Chapter XIII: Part 13

It seemed to me that fate had helpfully intervened when I met the New York lawyer who became my friend, and, after he had sympathetically extracted from me my real reason for wanting a divorce, and the one contributing factor which had led to compulsory abandonment of cherished plans in behalf of my daughter, he stated that in his opinion I had sufficient grounds for a complete _annulment_ of my marriage, with restitution of my maiden name. This pleased me immensely. He immediately drew up what was in effect a mutual agreement between Captain Neilsen and me bearing no legal significance beyond our own promise to each other to respect each other’s rights, as though a state of marriage did not exist, until such time as I could obtain absolute legal severance. We both signed this agreement, which also specified an amount of money which the captain was to pay to me monthly, and which he did in good faith pay until my annulment the following February had been legally consummated. But this amount of money was not even sufficient to cover the rent I had been paying, and so of course would not have kept me had I not supplemented it with my own salary.

_124_

Tim Slade came over to New York about once a month, and the second or third time I met him at the Waldorf he advised me that he had spoken to Major Brooks as well as to George Christian, of course talking to them hypothetically. He said Major Brooks remembered very well indeed having received letter from “E. Baye” enclosing letters for President Harding, but he knew of no money having been left for anyone at all outside of those who were mentioned in Mr. Harding’s will. And nothing had been left with _him_. Nor had Tim’s talk with George Christian, the President’s secretary, revealed knowledge of such a bequest.

Tim seemed very sure that he could go further in his investigations. He spoke of various people who had benefitted by the Harding Administration, and who would, he said, undoubtedly be glad to interest themselves in my situation. He said he was very sure, from what he knew about the Harding family outside of the President, that it would be difficult to persuade them to part with any of their money, and his characterizations of particular members of Mr. Harding’s family were distinctly severe. But I felt sure they would come immediately to my rescue with as much eagerness to do the right thing as Elizabeth Ann’s father had always shown. I said to Tim Slade that I would prefer not to go to Harding family until we had exhausted other channels of effort, especially until he had definitely determined in his own mind that the money which I believed had been left for us by Mr. Harding could not be traced.

When I next saw Tim Slade he had not accomplished anything so far as I could see except to have further confided the facts of the situation to certain individuals of his own choosing. I did not try to advise him, feeling he ought to know the right method of procedure if his desire to help me was truly genuine.

He said there were so few men who were really Mr. Harding’s friends that the situation was a difficult one. When I met him every month at the Waldorf the time was not spent entirely with discussions about my own affair. On the other hand, Tim would tell me long stories about individuals in Washington. I was learning surprising things about such people as George Christian, Brigadier-General Sawyer (Mrs. Harding’s personal physician), Mr. Brush, who bought _The Marion Daily Star_, Harry Daugherty, his son Draper, and many, many others, some of whose names were familiar with me, and others of whom I had not heard and therefore have forgotten. The one man above all others who escaped critical mention was Charles G. Dawes, who, Tim said, was “his best friend,” and who, he was sure, would “go a long way” in helping to solve my problem about Elizabeth Ann and my rightful expectations for her.

I asked Tim if he had ever heard about the lost letter I had sent to Mr. Harding the first month of his term as President, and I explained how I had addressed it and how I had enclosed many snapshots of Elizabeth Ann, and some of myself with our daughter. This letter was not received. Tim said that he himself had assisted George Christian until the latter had got onto things, but that some one else had opened all of the President’s mail at that time. He said he did not think this particular letter had reached there for he was confident it would have been given to the President.

I told Tim about having met a friendly New York attorney and about his volunteering to assist me, for a nominal fee, to free myself from the captain, and Tim thought that would be wise.

The latter part of May I talked to my New York lawyer friend again about my matter and I put my case to him hypothetically, in the light of the natural responsibility a family ought to assume toward the maintenance of their brother’s only child despite the fact that that child could claim no _legal_ relationship to the family. I did not say of course who the father of my child was, but his answer to my question was both direct and emphatic. He was of the opinion that there did exist a moral responsibility toward such a child and that _the right thing to do for the child_ was to approach the family direct. “You have apparently tried to ‘cut corners’ by making a marriage for Elizabeth Ann’s sake. You found it has proven a failure. Now the thing to do is to do the _right_ thing, which is to go to her father’s people.”

I did not see Tim Slade again before I left at the beginning of June on a vacation of a month to be spent in the West with my people. But I remember distinctly that I made up my mind that if Tim Slade could, as he said, influence certain persons to help Warren Harding’s child, then the members of the Harding family would surely see it in the same way, and, in justice to them, they should be approached immediately. My lawyer’s assertion of the justice of such procedure strengthened me in the step I was deliberating upon, and I felt there was really but one thing _for_ me to do--make my plea in my own way to Daisy Harding on behalf of her brother’s child.

_125_

My mother, who had been teaching on Long Island, and my brother John, fifteen years of age, went West with me the first of June, 1925. Elizabeth and Scott were teaching music at the Ohio University, and so we proceeded straight to Athens, Ohio.

