“P. S.--I can be reached at the above address, care of Suite 516, and
the telephone number is above. I have my annulment now, you know, so
am known as Miss Nan Britton. You can also address me at my home,
609 West 114th Street, Apartment 46, and address me the same--Miss
Britton.”
I sent Daisy Harding and Tim Slade letters also, telling the latter in
brief form what had been accomplished by me in Marion.
_163_
When in Marion on April 1st, during my talk with Miss Harding, I had
told her very frankly how in debt I was and that my rent of $130 would
fall due again on April 10th. It had been her postal telegraph order
for $400 which had enabled me to pay the two previous months’ rent, and
at that time I really felt that when the time rolled around for the
April rent a sufficient amount would again be forthcoming to cover it.
However, Miss Harding had given me only enough when there to cover my
return fare, Pullman and meals on the train, and, back in New York on
the 2nd of April, I found bills awaiting me on all sides. Moreover, as
is often the case when receipts are not asked for, I was being charged
$40 in one instance which I did not owe at all, and this distressed
me very greatly, and depleted my bank account even more than I had
anticipated. But the rent was my chief concern. Not knowing where to
turn, I wired Daisy Harding again for something more than that amount;
I think I wired her for $150, though I did not retain a copy of that
particular telegram.
Miss Harding’s reply to that telegram, a letter sent special delivery
under date of April 10th, enclosing money orders in the amounts of
$50 and $75 was a clear index to her feelings, feelings obviously
developed toward me since my visit with her brother at Daisy Harding’s
home less than two weeks before. In her opening sentence she said she
was enclosing $125, “which is all I can let you have.... I feel that I
have been generous ... especially when I gave you that $400.... I can’t
let you have any more, for I, too, have obligations....” Then followed
the suggestion that I should find cheaper living quarters by going out
to one of the suburbs. “... It would necessitate your rising a little
earlier ... but that means very little at this time of the year....”
Then came the astounding suggestion that if I could not get a cheaper
place to live I might better send Elizabeth Ann to her Grandmother
Willits’ farm, where she could have the advantage afforded by the
country! As though the mother of Warren Harding’s child should have
nothing to say, should acquiescently ship his daughter to people who
were _not relatives_, simply because she would find there a welcome for
her! My brother-in-law’s people, though admittedly the kindest people
one could imagine, were nevertheless certainly not the people upon
whose shoulders the burden of maintaining a home for Warren Harding’s
daughter should rest. And after giving some further suggestions,
the letter ended with “Hastily, A. V. H. Lewis.” Something told me
instinctively that Daisy Harding would no more sign her letters to me,
“Lovingly.”
It seemed to me that I had been cruelly dismissed from further loving
consideration by her who had once termed herself one “who never fails
a friend.” Perhaps I had been removed from her friend category. But if
so, it was only since I had talked with her brother in Marion.
Yet I knew this was not the real Daisy Harding. It was _another woman_,
a woman lately influenced, in my opinion, to believe that she had been
the victim of an imposition. I was mortally sure that members of her
family who had been utterly remiss in recognizing their own obligations
to their brother’s child had been swift to denounce my appeal as an
attempt to obtain money under false pretenses.
Fragments of our conversation came back to me--and one sentence in
particular now seemed to me freighted with a meaning I had failed to
catch when Daisy Harding had uttered it to me in her home.
“Brother Deac thinks you might have changed, Nan. He said to me, ‘What
if she is not the same kind of girl you taught in high school ... she
has been in the city ... it is quite likely she has changed!’” Why,
if argued sufficiently strongly, this would become a peg upon which
to hang various and sundry ill opinions of me! As Daisy Harding had
written to me, so evidently had she been persuaded to believe “... your
claim is one that any woman can make and get away with to a certain
extent, and while it isn’t, it might look like a complete case of
blackmail....” How overwhelming are the feelings of disappointment and
hurt I experience as I write these things and live over the agony of
mind they caused me!
Yet quite unconsciously one does change under the force of cruel
circumstance. One does become raw under the lash of injustice. One is
apt to become, as I did, almost stark and brutal in stating truths.
