Part 8
It was on a Friday evening, my second evening in the apartment, when Mr. Harding came over from Washington. As a matter of fact, I had not yet moved into my own apartment, which was not available when I arrived, but was being housed temporarily in a very much superior apartment in the Hotel La Salle itself. This hotel was at that time the home of Mr. and Mrs. Dick (the former wife of John Jacob Astor), as well as Cyril Maude, the English actor. In the annex, on the top floor lived Pearl White, famed in pictures. Of course I told these interesting items to Mr. Harding when he came over. He had first been sent up to my temporary apartment in the hotel, where I had a cozy living-room. But I had been advised that I could move into my own place that evening and Mr. Harding said immediately that he much preferred that we “go where we belonged.” So he helped me move my baggage.
I recall my disappointment in hearing his first remark about my little place--_our_ little place--for it was one of marked deprecation. The apartment was so much roomier and so much pleasanter than anything I had ever had that I thought it a veritable palace, and was much hurt at his observations. “Really, Nan, it isn’t _worth_ $100 a month!” he said. “Why, dearie, it isn’t good enough--I wanted you to have something really fine.” I said very little. I knew that he had originally told me about what he thought I ought to have to pay, and I had kept within that figure. I decided I must be a poor picker, yet I had been justified in my decision by having seen other apartments for which a higher rent was asked and which did not compare in my estimation with that one.
However, I remember with satisfaction how he retracted his criticism the second visit he made, after I had had an opportunity to dispense with some of the unnecessary furniture and fix things up a bit. He was quite enthusiastic. “Why, dearie, this is not such a bad place after all!” he smiled, taking in “the effect” with a sweeping glance into bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette. I took his coat and he handed me a big box of dark red cherries, for which he knew I had a weakness. He used to send me five-pound boxes of Martha Washington candies, they being my favorite sweets at that time, but after he knew I was going to have a child he would bring me fruit.
For two months we were very happy with that apartment, the only place we could call our very own during the six and one-half years we were lovers.
I had intimated to Mr. Harding that I would feel more comfortable now if I had a ring, and I expressed, upon his interrogation, my preference for a sapphire surrounded with diamonds. So on one of his trips to our 60th Street apartment he brought me the ring. I remember how he kept quiet about it, not telling me at first that he had brought it, and I confess I was a wee bit disappointed. I wanted a ring so badly. But at a very propitious moment he fished it out of a pocket, threw away the tissue paper in which it was wrapped, and slipped it upon my finger. We performed a sweet little ceremony with that ring, and he declared that I could not belong to him more utterly had we been joined together by fifty ministers. The ring was indeed a great comfort to me, helping to sustain me in the conventional atmosphere I tried to throw about our baby’s coming, and, during those days after her birth when I had tried to lie in bed idle when there was much to be done, it was a source of courage and support to me, steadying me in my uncertain plans about the future. It was a material evidence of a relationship which no wedding ceremony could have made more solemn or more sacred than that very own ceremony between ourselves, with God as our witness.
_31_
Of course I continued working at the United States Steel Corporation, for my physical conformation was such that I could “get away” with quite a good deal. In fact, I worked there until the first of July when I gave up the apartment and my position and went to Asbury Park, New Jersey. I have often wondered if I did create any secret comment in the offices of the Steel Corporation. I remember a _Wall Street Journal_ editor, who used often to come in to see Mr. Close, said one day to me, “Miss Britton, you look so matronly these days; have you grown up?” Five months for an unmarried girl who is expecting a child to attempt to remain in a position such as that required a good deal of courage. But I did it only with Mr. Harding’s approval, and whatever he thought wise usually went with me.
During those years I had a few friends here in New York who were Ohio people, and some of them were even Marionites like myself. Mr. Albert R. Johnstone, as I shall call him, represented at that time a certain Marion corporation here in New York, of which Mr. Harding had been one of the larger stockholders. I had been friendly with Mr. Johnstone’s wife ever since my coming to New York, and I had spoken several times to Mr. Harding about them. Mr. Johnstone knew of my fondness for his wife and very often the three of us went together to dinner or to the theatre. There was a time, however, when Mrs. Johnstone went to Marion to visit, and Mr. Johnstone telephoned me and asked me to dine with him. This I did, thinking nothing about it until he asked me when he left me that night not to tell Mrs. Johnstone. Then I saw that he was afraid for her to know, and I knew that in that event it had been wrong for me to go with him, for I didn’t care at all if she knew that I was gracious enough to spend an evening with her lonely husband because she was my friend. All this I told Mr. Harding and I remember he said, “Well, Bert Johnstone is the last person on earth I feel I need to be jealous of!”
Mrs. Johnstone had been in our apartment on 60th Street one evening when she and I had dined together, and I suppose she had mentioned to her husband where I was living--probably wondering, as did most of my friends I imagine, how I could afford to live in an apartment alone.