How my darling little girl had grown even in the four months since I had been obliged to return her to my sister and her husband! How much she looked like her father, and how happy I was to be with her again! How long and straight her legs! How lovely her eyes! And she had lost a tooth. Oh, I told her, I was so happy to see her! “Well, Nan dear, I’m happy to see you, too!” she answered, her head to one side like her father, her lips drawn into the semi-serious smile of a grown-up, as she took one of my hands in both of hers. How dear she was! And what a peach my sister Elizabeth was to take such good care of her! Nor was I unappreciative of the fact that Scott had not been unwilling to take her back even after I had taken her away with the full and expressed intention of keeping her permanently. Scott and I never agreed where Elizabeth Ann was concerned, but I conceded much appreciation to him for having been won over to accepting her back uncomplainingly in that instance.

Elizabeth said they were planning to motor back to Chicago and from there to the Willits farm for the summer, and would I not like to motor with them? This I decided to do, and in that way remain a little longer with my precious baby girl before proceeding back to New York. So about the middle of June we left Athens, by motor, for Chicago.

I continued to think about the task to which I had set myself: telling my friend and my sweetheart’s sister, Daisy Harding, about Elizabeth Ann. Our route to Chicago took us through Marion, Ohio, and Elizabeth Ann and I shared the same bed at the Harding Hotel where we spent the night. An oil painting of Mr. Harding hangs in the lounging room of the hotel, and Elizabeth Ann spied it immediately and recognized it. “Oh, there is our dear Mr. Harding,” she said, pulling my hand, and we both stood in front of the portrait silently. In our bedroom were all the needed evidences to make one know that it had been Mr. Harding who had inspired the building. Even in the bedspreads was woven the likeness of the 29th President of the United States.

That night, or early the next morning, I telephoned Miss Harding, who was, by the way, Mrs. Ralph T. Lewis now, and told her we were passing through Marion to Chicago and I would likely return that way enroute East. I had previously written of my intended trip West and Miss Harding had advised me by letter when it would be most convenient for her to have me at her home. I told her over the phone I was making arrangements to be there at the time she suggested.

We went on to Gary, Indiana, where we were obliged to spend the night because of tire trouble. The following day we were in Chicago. That afternoon, after a short rest, Elizabeth, Scott and the baby went on down to the farm, and I, after visiting with friends for a couple of days, went back to Marion, Ohio.

_126_

On my trip from Chicago to Marion I went very carefully over the whole situation as it affected and might affect everybody concerned. I decided it was paramountly _my_ problem, to solve for Elizabeth Ann, and, regardless of the shock which the revelation of my secret might cause, there did exist an obligation in the Harding family toward Elizabeth Ann, and I owed it to my child to apprise the Hardings of her true identity and parentage.

Of course, it would be difficult for me to tell Daisy Harding. It would mean for me the retracing of a word-for-word picture of that part of my life which I would fain recall only by sad-sweet memories unspoken, and the indelible imprint upon my character. Miss Harding’s cordial, “Why, come right on out, Nan!” when I telephoned her from the Marion railroad station, brought me face to face with my promise to myself: that I would not postpone the telling, but have it over with.

I had scarcely seated myself when I said, “Miss Harding, I have something which I want you to know and I am going to proceed to tell you immediately.”

I sat on the couch in the living-room. This was the first time I had been in Daisy Harding’s new home since her marriage to Ralph Lewis. On the table stood a picture of my darling, taken with Laddie Boy, and it was the first time I had seen this particular picture of Mr. Harding. I looked closely at it when I sat down. Its presence bolstered me in the ordeal I must go through.

I plunged into my story and followed it as best I could from beginning to end. Neither nervous tension nor tears stopped me until I had pretty well covered the ground. Daisy Harding’s face was a study. As I talked it expressed kaleidoscopically the varied emotions she must truly have experienced--amazement, pity, hurt, sorrow,--all there, _but never for one moment incredulity_.

The very first thing she said was, “Why, Nan, I’ll bet that was brother Warren’s greatest joy!” I said I thought it _had_ been. Then she added, “If Carrie Votaw knew this she would want to go right out there and get that baby right away. She’d just love her!” I knew Carrie Votaw’s fondness for children exceeded even Daisy’s. The Votaw’s had no children of their own. I told Daisy in tears that that was exactly what _I_ had been wanting to do ever since Elizabeth Ann was born, and especially was it unbearable for me not to have her, since I no longer had _him_.

I shall not attempt to give the details of our conversation, for it was inclusive of every phase of my situation and would be a mere repetition of my story thus far told. I showed her letters I had, and pictures of Elizabeth Ann, and she, too, saw the likeness which her brother’s child bore to him.

