Part 23

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 part I neither looked up my old friends nor cared to have them look me up. The captain was different. He was kindly, he was understanding, and he was not fastidious in any sense of the word. Therefore he came several times to call upon me there in my sister’s New York apartment before he sailed for Germany in October. I explained to him that a sudden financial embarrassment had arisen with me as well as with my sister’s family, and that I would be unable to then pay him the $450 I owed him. He waved away even the idea of repayment, though I emphasized the fact that I was sure very soon I would have the funds for him. I told these facts to my sister and her husband and they thought he was a wonderfully fine man. “You’ll go a long way before you ever find a man as kind-hearted as Captain Neilsen,” they told me. And I agreed that he was indeed all that.

In spite of our almost destitute circumstances we were, at least, together, and Elizabeth Ann slept with me nearly every night. But it broke my heart to look at the little darling and realize what everything meant.

At that time secretarial positions were scarce, and it was very difficult for Janet and me to get located, especially when I declined to work for less than $35 a week. Janet finally accepted a position for a lesser salary, but it took me several weeks to find a place.

_109_

About the first of December, Scott and Elizabeth decided they ought to return to Chicago, where Scott was better known and could get immediate work. For various reasons it seemed best for me to move away from that rooming-house after my family left, so I took a room at the Endicott Hotel, Columbus Avenue and 81st Street. My room there was on the first sleeping floor and had no daylight, just windows into a court which was less than ten feet wide, but the bed was comfortable, and, anyway, I could not afford to pay more than $12 from the salary of $35 which the position I had finally secured paid me.

I put on my bravest front when I bade my baby girl goodbye again, and faced the contemplation of hardships hitherto unknown to me. I felt so pitifully alone, and swallowed hard the great lump that rose in my throat as I tried to smile and blow farewell kisses to her who was my very life.

On the occasion of one of my visits to the White House I had, with the nervous apprehension born of mental unsettlement, spoken to Mr. Harding about the future.

“Why, just think, honey, I am twenty-four years old now!”, indicating that the years were piling up alarmingly and I could as yet see no possible way for me to have our baby with me.

“Well, dearie,” he had answered me with the gentleness that always aroused my most worshipful love, “if you are twenty-four years old you should be grown up, you know!”

And then he had told me how when _he_ was about that age _he_ went through a nervous breakdown, but here he was now, in the White House, and President of the United States! He was sure _I_ would weather through. And this gentle banter brought a smile back to my face. Therefore now, as then, I must remember how much I had at stake in my precious baby’s future and bear up for her sake.

One of my biggest difficulties was to live on $35 a week. It was very hard to suffer denials but I set about with grim determination to adapt myself. I continued to shun my friends to a very great extent. Captain Neilsen returned from another sea trip and came to the hotel to see me. My meagre salary oftentimes would not allow me to have even as much food as I could have eaten, especially toward the end of the week before pay day, and, pridefully concealing my poverty, I accepted Captain Neilsen’s invitations to dine with inward thankfulness for his persistent attentiveness.

There was another friend who called upon me frequently, whom I had known since 1917, but he was a man with whom I felt I must keep up appearances far more than with the captain, so I did not encourage him to call. I needed many things and I felt less conscious of the lack of these things when I was with the captain. Though the captain always seemed to have a great deal of money with him, and though he spoke carelessly of moneys he controlled, running into many thousands of dollars, still he dressed with a carelessness that often distressed me and brought my frank criticism.

_110_

In October or November I read with loving interest of the fund which was being gathered together throughout the country to go toward the erection of a memorial to the 29th President of the United States. My secretarial position was not a very exacting one, and I had ample leisure in which to do any outside work I might care to undertake, so it occurred to me that there might be typing in connection with the clerical work the memorial project would entail, and that I might help in this way to raise the fund, inasmuch as I could not myself give any actual money towards it.

Mrs. Warren G. Harding herself seemed, from the newspaper reports, to be actively engaged in the matter, and so I decided to write direct to her and make known my desire. First, however, I wrote to Judge Elbert H. Gary, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the United States Steel Corporation, to whom Mr. Harding had taken me in 1917 when I was given a secretarial position in the Corporation, and who now was prominent in the activities connected with the Harding Memorial Fund. I recalled to his mind that Mr. Harding had once introduced me to him and that he in turn had kindly made it possible for me to obtain a position in his organization, and I told him that it was my desire to be of service to those who had undertaken the initial steps in creating the Harding Memorial Fund. I waited for several days and received no reply to that letter.