One evening Mr. Harding was with me. I was just preparing to jump into the tub, and he was already in bed, when a knock on my door arrested my further movements. My door was “chained” as well as locked, so that I could open it slightly with no fear of anyone’s pushing it open.
This I did cautiously, and there stood Mr. Johnstone. I confess it gave me quite a shock, but I spoke to him very casually and fearlessly, told him I was just preparing for bed as I was very tired, apologized, and asked him to come again sometime. But, knowing that that was the first time he had dared to do such a thing as call upon me without Mrs. Johnstone, and being quite a bit put out with his presumption, I called quite loudly after him, “Oh, Mr. Johnstone, the next time you call bring Mrs. Johnstone along, won’t you?”
Then I went to the phone and called Mrs. Johnstone. After chatting with her a few moments, I told her about Mr. Johnstone’s coming to see me, and pretended I was very sorry I could not receive him. Her amazement was unfeigned.
“_Bert Johnstone?_” she asked incredulously. “The very same,” I told her. He never called again.
When I came back into the bedroom after closing the door upon Mr. Johnstone, Mr. Harding was hiding in my wardrobe closet, and it did amuse me so to see him. I asked if he thought if anyone _did_ break in, that his being in a closet, with his clothes strewn about on the chairs, would help matters! He laughed, of course.
_32_
In May or June, while I was still living on East 60th Street in our apartment, Mr. Harding had an engagement to speak at Carnegie Hall. He came over during the day and we were together until time for him to go on the platform. In the evening we dined at the Hotel Manhattan, where, I think, for business reasons, he had engaged a room. He wished to walk to Carnegie Hall from the hotel, which we did. I remember the exact route we took, up Madison Avenue and across 56th Street where we passed several little tea rooms which, Mr. Harding said, he thought ought to be “good and safe” places for me to dine alone in the evenings. He seemed to be afraid I might be annoyed and used to suggest safe places for me to go. He was always looking out for my comfort and peace of mind.
On our way up he inquired of me what this building was and that, and I in turn asked him a question. How could he speak that evening when, as he had told me, he had made no preparation whatever for his speech? “How do you know what to say?” I asked curiously.
“Gee, dearie!” he laughed, “it’s not so much what _to_ say as what _not_ to say!”
When we reached Carnegie Hall, Mr. Harding went to the box office and secured a front-row seat for me, sent me on in, and ascended the platform. I remember well that speech. I did not very often get to hear him speak and it was always such a joy--I was so proud of him. But that speech I remember because he did not do himself justice. He rambled on about this man and that who in one instance had been a “farmer’s son,” and had persevered and become a banker, or “here’s Jim So-and-So, whose father was owner of the stone quarry back in my home town and who worked his way through school....” The Land of Opportunity, I think, was his topic.
Afterwards, in our apartment, I told him he seemed not to speak as well as usual. “Why, dearie,” he confessed, “I was so tired I thought I couldn’t even speak at _all_!” And I knew enough by that time to understand why. He had a lot on his mind.
There was an evening when we dined at the Savoy. We sat by the window and looked out upon the Plaza Square where the fountain is. The window was open and it was cool and lovely. We had dined there before in the days before prohibition and Mr. Harding, I thought, seemed to be known to the hotel management. We had once had one glass each of champagne at that same table.
Mr. Harding spoke to me. “You are not larger now than that woman, Nan,” nodding his head toward the lithe feminine figure which tops the fountain in the Square. “And far more lovely,” he added, smiling. He was always generous with his appreciations.
Of course prohibition had already gone into effect, but I was told it was possible still to obtain liquor or wines if one knew how to do so, and evidently Mr. Harding thought he did. In any event, he took me home after dinner and then suggested that he go back and get some champagne for us to have that evening before we retired. He had often said to me that he would love to spend an evening with me when I was relaxed and exhilarated from a glass of champagne, because when he allowed me a cocktail or something to drink, we were usually going to the theatre afterwards. I guess I was a bit shy with him, and a glass of champagne made me a bit more talkative and revealing. I doubt that in all the times we were together we had drinks more than six times; he allowed it rarely.
But now he went out for the champagne. In about fifteen minutes he returned, empty-handed, or rather empty-pocketed. I searched in his pockets myself and looked up at him.
“You couldn’t get it!” I said, half disappointedly.
“No, dearie, I couldn’t get it,” he repeated, but his tone belied his statement, and I felt instinctively that he hadn’t even tried. Nor had he himself had anything to drink. For some reason, which was no doubt prudential and right, he had decided that I should not have any champagne. Perhaps he had recalled a time at Reisenweber’s when I, for apparently no reason, had become ill after drinking part of a highball.