Miss Harding was understanding and kind, never once criticising her brother, even though she made a brave attempt to convince me that Mr. Harding’s legal wife was fond of him. Though it seemed futile to me to expend so much time discussing this point upon which no one in the world was probably as intimately informed as I, I took occasion to remark that I had fully appreciated her _rights_, imposed by the long-standing union between her and Mr. Harding, and that this recognition on my part and my respect above everything else for my sweetheart’s peace of mind, had resulted in the tragic situation I was today attempting to face.

It was pitifully plain to me that Miss Harding’s immediate concern was for the Harding name, to preserve it conventionally intact, although the very method she chose to employ in her endeavor to impress me with my own duty toward my child and her brother’s, only made her alarm the more apparent. It would be unfair to Elizabeth Ann, she said, to tell her who she was until she became twenty-five years of age--and perhaps had had a love-affair of her own. Miss Harding asserted that there was every probability that Elizabeth Ann might turn against me, her own mother, if she were told before that time. But this I would not admit for one second. I said that it might be a shock to Elizabeth Ann, but that I knew my child well enough to know that I could never lose her, because she was too much like her father and mother, both, ever to be unduly swayed emotionally by such a revelation.

“How many people know this, Nan?” Daisy Harding asked me.

I told her each one of them, not forgetting to include Tim Slade. At the mention of Tim Slade’s name, Miss Harding seemed greatly distressed, and questioned very much the wisdom of my having made Tim a confidant, telling me a story in which Tim figured and which I had heard from Tim himself, though in an entirely different version. It had to do with an alleged indebtedness left unpaid by Mr. Harding in the amount of $90,000, so Miss Harding said, which amount was due a brokerage firm for stocks of some kind to which Mr. Harding had supposedly subscribed, but for which he had failed to pay previous to his passing. The firm had sued the Harding Estate and Miss Harding said that their lawyers had advised them that, inasmuch as there remained no proof that Mr. Harding did _not_ owe it, they might better strike a compromise than have it made a matter of public knowledge. This they had done, settling for $40,000. I cannot repeat Tim’s version of the same story, but it had been colored throughout with resentment frankly expressed, for it had been the brokerage firm for which Tim had acted as Washington manager, and he therefore said that he knew whereof he spoke when he said Mr. Harding actually owed the money.

I told Miss Harding, as I had told Tim Slade, that Mr. Harding had said to me upon my last visit to the White House that he was then in debt $50,000, and I suggested that perhaps this was the very indebtedness to which he referred, although it seemed to me I did remember hearing him add something about “campaign expenses.” However, I had never been interested in remembering those things verbatim which pertained to business, though I knew by heart the sweet things he had said which affected our personal relations, and it was the amount of $50,000 which had stayed in my mind and the fact that the poor darling had said he just could not seem to get out of debt.

I would not be disloyal to Tim, who was, I was sure, trying to help me in his own way, and so I tried not to bring his name into our discussions after that, except in a general way. Miss Harding suggested to me later on that I might try in an off-hand way to get Mrs. Votaw’s opinion of Tim. Her sister from Washington was then in Marion, and Miss Harding said she thought it would be fine if the friends who had driven through from Washington to Battle Creek, Michigan, and had dropped Mrs. Votaw off in Marion, would invite me to drive back East with them when they stopped in Marion again in a day or two to pick up Mrs. Votaw, and that it would save me that much carfare. I said I would be delighted.

_127_

That evening Mrs. Votaw came over to her sister Daisy’s. I had not seen Carrie Votaw for several years, but I observed that she had lost none of her regal beauty, and she, too, had certain facial expressions which reminded me strongly of her brother. Early in our conversation, Mrs. Votaw found occasion to inquire about my Aunt Dell, who, you will remember, had been a missionary to Burma at the same time Mrs. Votaw and her husband, Heber Herbert Votaw, had been engaged in work of the same character, and it was plain to be seen that the old feeling toward my Aunt Dell was still smoldering in the heart of her whose religion, as a Seventh Day Adventist, was not generally concordant with that of my Aunt Dell, who was a Baptist.

Mrs. Votaw said to me that she had felt very bitter when my Aunt Dell had taken occasion to have published in a certain paper an article, written by my aunt, which voiced the hope of her church that Mr. Harding, now the most distinguished member of the Baptist Church, as President of the United States, might see fit to exert his influence in the direction of promoting the very worthy work which the Baptists were carrying on so admirably in Burma. I knew my Aunt Dell’s sense of humor, and it would have been too much for her to refrain from making capital of a situation such as this, and I could not help being secretly amused. But it saddened me to realize how this given instance of Mrs. Votaw’s resentment proved that the work which should be so universally missionary in spirit and never pettily denominational, was, after all, permeated with the spirit of sect jealousy.

_128_

The following afternoon I walked with Miss Harding (I never called her Mrs. Lewis, having gained her consent to continue addressing her in the old way) to the home of a friend where she was having tea. From there I went over to my friends’, the Mousers. I remember the queer sense of detachment I felt toward old landmarks which since my childhood had grown strangely unfamiliar to me. Here in my own home town, the same feeling of unreality, of walking through the picture-book, possessed me as it had in France, and it was difficult for me to realize that I was alive and not dreaming dreams. In current slang, I wondered “what it was all about.”

