I did not know until comparatively recently that Miss Harding had told
Mrs. Votaw the strange story I went to Ohio last June especially to
reveal to her. Nor did I know that Mrs. Votaw in turn had repeated
the story to her husband until I received a letter from Miss Harding
on Friday which gave me a clue to the attitude you both have taken.
Had I been aware of your knowledge, I would, with the characteristic
directness I have acquired the past few years from being obliged to
take situations in hand, have communicated with you long since. I have
found that when I set my mind definitely to a given task or duty, the
thing is to accomplish it as speedily as possible. I am therefore only
sorry that I must write you at this time when I have much less leisure
than I enjoyed the latter part of August or during the entire month of
September.
Because of an impression I gained from my talk with Miss Harding in
June, I judged that she preferred that I withhold from my mother and
Elizabeth the knowledge that I had approached her, and, realizing
because my mother and Elizabeth Ann would be here next Tuesday, that
today was perhaps the most opportune time for me to go, I was prepared
to drop everything else in my desire to see and talk with you people.
I had had a letter from Mrs. Votaw some time ago, in which she said
she had been and was ill, and it occurred to me that very possibly I
should talk with Mr. Votaw anyway, inasmuch as Miss Harding’s latest
letter indicated that it was he who felt so bitterly resentful about
the whole matter. However, I can readily understand how he might be
unwilling to give up a visit with his brother, even to sparing an
hour and a half or so, and I should not have urged my coming. I was
so strongly impelled, because of certain intuitive feelings on my own
part, to offer at least to make it possible for you both to question
me concerning anything you did not understand and to tell me frankly
whether or not you cared to help me to help Elizabeth Ann.
Mind, I am seeking your help only through suggestion. I am too
proud, for one thing, and I see no ultimate gain, for another, in
accepting help from any source that is not freely and gladly given.
I am confident, moreover, that Elizabeth Ann will develop enough
of that charitable understanding and magnanimity which so strongly
characterized her dear father, that her own high regard and love for
him would in no wise be lessened by the mere fact that some of his
family could not find it in their hearts to reconcile their love for
him with a material manifestation thereof.
I cannot but feel that deep in Mrs. Votaw’s heart she has nothing but
charity for the man who, with me, has done a thing which devolves
a very, very grave responsibility upon those courageous enough to
recognize and assume it. I am sure that in her immediate family there
was enough of intimate knowledge concerning the unhappy atmosphere
in which her brother lived for so many years (and I speak only those
things which have come from him who experienced them), not to begrudge
him at least _some_ of the happiness to which all men are rightly
entitled. And the expression of my love for him would, in my opinion,
have been insincere and incomplete in the extreme had I denied him
the little of joy, respite and comfort it was in my power to give,
and which, through another’s unfortunate nature and unnecessary
selfishness he had never received in full measure at home. I think
there is no place in the Bible where such love as ours would go
unsanctioned or unblessed, for it was God-given.
However, I cannot and do not expect Mr. Votaw, knowing me as slightly
as he does, and loving his brother-in-law as devotedly as I am sure
he does, to accept, without a sense of mingled incredulity and
resentment, facts he prone would disbelieve and discredit and of which
he has had no direct knowledge on which to base any belief at all. Of
course, it seems a terrible shock to both of you! And it is but human
nature for you to feel more or less justified in mentally refraining
from attaching any sense of responsibility where you were not directly
consulted or concerned. But in fairness to Elizabeth Ann, I made up my
mind that there did exist a moral obligation to a brother’s child and
that it was doing the baby an injustice if I did not give her father’s
family an opportunity to help her, and in the hope of correcting an
attitude of unfairness toward me, and in turn toward Elizabeth Ann, I
am writing you.
Living as I have for nearly seven years with this growingly tremendous
problem, and realizing, especially since two years ago August, the
futility of attempting to solve it by myself to utmost satisfaction,
it has transcended anything and everything else in importance in my
mind and I have been exhausting every effort to the end that it be
solved in the best--and that means the right--way. Very naturally, my
feeling about the whole matter is that it is admittedly paramountly
and imperatively my own immediate problem and one to be postponed not
one minute longer if I would do for Elizabeth Ann what her father
wished so earnestly to be done. To go back over the past and regret
now his own inability to do the thing he planned--to have her for his
own--is futile and does not help a whit. Nor will it do Elizabeth
Ann any good for me to simply sit down now and make my life one long
lamentation, or indulge in sad retrospection, no matter how deeply
I feel or suffer. One thing I remember so well I’ve heard dozens of
times from her father was, “Remember, no recriminations, dearie,
ever!” And I feel as free today from them as I did when he smiled and
shook his finger at me.