Warren Harding protected me at every turn. And I remember well that he once wrote, “Darling, when I pray for you it is that you may have abundant health. Health and freedom from worry, for _worry kills_, Nan.” And he was right. I think that worry killed Warren Harding.
_33_
One morning in that same apartment on East 60th Street, I dressed leisurely and Mr. Harding sat watching me. Milk, of a lovely richness, was already coming from both of my breasts, and my toilets those days required more than ordinary care, if I would not find when I reached the office at the Steel Corporation that it had seeped out and spotted my dress conspicuously. Mr. Harding seemed to love the maternal evidences about me those days, and often remarked that I possessed the loveliest woman-form of anyone he had ever seen. Or he would entertain me while I dressed by telling me that he had gone to the theatre the previous week and had watched some actress--I remember in one instance it had been Dorothy Dickson--dance, and, because I resembled her a bit, he had watched her to the exclusion of all others on the stage during the performance, and tried to imagine he was looking at me. He was such a darling.
That particular morning, he sat telling me some such tale and waiting for me to dress for breakfast, which we usually had around the corner at the Hotel Netherland, when he noticed a picture of my sister Elizabeth on the wall--one I had recently put up and which he had never seen. He took it down to look at it. The frame was a cheap one and I had broken the cord from which it was suspended and had replaced the cord with an ordinary office clip. It required no little ingenuity therefore to attach the clip to a nail on the wall. Mr. Harding worked at it for several minutes, adjusting his tortoise-shell Oxford glasses, but he could not re-hang the picture. I was so tickled, and finally giggled outright. “Let me do it, honey!” I exclaimed, holding out my hand for the picture. “No, I’ll do it all right,” he insisted, shaking his head. I said nothing. I think he worked at it for perhaps five minutes, then gave it up. He was always persistently firm when he set out to accomplish something. I have often read into this little incident that characteristic determination to carry upon his own shoulders his share of the burdens of a nation, and how he died in the struggle which is for any President a superhuman task.
I am reminded of another time when he came over to address an audience--this time at the Astor Hotel. It was back in 1917 or 1918. He was particular that he should deliver his address well on this occasion, and so left me at midnight at my home on 136th Street and went back downtown in the taxi to the Astor for the remainder of the night. The following morning I got up bright and early and we breakfasted together at the Astor, in the dining-room on 45th Street. He had his newspapers in his hands when I met him in the lobby. When we entered the dining-room the head waiter led us to a table on the far side, but I, noticing the light for that particular table was not as good for reading as the light on the table next to it, said, “Let’s take this table.” Evidently Mr. Harding thought my suggestion was just caprice. Anyway, he said quietly but very firmly, “We’ll sit right _here_, Nan,” taking the table the waiter had first indicated. But if he had any idea of rebuking me, it was soon dissipated by my explanation. I won in this instance, though he usually did. But when I was really right in any matter he would acknowledge it only too gladly.
I remember too I wore that morning a very lovely georgette crepe blouse with my tailored suit. It was far too delicate a thing to wear to the office, but I had put it on especially for my darling. And it wasn’t lost on him! “That’s a very beautiful blouse you have on, dearie,” he said, “but do you wear things like that to your office?” He was relieved when I owned up that I didn’t.
In some of the first pictures I had taken for Mr. Harding I wore that same blouse. I had not had my picture taken but once--except for snapshots--since I was a child. That little-girl photograph was published in _The Marion Daily Star_. This was done, I remember hearing my mother say, without her previous knowledge, having been arranged between the photographer across the street from the _Star_ Building and the editor of the _Star_, Warren Harding. I was then five years old.
The pictures I had taken to display the blouse Mr. Harding was so fond of (it was white with blue flowers embroidered on the front) were four in number and I sent one of each to my sweetheart. I wrapped them well and addressed them inside and out, sending them in time to reach him for a particular week-end during which he had expressed the wish to be with me but could not. Well into the following week I had not heard from him about the photographs, and finally wrote and asked if he had gotten them safely. In his reply which came immediately he said they had not been received. I was frantic, because I had autographed them especially for him and no one else. In a very few days he came to New York. He said he had looked everywhere in the office, in his stenographic secretaries’ office and in George Christian’s office, but he could not locate them. Had I addressed them correctly? I assured him I had, and he said he would ask “George” if he himself were not able to find them when he returned. He could not find them and was therefore obliged to inquire of his private secretary. George Christian brought them to him immediately, having put the package away so safely that it was hidden from Mr. Harding. “I never knew portraits could be so comforting,” he wrote to me. _I_ knew they could be, for I went to bed early every night with my sweetheart’s picture propped up beside me on the pillow.