Yet all the time Miss Harding and I were discussing my problem. I was telling her how deeply in debt I was, and she was telling me how she had invested in real estate until she and Ralph were both frightened lest they should lose heavily. I was a bit sensitive about even discussing money, feeling assured that now that one of the Hardings knew my story, she would set about to right things for Elizabeth Ann.

Miss Harding said she herself would tell Carrie Votaw the facts about their brother’s child, but that Mrs. Votaw had not been particularly well and it would be such a shock that she would prefer to wait until later on, perhaps the following month, when she expected to see her sister again. I agreed very readily to this, and told Miss Harding I would leave the matter entirely in her hands, as she asked me to do.

When Mrs. Votaw came to the Lewis home the next time, Miss Harding suggested to her that she and her friends take me along back as far as Washington with them, and to this Mrs. Votaw heartily agreed, saying that there was ample room in their Hudson car. She said the car belonged to her friend, Mr. Cyrus Simmons, who, with his brother-in-law, would be the only other two occupants on the return trip. Mrs. Votaw remained over night at her father’s, Dr. Harding’s, on East Center Street, the night before we were to leave Marion, and I, staying at the Lewis home, slept that night in Miss Harding’s room. Her husband had left that day for Florida to attend to some business down there.

I remember well how it stormed that night. It occurred to me, as we lay there talking in our beds across from each other, that the frequent flashes of lightning and peals of thunder were possibly symbolic of Miss Harding’s mental state. I felt so sorry for her. She seemed to be so full of fear. I had passed all through the stage of fear of exposure, and did not fear anything except my inability to get Elizabeth Ann and to _keep_ her.

The question of the $90,000 came up again and I said to Miss Harding that I could not see the awfulness of her brother’s speculation, for most big men played the market, and just because the President had had no cash with which to cover his pledge, likely they had volunteered to go ahead and “play” _for_ him. Miss Harding took the attitude that her brother was above gambling. I was not, however, at all in agreement with her views that he would not have been capable of “taking chances.” He and the fellows in Marion with whom he had played cards had always played for stakes. I told her about one night when Mr. Harding had come over to see me in New York. He related how three men had approached him on the train with an invitation to play cards. They had all repaired to the end compartment. He said that he did not seem to “catch on” to them at first, but very soon he found himself deeply in debt--that is, as I remember, to the extent of something over $100, which was a considerable amount for a train card game I suppose--and he told me how he had said to them, “Gentlemen, I always pay my just indebtednesses, but in this instance I am going to give you only as much as I can spare.” Thereupon he gave them $50 and his personal card, and told them they could look him up in Washington if they desired to collect the balance. He said to me that it had been a plain “hold-up game” and that he never expected to see them in Washington at all. So, even though the $90,000 in question, which Miss Harding felt her brother did not owe, was nine hundred times the amount of the indebtedness he incurred in playing cards, _I_ was quite sure in my own mind that he had very possibly “taken chances” in this instance as well. I decided he might even have done it for Elizabeth Ann and me, knowing how he so frequently talked of “taking out some kind of a policy,” or setting aside some money for me in some way.

_129_

When finally, after discussing my problem, Daisy Harding went off to sleep, I lay there thinking, trying to recall anything of importance that I had failed to relate to her. I heard Miss Harding in her sleep mutter the word “child” several times, and I knew that the subject-matter of our conversation had drifted into slumberland with her, and wondered what she was dreaming. I was sorry, too, very sorry, that I had been obliged to tell her, for I knew the whole thing was worrying her tremendously. She had said to me that she had not known good health for quite some time, and I confess she did look tired. I felt so sorry for her and I loved her deeply; but I loved my daughter far more. In the shadows, as she lay there sleeping, she looked so much like her brother, more perhaps than any of the others in the family save the father, Dr. Harding, in whom I have more than once seen Mr. Harding so strongly that I could just hug him.

It was in fact during that very visit to Marion that I had gone over to the Dr. Harding home on East Center Street one afternoon to join Mrs. Votaw, and be there so Mrs. Mouser could pick us both up and take us for a drive. Passing through the house out to the garden I had come across Dr. Harding, lying down on the couch in the living-room. I had not seen him before on that particular visit, and I went over and leaned down and kissed him on the cheek and spoke to him. His eyes were closed but I knew he was not asleep. He opened them and recognized me immediately. I doubt very much whether I have ever encountered Dr. Harding even in passing greeting that he did not remark in the same exclamatory fashion, “Oh, yes,--Nan, _Nan_! Yes, I remember how your father used to tell me how you stood up for Warren! He said you thought Warren was the finest man in the country--yes, your father used to say....” And I have known Daisy Harding to interrupt more than once and say, “Yes, dad, you’ve told Nan that before,” or, “Yes, dad, Nan knows.” And when I bent and touched his cheek with my lips and took his dear old wrinkled hand in mine, he spoke to me immediately of his son Warren. But now the voice was the far-away voice of a grief-stricken aged man, and so pitifully weak that I bent over him and listened intently to catch the words. Bless him! He was trying to recall to me my father’s words to him about my love for his son. But the feeble voice trailed off and I felt more than heard his whispered heart-cry, “Too bad Warren had to die!” My heart was so full of love and sympathy for him whose son I worshipped that something which must have been the maternal in me longed to stoop and take the snow-white head on my arm and mingle my tears with his against the wrinkled cheek. But, instead, I stood looking down upon him and seeing in the deep-set faded eyes of the father the eyes of the other, the younger man, his son and my beloved.