This follows inevitably when one’s life cause, one’s sacred pledge
of fidelity, has been dealt with lightly, indifferently. The Votaws,
for instance, likely felt the smart of words I had written out of the
boldness of my spirit. For the body may be broken, but the spirit of
Right never faints. So perhaps the imputation that I had “changed” was
really true. But the _truth_ does not change. I had spoken the truth
unwaveringly. But it is not always expedient to believe.
The letter received from this changed Daisy Harding brought to my mind
something she said in a letter sent February 2, 1924, shortly after my
marriage to Captain Neilsen. She wrote, in speaking of her brother
Warren and lamenting his untimely passing:
“to think brother wasn’t permitted to live long enough to do the
things that he wanted to do, to go where he wanted to go. If only he
could have known a little of the love, a little of the praise that was
so generously bestowed on him after he was gone. We are all too slow
in appreciation, too little given to expressing our love when it is
most needed.”
_164_
My reply to Daisy Harding’s letter enclosing the money orders for $125
now follows:
“MY DEAR MISS HARDING:
Thank you for sending the money orders for $75 and $50.
I am able to account, from cancelled vouchers, etc., for every cent
you have given me, and I can assure you it was spent for nothing but
expenses in connection with my endeavor to maintain an apartment and
only decent living quarters for your brother’s and my own beloved
child. For nothing else.
I remember your telling me, Miss Harding, that you paid $150 for two
rooms, kitchenette and bath, in Florida this winter. You thought it
very reasonable, according to a letter received from you, but you
said Mrs. Keiler could not live with you because there was not enough
room. Well, I live in three rooms with mother and the baby, and we
have lived there all winter, with no other home to which to go. Do you
honestly think that my rent of $130 is out of keeping? I looked long
and hard before taking that place, and for many reasons it seemed the
best thing to do.
As for moving to the country, I thought I made it clear that my plans
for staying in my present apartment are altogether tentative, even
though I _had_ to take a lease until October in order to get the
place. In New York the only available thing to be had by the month
is “rooms”--and taking them by the month or by the week, oftentimes
they come higher than when one takes an apartment. I have, as a matter
of fact, been making inquiry into possible living quarters in the
country. Your suggestion about mother’s looking is impossible to me,
because mother does not venture anywhere except to church. She knows
nothing at all about the outlying districts or suburbs and I myself
have to make and have made all arrangements of all kinds in connection
with my plans this winter. If I find I can get something in New
Rochelle or some other place, be sure I shall try to sublet and move,
for summers in the city are not to be courted....
[Illustration]
I have already made some inquiry at one hotel here in the city to
help Dr. Harding in his endeavors to prove to the satisfaction of the
Harding family that the things I have said are true, and I think the
next time I write I shall have some more dates to give him.
You must remember that it has been almost a year since I confided this
thing to you, and up to this time nothing has been done in the way of
a steady, stable income for E. A. Does that really seem fair? To be
sure, I am not unmindful of, nor am I ungrateful for, your help, but
you know that the first $200--or nearly so--went for her kindergarten,
the $400 went for rent for two months and to repay some loans which
had to be met and which I incurred during the time I was writing the
Votaws and trying to get their co-operation without loading all the
burden upon you. This $125 is being paid out today for rent also.
You must remember, it is not as though you were actually paying my
rent--that money could be considered simply the income E. A. should
have--should be having month by month--to make it more bearable for
me--and _it should come from all of the Hardings_ instead of from your
dear self.
Of course your letter hurt me--but perhaps I may have to sacrifice
your friendship in endeavoring to have this thing settled rightly. And
it is not that I love you less, but that I love my precious daughter
more.
I would very much have liked to return your $125 to you, but I simply
could not. If I have been too truthful and honest with you in telling
you all about my affairs, expenses, etc., it is simply that I really
do not know much about being clever and dishonest. If I had, I would
not now be writing to you about money, or the need of it, because I
would have seen to it that I was amply taken care of in case of such
emergency as did arise. But I prefer not to be clever in that way.
Love to you.
Most sincerely,