everybody remarked the expression upon his face--he looked so peaceful and happy.” God, how awful to listen as she told it! I sobbed with Miss Harding as she went on. “He loved life so, you know, Nan,” she said. Oh, how well I knew! I told her about the strange dream I had had in Dijon, and how I afterwards had counted up the difference in time between France and the United States and had found that the hour of my dream had been the hour of Mr. Harding’s passing. She thought this startlingly coincidental.
I longed to go over and put my arms around her, to tell her that her brother _had_ known _some_ joy during the last years of his life, and that I would have given my own life to have had him know more of such joy. But I sat still and silent in my chair.
Even the grief I felt could not overshadow a certain strange comfort I experienced in being there, ’mid the old familiar surroundings, where his body had last lain in perfect rest. And the spirit that had always been Warren Harding seemed to linger near us as we talked.
Miss Harding’s fiance, Mr. Ralph Lewis, came for her. They were going to dine at an inn in a nearby country town--Waldo, she said. (I knew the very place, for I had dined there with the Mousers and Gorhams not long before--the last visit I made to Marion.) They invited me to go with them; they were driving, of course. But I told them I preferred to remain there at the house and would try to rest a bit while they were gone.
It seemed like the culmination of a fairy tale that Ralph Lewis should be engaged to Daisy Harding. He had loved her all his life, I knew. When I was a child he had owned a grocery-store, and we children often went there for “sour pickles.” I can see him now, in his big white apron, stooping over the pickle barrel and hauling up several pickles with the dipper, dripping with the good-smelling vinegar. He used to let us “pick ’em out,” I remember. After a good many years he gave up the grocery business and went in for real estate, and I knew well his reputed success.
Miss Harding told me to go out into the kitchen and help myself to anything I found for luncheon; it was then about eleven-thirty in the morning. Then they left, and I was entirely alone in the house. Miss Harding had told me that her father and his wife had gone away for a rest and visit following the funeral. So I was there alone in the house where my beloved had lain in utter peace, in his father’s home, while mourning thousands brought their tributes of affectionate regard.
I was nervously exhausted, and went upstairs, thinking I would lie down for a while. Miss Harding had told me sometime before that when her brother had been elected President his wife had sent some of her furniture back to Marion from their Wyoming Avenue home in Washington, and the room where I went to rest was fitted with Mr. and Mrs. Harding’s bedroom suite. Their framed portraits hung above their respective beds. I lay down and looked long at the likeness of my beloved. My second self was watching me, and seemed to say, “Go right ahead, Nan, and have a good cry. It will make you feel stronger.” I think I did feel a bit stronger.
I bathed my eyes, put on a dressing-gown Miss Harding had laid out for me, and went down to the kitchen. I prepared a cup of something hot for myself and forced myself to eat some of the fresh things from the ice-box. Then I washed up my dishes and went back into the living-room.
I roamed in and out, visioning the coffin in the front room with my darling lying so peacefully there. I stooped and caressed the carpet above which the coffin had rested, and closed my eyes as I stood above an imaginary casket and looked down at my darling asleep. He had known this house! He had once lived here, as I remembered hearing his sister say, and therefore every inch of the old home was dear to him.
I longed to hold some of his clothes. He used to have an agreeable man-smell all his own, and there was a time when I thought I knew all his suits. I remembered he sometimes had come over to New York looking not as well pressed as usual, seeming to joy in the comfort of old clothes. On one occasion I told him I wished he were a milkman or a postman or _some_body who was not at all important. He had smiled then and looked down at his clothes, and I had hastened to assure him that he was quite all right, that he looked good to _me_, and that I didn’t care _what_ he had on. And another time, in Washington, we were walking together down Pennsylvania Avenue, and he looked absolutely stunning. And in the admiring glances of passers-by was also recognition. “I never used to notice the conspicuity of men in public office as I have since coming to Washington,” he said to me. And then another time he was chewing gum and asked me if I wanted some, and I took it because I was afraid I would hurt his feelings if I did not. And we walked along together, my arm through his, and were so happy! “We’re just a couple of small-towners together, aren’t we, Nan?” he said contentedly as he looked down at me with fond eyes. And I nodded happily and said to him, “May I kiss you, darling, all night long?” And to this and other loving queries I made he answered gaily, “You can do any damned thing you want to do to me, dearie. _I’m yours!_”
I left Miss Harding and her home with a sense of having actually communed with my beloved. I did not allow myself to go up to the cemetery. In fact, though I have been in Marion since, I have never once been near where the coffin rests. For they could never bury the _spirit_ of Warren Gamaliel Harding.
_107_
I returned to Athens, Ohio. Here Elizabeth, Scott and Elizabeth Ann joined me some days later and soon we were all enroute back East to New York, my younger sister Janet going with us.
I cannot tell anyone how sweet it was to be near my precious baby girl once more. If I had idolized her before, I worshipped her now, for my love was tinged with the spiritual. Elizabeth Ann and I slept together at my mother’s for the few days we remained there before leaving for the East, and I fairly devoured her with my hungry eyes. I could see her father in her every glance. Even in the semi-darkness of our bedroom, where the light from the hall made it possible for me to contemplate her features, I saw constantly the face of him whom I would never again see upon this earth. I felt toward her as Mr. Harding used to write that he felt toward me. “I worship you, dearest, and I reverence you,” he would say to me, and I remember how that reverence was written all over his face when I, just a month before Elizabeth Ann was born, went to see him in Washington. And now I felt more than ever before that same worshipful reverence for my child, and I poured the love I felt for both my child and her father upon her. For now I had only the memory of him to adore.
_108_
When we reached New York (September, 1923) I suggested that we go to 72nd Street where I had been living when my sister came with the baby to New York to see her husband off for Europe. The matter of finances had to be faced. I had scarcely any money left, and Scott and Elizabeth almost as little. But there was enough to last until we secured positions. My sister Janet, six years my junior, was going to secure a secretarial position also. The four of them--Scott, Elizabeth, Janet and Elizabeth Ann--had an apartment downstairs and I secured my old room on the top floor.
It was Elizabeth’s early suggestion that I go immediately to Daisy Harding and reveal the truth to her. I had received no word from anyone about funds having been provided by Mr. Harding and I could not understand this. He had always been so generous, and it was upon the very last visit to him in the White House that he had declared again his full intention to care for both Elizabeth Ann and me all the rest of our lives. So I concluded that whoever had been entrusted with money for the baby and me would probably wait until a suitable time had elapsed before making this bequest known to me. My sister and her husband were skeptical, but then I could condone their attitude because I knew that no one had ever known Mr. Harding as I had known him, and no one could ever convince me that he would neglect his sweetheart and his child. Had he not, long before we had dreamed of Elizabeth Ann’s coming, been tempted upon two or more occasions to reveal to one or more of his friends his relations with me, when he had been seized with acute indigestion and had thought he was going to pass on? _Then_ there was no reason, as I had told him at the time he repeated these things to me, for him to settle any money upon me. He had not harmed me, but blessed me with his love, and I could see no reason why he should even think of arranging for my comfort. But after Elizabeth Ann was born I was far more dependent. My situation was increasingly complicated. And now for me to think that Warren Harding had not made ample provision for his child, and her mother as well, would be for me to impute cowardice and injustice to one whom I knew always bravely met life-issues. No, this was a feeling I could not in my most desperate need ever share, for I knew well the man I loved and I knew his love for me.
Captain Neilsen came around to see us after we had become comparatively settled. Helen Anderson also came and brought on one occasion some lovely preserves. But for the most