I have yet to see, however, except in the eyes of my baby, who is the soul of Warren Harding, the spiritual lights of understanding, gladness, and sorrow that shone from the eyes of him whose gaze was ever fixed beyond the pale of the material. I recall how one time Mr. Harding and I were motoring in New York, in a car hired by him for the purpose by the hour, and were passing under the elevated bridge at Broadway and 64th Street, when I said to him, “Darling, you have such beautiful eyes. Somehow I never can really see _into_ them.” And he smiled and answered, “Aren’t they too sad, Nan?” Yes, I told him, they were sad, but beautifully and spiritually sad.

He, in turn, seemed to delight in telling me how he loved my eyes, my lips, my teeth, my woman’s body, my voice, and my nose. It was when he said he loved my nose that I would interrupt him. “Oh, now I _know_ you must be fooling,” I would say, “because I have always heard from my family how big my nose is!” But he would shake his head and smile and plant a kiss right upon the end of that emphasized feature and swear over and over again, “I love your nose!”

_130_

It was with a great sense of relief that I looked now to my return to New York. Daisy Harding was my friend, she knew the whole story, she loved her brother dearly, and I was sure she would act quickly in acquainting her family with a situation which needed immediately to be righted for the sake of her brother’s child.

The motor trip to Washington with Carrie Votaw and her friends was, for me at least, a lark. Not since my early days in France, before the tragic news of Mr. Harding’s death reached me, had I experienced such comparative relaxation, mentally. We were a jolly four, singing songs, reciting pieces, and talking about everything--everything except those things which lay nearest my heart. I was thankful that there would be no more mental metastasis to shock and hurt me. My answer to all fears henceforth would be, “Daisy knows; _Daisy_ knows!” And I would soon, through the goodness which I knew was as inherent a quality in the Hardings as was their knowledge of right, have my baby with me permanently.

Many and many a time I thought to myself, as my eyes drank in every move Carrie Votaw made, “What a wonderful family, these Hardings! Each superlative in individual ways!” I visualized Mrs. Votaw with her brother’s child on her lap, and thought within myself that God always compensated in His own beautiful way for the things we longed for but which were not always within His will. I had so prayed that I might see our child with her father, on his knee, but instead I was to see her with his sisters whom I also loved.

Our first night enroute to Washington was spent in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Mrs. Votaw and I shared the same room, and, after we had retired, it occurred to me to inquire casually concerning her opinion of Tim Slade. She answered very briefly, and said she thought that he, like a good many others, had been “roped in” unconsciously, and that he was very probably not a bad sort of man at all. I explained my curiosity in some way which did not at all arouse her suspicions or lead her to think I knew him personally, and it was very gratifying to me to know that she held no unfavorable opinion of him.

Proceeding on our way, the following day we had luncheon in the mountains at the log cabin of Mrs. Votaw’s friend, Miss Barnett. The only knowledge I had ever had of log cabins was through conversations with Mr. Harding. I think it was his friend, Senator Weeks, who had many times entertained fellow senators and friends at his camp, which was in New Hampshire. And Mr. Harding’s final exclamation, when he described for me the beauty of the country up there and the comforts of the lodge in the mountains, always was, “I wish I might have _you_ up there, Nan, way off in the woods!” He longed, he said, to carry me away to some spot like that for “weeks at a stretch.”

I was enchanted with Miss Barnett’s log cabin, with its spacious rooms and screened-in porches, its picturesque furnishings, its hardwood floors in bedrooms, where nothing had been forgotten to make the guests perfectly comfortable, the grounds, the deep green coolness of the forest which rose majestically around it. And most of all did it amaze me to see served to us a luncheon as delicately appointed as one might get at the Plaza or Ritz-Carlton.