There is a thing I must say: I would not for a moment even try to
convince Mr. Votaw of something he deliberately wished to discredit.
But if you both will but look at the expressions on Elizabeth Ann’s
face in these snapshots, there certainly cannot remain the vestige
of a doubt in your minds as to whom she belongs. (By the way, will
you please keep these safely or send them back--the one with the
typewritten word was sent to her father in 1921 and returned to me
and I prize all very highly.) Even when a mere baby she was he all
over. But it is not my idea to prove what could so irrefutably be
proven, but which I would not dream of bothering to prove to anyone in
this world. I come of a family which was, if nothing else, at least
reasonably truthful--and if that were not enough, I can tell you truly
that there existed no man in the world in those glorious days of
1917 who could have so completely possessed me out of marriage. For,
after all, my mother is perhaps as conventional as any woman in the
world and I was brought up to think just as most people think about
conventions.
Furthermore, my mother, on the other hand, feels just as strongly
resentful as you, and her feeling is that I was incapable of judging
right from wrong when appealed to by a man thirty years my senior and
with whom I had been in love since a mere child--and she may feel this
way about it all her life, no matter whether I attempt to convince her
that I knew exactly what I was doing and did it of my very own free
will and accord. So you see you are not alone in your resentment. And,
after his death, it was my really innate desire to _be_ conventional
which led to the very unfortunate and unhappy marriage I am now trying
to put behind me. To be conventional and to have Elizabeth Ann in a
conventional way! A hopeless mess I made of it, didn’t I? Which has
proven to me that if I would do the right thing for Elizabeth Ann I
would not try to cut corners again.
Miss Harding’s letter also contained an allusion to my having been
indiscreetly confiding with my affairs. I will admit that I told
Captain Neilsen about Elizabeth Ann and about her father--but when one
marries there are few things one keeps from one’s husband--and the
very fact that Mrs. Votaw confided the story, told her by her sister,
to _her_ husband bears me out in this, does it not? Moreover, so far
as Mr. G. is concerned, it is assuming more than was ever said by
me to feel that he has been my confidant beyond his legal advice and
friendly counsel concerning my matrimonial difficulties, and so far
as I can see you have jumped pretty far in concluding that I have
told Mr. G. about Elizabeth Ann’s father. He does know, however,
that I have a child, and he has been more helpful than I can say
in endeavoring to make me see my way clear in this affair with the
Captain. The enclosed document--which you may or may not have seen--is
worded as carefully as could possibly have been done. The word “child”
has been omitted, if you will observe, and only the court testimony
(which the judge readily consented to have sealed and opened only
upon order of the court) contains statements to the effect that my
“ward” was a child. Even so, Mr. G.’s questions and my answers were so
guarded that no one could take exception to the testimony.
You must understand, I have been practically “brought up” for the past
eight years on the necessity for secrecy and I personally feel very
sure that my confidings have been to those whom I can trust implicitly
with my secret--even to the Captain. Can you ask for greater proof of
this than the campaign of 1920? And you should also remember that no
one makes a statement concerning a man of such standing as Elizabeth
Ann’s father without the surest evidence in hand that he can _prove_
his accusations. And I feel that the time has long passed when
anyone would or could derive any gain from divulging a story of this
character, even if he had all the evidence in the world.
I did not mean to go so into discussion, because I feel if you are
interested in knowing details you will apprise me of that fact and
invite me to come to Washington. I can still come--and even would do
so on a week day if it better suits your own convenience. However, I
did want to tell you these few things and they are as well written as
spoken.
I have had a very sweet letter from Miss Harding, in which she assured
me she wished to take care of Elizabeth Ann’s kindergarten expenses
and I am deeply appreciative and happy for my darling’s sake. And I
know one thing, and that is that no matter what Mrs. Votaw may say or
do, I know she has a whole heap of her brother in her and some day she
may see that for herself. And I know, too, that Mr. Votaw could not
love Elizabeth Ann’s father and not come to see that mere man-made
convention is not always the only law that gives man the right to
love. There is a higher and a diviner law.
Lots of loving thoughts to both of you.