_34_
Mr. Harding’s generosity took many forms. One time during 1917 or 1918 when we were alone--though I don’t remember where--I was sitting on his lap admiring his hands. They were large, well-shaped hands, the hands of capability, yet artistic too, and I never tired watching him use them. They were expressive of many feelings. They fascinated me completely. I was admiring them, and incidentally the ring on the third finger of his left hand. The ring was set with one quite sizable diamond--a beautiful ring in its entirety. Some organization had presented it to him “in appreciation,” he said. I think he thought I admired the stone and had visions of having it in a ring for myself!
“So far as I’m concerned, I’d as lief give you this ring, Nan, if it were not for Florence!” He smiled when I looked up at him, and hugged me tight. Frankly, I would have loved the ring, of course, but I knew he could not give it to me. I wonder who has it now, for I would cherish it so if it were in my possession. Many nights I have spent with that hand in mine and twisted and played with that ring. It sparkled at me across the table and I could see a thousand colors in it when I, lying beside him, held his hand up to the light which came through the transom above our bedroom door.
This was, as I said, before 1919. After I had my own ring I found the same pleasure in studying its lights. I remember the morning after he had put my ring upon my engagement finger we walked in Central Park. A windy morning and a brilliant sun. I strolled along with my left hand in front of me, looking at my precious ring. _He_ had given it to me!
I remember that morning Mr. Harding’s hat blew off and he had to chase it about half a block. Somehow I used to love to witness those “embarrassing moments”--his confusion was so boyish. I remember too how I exclaimed over the glory of everything that morning, in the sheer joyousness of being with him. We passed the zebras and I remarked upon _their_ beauty! “Nan, you don’t think _those_ things are beautiful, do you?” Mr. Harding asked incredulously, smiling. But, as I continued to express my admiration of each animal, he suggested that we look at them no longer, and led me into, the sheltered paths where eventually he found a bench where we could sit down and he could make love to me.
An instance of his kindly nature and generosity occurs to me. We were going down Fifth Avenue. He was taking me to a store of my choosing, Lord & Taylor’s, to buy me a bag. I was always happily oblivious of everybody and everything about me when I was walking on the street with Mr. Harding, and so I did not notice that we had passed a blind man carrying the proverbial tin cup and selling pencils. But Mr. Harding had seen him and he disengaged himself from my arm, went back and dropped a coin into the blind man’s cup, and was back with me, scarcely giving me time to realize what had happened.
“Never pass a blind man, Nan,” he admonished me gently. I knew his sympathy had been made the keener by his intimate knowledge of blindness in the case of his own sister Mary who had passed on a good many years before and who had been almost blind. To this day I cannot pass a blind person, and if they do pass me before I have got my money out, I go back, as he did, prompted by his voice and the impulse it always arouses.
Mr. Harding himself selected the bag for me at Lord & Taylor’s. Nothing gave me greater pleasure than to have something he had selected for me himself. The bag was a dark blue pin-seal and cost $11.75. “Here, Nan,” he said brightly, picking up the bag from dozens of others on the counter, “I think this is fine--what do you think?” I loved it. I would have loved it had it been but one-hundredth as pretty as it was, but it happened to be a very stunning bag. Everything he chose, I thought, would be just right.
I afterwards had this bag in Marion, Ohio, at Miss Daisy Harding’s, during the time when she was still living with her father on East Center Street, before she was married. Mrs. Heber Herbert Votaw, her sister and Warren’s, was there. They were examining and admiring the bag.
“Where did you get this bag, Nan?” one of them inquired.
“Oh, a sweetheart of mine gave it to me,” I answered lightly, just as I was about to pass up the front stairs to the room I occupied while visiting there.
“Now, Nan,” called Carrie Votaw after me, “you _know_ you never loved anybody in your life but Warren!” How little she knew the deep meaning of her words! I have since recalled this incident to Daisy Harding in a letter written to her last year.
Another instance of Mr. Harding’s kindheartedness comes to mind:
I always used to take him to the Pennsylvania Station when he left for Washington. I knew pretty well what trains came into New York from Washington and those that went out. Often he would come over just to spend the evening, taking me to dinner and the theatre and returning on what he called “the midnight” to Washington. When I first met him in 1917 at the Manhattan Hotel, one of the things he said to me, after learning that I had a great fondness for the theatre, was, “Nan, let _me_ take you to the theatre! I’ll come over from Washington just for that, and I’d delight to do it too!”
So one night he had been over and was returning. It was quite late, of course, when we reached the station from the theatre--about eleven-thirty probably--and before he left me to get his train he took me over to the candy stand in the corner of the vaulted concourse and asked me to pick out a box of candy.
Two or three unkempt little children stood gazing wistfully up at the colorful array of sweets above them--children whose bed-hour should have been six or seven o’clock. Mr. Harding looked down at them and put his hand on one little fellow’s head.
“Why don’t you buy it?” he teased. I adored him when he talked to children. Their eyes grew big as they looked way up at him and smiled sheepishly. He handed them each a coin--a quarter apiece I think it was--and looked at me and winked.