_131_

When we arrived in Washington that night about eleven o’clock, we found Mr. Votaw waiting up for us, having received word from Mrs. Votaw as to when we would arrive. Daisy Harding had told me that her brother-in-law, Heber Herbert Votaw, had been very ill, and one needed only to glance at him to know it. I had seen Mr. Votaw only a few times, and these occasions dated back to my high school days, when he and his wife had returned from Burma on a furlough, and it occurred to me as I looked at him closely for the first time that night, that he might be described as being handsome in much the same way that George Christian was considered handsome. He had very dark hair and eyes that laughed, and teeth of flashing whiteness, and he was of pleasing height and bearing. On meeting him again after these years I liked Mr. Votaw immediately, with one reservation. It seemed to me his voice was unpleasantly loud. I decided it had been abnormally developed because of his wife’s difficulty in hearing, and was not at all his own natural voice. And further, I concluded that even if he _were_ inclined to be irritable, his late illness and resultant weakness were sufficient grounds. I remember when I was passing through the most trying months of my nervous breakdown following Elizabeth Ann’s birth, I used to manifest a disposition of irritability both in my voice and actions which I may, in justice to my true self, disclaim as a part of my nature when I am physically sound.

Yet somehow, despite these explanations to myself, I could not reconcile the irritancy of Mr. Votaw’s voice, no matter to what it might be attributable, with the meekness and patience which should mark a missionary of religion.

The Votaws lived in a very comfortable house which Carrie Votaw told me they rented partially furnished, having brought some of their own things to complete the outfitting. They kept one maid, a young girl Mrs. Votaw had befriended in a motherly way, and Mrs. Votaw herself went into the kitchen and superintended the getting of the meals. Mrs. Votaw liked young people about and very early introduced me to a young man and several young people, all nearer my own age. She was a charming hostess and did many things I was sure were done just to please me. When she said to me she wished I would come down there and live with them and help her in a secretarial way to write up her many experiences in Burma, I was quite thrilled. I thought it might work out that I could bring her brother’s child with me and in that way introduce her into the household along with myself. Then we could _all_ share her.

Mrs. Votaw talked a great deal about “wanting a baby,” and I could not help reflecting how tragic it is that into some homes come so many children, oftentimes unwanted, while into other homes where they would find welcome and love awaiting them, for some reason they do not come. I felt genuinely sorry for her and thought to myself, “How she will adore Elizabeth Ann!” even as her sister Daisy had prophesied. And her longing for a child only served to strengthen my hope of being asked very soon to bring Elizabeth Ann, their beloved brother’s own child, into their homes and into their hearts as the child of their flesh and blood. And, although I would never, never part with her, to have them know the blessing of her smile and the happiness I knew she would radiate for them all, would, I thought, be a great joy to them, even as it was for me my life joy.

_132_

One evening Mr. and Mrs. Votaw and I sat talking before bedtime, and our conversation drifted into religion. We had talked pro and con about this phase and that for perhaps an hour or more when Mrs. Votaw excused herself and went on upstairs to bed. Mr. Votaw and I talked on until one o’clock. His fervency struck me as being that of a man genuinely convinced that he had found the truth, and I expressed the wish that I, too, some day would find a religion that would fill me as satisfyingly. Mine up to this time had become merely a philosophy of my own, from conning religious books, and influenced predominately by the bitter-sweet experiences I had met up with in life. I must always have been innately religious, else I would not always have longed to know that something which satisfies the soul. But I had witnessed on all sides the hypocrisy which makes people live lives they despise and practise religions insincerely for the mere sake of upholding conventional standards. I had therefore turned into my own mental paths.

My independent thinking was of course inspired by my intimate knowledge of Mr. Harding’s apparent unhappiness with his legal wife and his evident preference, in his relations with me, for subterfuge, which seemed to promote peace of mind, rather than open rebellion and consequent turmoil. “She’d raise hell!” had been Mr. Harding’s frequent statement to me, and, even though she seemed not to love him in the way a man has the right to expect to be loved by his wife, I knew, without Mr. Harding’s telling me, that she would not release him to another. And, though I had been surrounded ever since a child with an atmosphere of strictest convention, I had found with Warren Harding that the realest happiness is of the spirit, and far transcends in its sublimity the exquisiteness of physical rapture. And stress of circumstances, preventing our more frequent trysts, and fraught with pain, had brought me to a realization that our love was a thing divine. The love I bore Warren Harding, my love for the spirit which was he, was the most God-like instinct I possessed--a thing not of this world.

PHOEBE CAROLYN (“CARRIE”) HARDING
(_Mrs. Heber Herbert Votaw_)
the President’s sister
]

To Mr. Votaw I said, as I realized anew these things, “To me, Mr. Votaw, Warren Harding was spiritual, almost an immortal.” Tears were in my throat. “Bah!” he replied, with a slight grimace, “don’t you believe it! Warren was as material as any of us.” I marvelled that he had not understood that I only meant that Warren Harding’s soul had finely shone through the veil of his material body.

How little the world knew the true Warren Harding!

_133_

The following day I was to leave Washington for New York. Carrie Votaw and I were chatting together in the room I had occupied since my arrival, and she was showing me some of her lovely clothes, many of which she said she had not worn since the days her brother was in the White House. This hat had been bought for a garden party at the White House, and this dress was selected for another particular occasion. The prematurely snow-white hair of the woman before me, coupled with the beauty of a face which was, like her sister Daisy’s of queenly loveliness, made a startlingly beautiful woman, one who could, I reflected, more fittingly fill the role of the First Lady than she who had recently actually held that title. As I stood there handling this gown and that, my mind flew back to a certain White House reception held on the lawn one summer afternoon in 1922, the only one I ever witnessed, and I wondered if Mrs. Votaw had been there.