Then I directed a note to Mrs. Harding. About a week or so afterwards I received a note from her secretary, Miss Harlan, expressing, for Mrs. Harding, appreciation for my proffered assistance, but regretting that there was really no way in which I could be of service. After several lesser attempts I had to give it up.

I wrote to Miss Daisy Harding and told her what I had hoped to do, and I have her letter in which she said if I had not heard from Mrs. Harding personally it was merely because she was so terribly busy. She told me how generously her brother’s home town had given toward the Fund, and expressed the opinion that he was indeed a greatly beloved President.

It hurt me more than I can tell not to have been able to help in this movement. I did so love to work for Mr. Harding or in an atmosphere that breathed of him. But it seemed to me as the days went by and I received no word of his having left any message for me, that I was more and more alone, that I was shut out and away from the very things that would have given me such comfort. For it did hurt me cruelly to receive no word that I had been in his thoughts before he went away. If only he had left a note! He might not have been able to entrust material aid to anybody in the last days, to be given over to me for our child, but I was under the impression that Major Brooks, his valet, had been with him during his last illness, and I was sure he would have given him a note to mail to me if it had been humanly possible for him to do so.

My longing for Elizabeth Ann and my yearning for the joy and comfort I experienced from being with her and loving her was sometimes more than I could bear, and I often went home after work to my gloomy bedroom in the Endicott in a state of depression which brought vividly to my mind some lines in a poem by John Keats:

“... and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call’d him soft names in many a musèd rhyme....”

_111_

The first part of December Captain Neilsen sought my advice in a matter of investment which would involve several thousands of dollars and which would take him to Texas for the culmination of the transaction. Christopher Hannivig, a wealthy Norwegian, and he, were to purchase jointly from the U. S. Government some ships, which were to be utilized for shipping oil. After consideration of the details it seemed to me it was a wise investment and I so advised my friend. He then asked me a question which I had grown used to hearing periodically and which I had always answered negatively--would I marry him? Would I accompany him to Texas as his wife and make of the trip a honeymoon?

I told him no, and I further said very bluntly that when I did marry, there were certain reasons why I must require from my prospective husband in advance of my marriage a check for $25,000 or $30,000. To my surprise, Captain Neilsen smiled and answered easily, “Oh, is that all? Well, shall I bring you my certified check for that amount tomorrow?” And than I felt ashamed because I could not then explain to him that I wanted it for a fund for my baby, inasmuch as her own father’s bequest had not yet come to light and I feared to marry unless that marriage provided amply for my child. So I shook my head.

The captain left shortly after that, returning around Christmas time. In the meantime I sought my friend, Helen Anderson. She agreed with me that it seemed to be the sensible thing to consider marrying the captain and in that way be able to take my baby. The fact that he dressed carelessly should certainly not deter me from doing the thing that would give me my baby. He was, Miss Anderson and I agreed, a “diamond in the rough,” and I would simply have to become his personal polisher. He seemed genuinely in love with me, and would sit all evening just talking to me, never attempting to get “fresh” as many another man might have done after a friendship of such long standing. I was thoroughly appreciative of these traits. I told Helen Anderson that in return for his generosity in making it possible for me to take my child, I would prove to him my gratitude in endeavoring to make him at least reasonably happy. And I was very sure I could make him over in appearance.

Upon the captain’s return from the South, I determined to tell him about Elizabeth Ann. I thought I would try him out, and see what the effect of my story would be, for, if he refused to allow me to take Elizabeth Ann, I would not, of course, marry him. But I could not marry him anyway unless I had been frank and honest about things. I had deliberately postponed the telling until we should be together New Year’s Eve, because I wanted to carry this new step in my life over into another year, not wishing to identify the year 1923, in which I had lost my beloved, with a marriage to another man. It was a foolish little fancy I will admit, but quite characteristic of me. Therefore I had postponed my confessionary revelations until the dawn of a new year.