I had visited with President Harding that morning, in his private office as usual, and he had told me how he wished he might “get me in on” the party scheduled for that afternoon without Mrs. Harding’s suspecting the source of my invitation. As he sat pondering the possibility, I could see many difficulties--my lack of a suitable gown and so on--and I assured him I would be just as happy knowing he had _wanted_ me there.

That afternoon I strolled past the White House, along the side near the conservatory which commanded a view of the sloping green. It was a gay assemblage, and in its midst I spied my sweetheart, handsome and tall, standing with Mrs. Harding and receiving guests who were arriving in throngs. It occurred to me he stood in an unusually conspicuous spot, easily observable from my post outside the fence, and I suddenly knew he must be standing there so that I could see him. When I accused him lovingly upon my next visit of raising a hand to me as a signal of recognition, he only smiled and said, noncommittally but fondly, “That _would_ please you, wouldn’t it, Nan.” And I nodded and told him the next time I would hope for a friendlier guard, one who would not say “No loitering, young lady!” as I stood there harmlessly adoring _my_ president!

Little did his sister suspect what was going through my mind as she spoke of this gown and that and I viewed them in unfeigned admiration. And, I thought, wasn’t it just like her to have invited me on one occasion to wear her own black wrap trimmed with ermine, and one of her evening hats? If I were to live there, it would be just like her generous self to let me wear all of her pretty things!

Before we went out of the room, Mrs. Votaw went to the dresser and took from one of the dresser drawers a black pin-seal wallet or bill-book. It bore the marks of long usage.

“Here, Nan. You always loved Warren so much and I want you to have this. Brother Warren carried it with him right up to the time he died, and that makes it very precious.” What could I say to her! How could she know how it tortured me to see again the old familiar wallet and to experience the rush of memories which this new sight of it conjured up for me! How often had I adored the offhand manner in which her brother had inquired of me across the dinner-table, “How are the finances today, Nan?” or, “Have you paid Mrs. Johnson your rent a month in advance?” And whether or not my finances were in good shape, he would draw out contemplatively a twenty or fifty, depending upon my immediate needs, often a cigarette between his lips, his eyes narrowed to keep out the smoke, as he drew the bill from the wallet. Then he would hand it to me and say, “Better put that in your bag, dearie, right away,” if I sat oblivious, adoring the nonchalant manner in which the cigarette hung from his lips--I never saw anyone smoke with such perfect grace as he. The leather fairly smelled of him! How queer that she should have elected to give me _this_ as a memento! Yet here it was, the empty bill-book, and I opened it to read in gold lettering his name, “Warren G. Harding.” Why, it was in this very worn wallet that he used to keep a certain snapshot of me to which he had taken a particular fancy! Now, at the hand of his sister, it had come back to the mother of his child....

My heart was full of gratitude for these visits, both with Miss Harding in Marion and with Mrs. Votaw in Takoma Park, suburban to Washington. It seemed I had surely trod upon holy ground, for had I not been among those who knew and loved him dearly? Yes, it was good, good to have been in both homes, good to renew friendship on a more intimate basis, good to realize how genuine was their affection for their brother, whose child they would surely welcome lovingly, and who in turn would know the full depth of their love in the material expression they would give as proof.

_134_

I returned to The Town Hall Club in New York on July first (1925) to take up my duties again, and took a room within walking distance of the Club.

July passed and no word came from Daisy Harding. So on August 3rd I wrote her briefly, greeting her again after the lapse of a month or more and making inquiry as to whether she had seen her sister, Mrs. Votaw. When Daisy Harding speaks of Elizabeth Ann, she often calls her “Bijiba,” the baby’s self-imposed nickname, and in her letter she used merely the initial “B” to indicate “Bijiba.”

She wrote: “I feel that we have such different ideas about men and our relations to them that it is useless for me to suggest or advise.” (Why, I had _sought_ her counsel, her help!) “I want so much to see you happy and attain the desires nearest to your heart that I hesitate to say anything which might interfere with your plans....” (Plans? I had no plans, as she surely must have known, except as they might develop through financial help from the Harding family.) “... My heart goes out to you in any of your suffering, relative to B-- (Bijiba), and you must know and feel that....”

This letter astounded me. Even the concluding words of endearment, “Lots of love, Nan dear,” failed to carry the usual note of sincerity. I read and reread the passages pertaining to Elizabeth Ann, trying to read into them something which was obviously not there, trying to discern an attitude of active interest instead of merely a passive inactive acceptance of a tragic situation. Could it be that she had failed to understand that my revelations to her had been for the express purpose of bringing the Harding family to a realization that there existed an obligation on their part to Elizabeth Ann, and not merely to solicit sympathy and discuss the intimate details of my relationship with her brother?

If such were the case, I would have to make plainer the import of my appeal to her, and frankly state my desire to see this wrong toward my child, and their brother’s, righted. She had asked me, with kindly spirit and apparent understanding, to “leave it with her,” and she had promised to confer with her sister, Mrs. Votaw, at the earliest opportunity. Was it possible that this talk between them had resulted in the apparent indifference her letter indicated? Impossible. They were _Hardings_!

But I had their brother’s daughter’s future at stake, and her welfare was dearer to me than life. I deliberated well, and then wrote her at length, and below are excerpts from my letter which dealt almost entirely with Elizabeth Ann’s problem:

“New York, September 23, 1925.

DEAREST MISS HARDING:

... When I was in Marion, I remember distinctly that you told me how deeply sympathetic and interested Mrs. Votaw was bound to be if you told her the whole story about Elizabeth Ann as I had related it to you. In your letter recently to me you ignored completely Mrs. Votaw’s possible visit to you.... I am naturally assuming therefore that you have told Mrs. Votaw and the attitude you felt sure she would take has not been the attitude she actually has assumed. Of course, the mere fact that you did not even allude to your having had a discussion with her on the subject has hurt me very deeply.

I hope you don’t mind my talking in a rather business-like manner about a subject which is a veritable part of me and nearest and dearest to my heart, but the time has come when I must make some kind of separation between sentiment and being fair to Elizabeth Ann. When I went West in June, as I told you, my sole reason was to talk with you and gain whatever helpful suggestions you might make. Your saying in your last letter that my attitude toward men and that of your own were at such wide variance as to make you hesitant about making suggestions was another thing that hurt me quite a bit. I will admit that Elizabeth Ann’s father and I indulged in the height of unconventionality--but to be fair to myself, I must say that it was as much his idea of right as mine--and I shall never be able to attach one iota of sordidness to the beautiful, natural, and finely impelled love we had for each other which resulted in God’s giving us Elizabeth Ann.

I am very sure, knowing your loving regard for his happiness and your deep affection for him as a brother, you would not in the same breath imagine him capable of being actuated by any but the finest, truest motives, and that I, loving him as I always have, could respond had I not instincts as lofty as his own. Bless him! But my declarations now are merely to prove to you that if you loved him one-tenth as much as I, you would lose sight entirely of the “right” or “wrong” of the question, in assuming that you are incapable of advising or helping simply because our views concerning relations with men differ, in your desire to see things as he saw them--and in your intense longing to help me to solve the problem which his tragic death has left unsolved.

Not that I believe you do not want to help me. Understand me, I am sure you do. Both you and Mrs. Votaw. Else you could not have loved him dearly. I think I would have died for him. But my problem now is to _live_ and care for and protect a precious gift--our gift to each other. I wish I might picture to you his face when he talked of the future--the worshipful sweetness of his smile when he talked with me about Elizabeth Ann--his pride in her, his adorable pride in me, his enthusiasm about little girls in general, where, he said to me, the very last time I saw him, he “never used to feel so deeply moved.” You see how I have all these things with me, and how endeared every remembrance makes her to me.

It has all been going through my mind all summer, and I feel very strongly that before I take any big steps, I should immediately put my problem up to you very frankly.

You intimated to me that perhaps this fall--your property there having involved your own income quite deeply--you might be able to help me to put E. A. in school--to have her with me. I am up against the following problem:

I could, presumably, though not positively, procure funds wherewith to enable me to put E. A. in school this winter--but ever since I married the Captain in order to _have_ E. A. permanently, have I been borrowing--from Peter to pay Paul. It has not worked out at all well. I am now in debt over $500 and only this very afternoon have I gone on the witness stand in an endeavor to have my marriage annulled and start anew....

Now, my mother, not having been in particularly good health this summer, and so far not having a school because of her health, is, you know, a fine teacher. I have been considering having her come East with Elizabeth Ann ..., take a two or three-room apartment, have her tutor Elizabeth Ann part of the day and have E. A., for the sake of being thrown in with children, go to kindergarten the other part of the day.

It will involve quite a bit of expense considering that I myself can live on my salary, but could not begin to keep two others. Mother would simply be hired in the capacity of a teacher, though of course the compensation she would ask of me in money would be small in proportion to that which I might be obliged to pay a regular tutor. I would, however, have to maintain an apartment, buy the food, clothe all of us, and meet E. A.’s kindergarten expenses and other expenses connected with such a program.

If, for instance, you would be willing to help to the extent of taking care of E. A.’s kindergarten expenses, and Mrs. Votaw would meet her expenses so far as clothes are concerned--and I would endeavor to be as economical as possible and still keep her looking as well as the children she comes in contact with at school--it would relieve me greatly. It is possible that my mother can find something worth while to do and would be able to fill in the hours E. A. is in school to advantage.