When Captain Neilsen arrived, I found myself in a suitably revealing frame of mind. I told him the whole truth. I confessed how miserable I was without Elizabeth Ann, and gave him the entire picture just as it stood. He was kindness itself, and repeated his oft-expressed desire that I marry him. “Well, can I really _have Elizabeth Ann_?” I asked him. “Of course you can!” he acquiesced heartily. He then told me he wished me to understand his financial status, explaining that he was actually worth something over $125,000, and even itemizing on paper his holding for me to see. He said, however, it was not all available in ready cash. I said that didn’t matter _if only I could have my baby_. The captain knew of my natural extravagances in little ways, and he had, as I have said, visited at my sister’s apartment in Chicago and knew that, although I was not used to great luxury, I was at least used to modest comforts. And I was very sure I could depend upon him to provide more than generously for both my child and myself.

During the next day, not having the usual phone call from the captain, I decided impulsively that he was avoiding me, having concluded that if I actually married him I might do so from unfair motives. But I could not reconcile these conclusions with his oft-repeated proposals of marriage on any grounds that would please me. “Marry me,” he would say, “and I’ll make you happy!” I felt that he meant that he would be so generous in his material manifestations of love that I could bring myself to care for him through sheer gratitude.

But my fears were groundless. He phoned the following day and that night took me to the theatre. He asked me again and again to marry him and let him provide for me and for Elizabeth Ann, but I found that I could not even then, after my own careful decision to do just that, tell him that I would marry him. “Well, if you refuse to marry me, I will make a will tomorrow anyway, and leave all I have to Elizabeth Ann when I die. I can at least do that for you,” he said, as we sped along back to my hotel in the taxi under the elevated tracks on Columbus Avenue. This to me was the acme of generosity and touched me very deeply, though I didn’t let him know it. I told him, half-jestingly, that I would certainly go on a search the following day for an engagement ring of my liking! To this he also heartily agreed.

But the following day, after I had actually selected the ring I thought would look well with the ring my beloved Warren had given me and which I meant to keep _always_ on my engagement finger, the captain met me and said he had been unable to convert into cash some stocks which he owned and requested that I wait a while before deciding upon a ring. I felt sorry, though slightly provoked that he should act this way--first to convey the impression that money meant nothing to him, and then to refuse to buy an engagement ring for the woman he seemed to want so badly for his wife. But I decided he must be “trying me out,” and I determined I would prove to him that I didn’t have to have the _ring_ in order to marry him. _Elizabeth Ann_ was my sole motive and purpose.

_112_

I thought about it all very seriously that night and when Friday, January the 4th, came, and Captain Neilsen called me on the telephone in the evening, I informed him that I had decided to marry him the following day, Saturday, January 5th.

With my actual acceptance of his offer of marriage, it seemed to me he was taken somewhat aback, though he said he would meet me, as I asked him to do, at the Municipal Building, the following noon. He was late, but explained that he had been inspecting a ship and could not come when he had planned.

We secured our marriage license. When the man asked what the captain’s business was I spoke up and said, as he had told me many times, “He is a ship broker.” The captain looked slightly embarrassed as he said to the clerk, “Better say ‘ship’s master’.” I didn’t know that this different title meant another kind of business and it didn’t worry me specially.

With the license in hand we went over to the Savarin in the basement of the Woolworth Building for our luncheon. As we were crossing the street, I remember that the captain had said that his money was not all available. So I asked him, “You _could_ raise $50,000 if you had to, couldn’t you?” thinking I would avail myself of $30,000 to put in trust immediately for Elizabeth Ann, and the captain, Elizabeth Ann and I would keep the other $20,000 to live upon and have a home for ourselves, until he went back to work after our proposed honeymoon. “Oh, of course, if I had to, I could raise $50,000. I should say so!” The captain was very certain about it.

This was all the assurance I needed. Anyone who could raise $50,000 would have enough and plenty to keep me and my baby. And I would be economical, and would try my best to love him to show him how grateful I was that he had made it possible for me to have my baby with me.

That evening at nine o’clock we were married in the parsonage of a Swedish Lutheran Church on Lexington Avenue. Helen Anderson and the minister’s wife were our witnesses. We went to the Alamac Hotel for three days. We had driven Miss Anderson home and were alone for the first time since we had become man and wife.

It seemed almost sacrilegious to me to yield to my husband the body which had belonged so completely to Warren Harding, and I appreciated his leaving me for half an hour. It gave me an opportunity to mentally pull myself together. I told myself that I would soon have Elizabeth Ann and it would all be so worth while. But my husband looked to me so much like a million other men.... I just could not feel that I had done the fair thing by either of us.... I did not love him that way.