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# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 135

To Mrs. Votaw, under the same date, September 23rd, 1925, I wrote:
"Dear Mrs. Votaw:
Won't you write me in the enclosed envelope whether or not it would be convenient for you to have me run down to see you this week-end? I could make the Friday night train and arrive Saturday morning, or I could come down Saturday morning and arrive in the early afternoon, returning Sunday night.
I'd love to see you.
Most affectionately,
Nan Britton Neilsen"
Under date of September 25, 1925, Mrs. Votaw wrote me a short note in longhand. I took heart when I noted the salutation, "Dearest Nan," but the note itself was not especially heartening. She wrote that she had had a great deal of company. "Am just all in—been going to the Sanitarium for a week taking treatments and fighting to keep on my feet, . . . ." she wrote. The doctor had informed her that she must go to bed and be quiet for a time. After that she was going to Clifton Springs, New York, where her sister Daisy would soon join her. "Am so tired—hope you are feeling well," the note ended.
Not a single intimation that she knew my story! Never a word of sympathy for me, though she must have known from her sister Daisy that I, too, was nervously exhausted beyond words. Never a promise of help, though she must have known the purpose of my desire to see her. It was all so evasive. Yet the tenor of the note, with its implication of a rather sudden breakdown, seemed to my sensitive mind to impute to me responsibility therefore, if it resulted from revelations made by Daisy Harding. Not to be permitted to see her, to talk with her, and give her the many ​details I had given her sister Daisy, seemed to me unfair treatment. It left me with the feeling a child has when accused of something and sent off to bed with no opportunity of explaining his innocence.
# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 138

Tim Slade had quite a lot to say about Mrs. Harding. He told me how once, when he was preparing to make a trip to Chicago where he was to meet me at the Congress Hotel to deliver a package, Mrs. Harding had said to him, "Tim Slade, what are you doing for Warren?" And Tim, glad of an opportunity to arouse her curiosity, replied blandly that he was doing nothing at all. "Well, you are!" she insisted, "and what's more, I'll see to it that you are put out—I'll make you lose your job!"
He said it had infuriated her to think he had such a direct entree to the President and upon a matter about which Mrs. Harding knew nothing. According to Tim, he answered her, "Listen, my dear lady, you couldn't do a thing to me!" And he said she knew it, and that further infuriated her.
I never quite understood how Tim would dare to defy the First Lady of the Land, but from the things he has told me, such defiance on his part was of frequent occurrence, and yet never lost him his government job in the secret service.
Tim said he knew that my relationship to the President, whatever it was, was of paramount concern to Mr. Harding, to the "boss," as he so often called him when speaking of the President to me. In this connection he told me how, upon different occasions, when he had received either a telephonic communication from me or a letter, he had gone immediately in each instance to the President, and the President, no matter whether he was occupied with state matters, or a game of cards in his private apartment, had given Tim the strictest attention while the latter delivered his message from me.
Tim, having lived for twenty-one years in and about the White House, knew and was known to everybody from the maid-servants to the Cabinet members, and knew even the gossip of the White House kitchen. It was in this way that I learned from Tim that Mrs. Warren Harding had not been a popular mistress ​during her brief reign. Tim explained to me that Mrs. Harding wanted her finger on the pulse of every activity in the White House, and it was to this end that she had endeavored to direct even the functionings of the servants' quarters.
However, our conversations were not entirely taken up with the discussions pertaining to my own difficulties, and I feel quite well acquainted with certain phases of Tim Slade's own life—his beautiful country home, for which he said he paid $35,000 when he purchased it early in 1924, I think, and his various cars, dogs, social doings, intimate contacts with George Christian and Mr. Christian's family, and so on.
# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 141

Meanwhile, during these monthly visits of Tim Slade to New York, "to report to his boss and get his salary check," I was going ahead with my plans to have my baby and my mother with me in New York under the arrangement worked out by me with the financial assistance Daisy Harding had agreed to provide.
Under date of October 16, 1925, I received a letter from Miss Harding.
"I sent your letter on to sister but it didn't have the desired effect," she wrote, "but I'm glad I sent it just the same. . . ." Mrs. Votaw had written her sister Daisy that she had been ill and in the sanitarium, Miss Harding wrote to me, and, following this, she said, "Somehow, I can't write it in a letter, the whole situation, resulting from the disclosure to her and her husband, especially in regard to him (Mr. Votaw) who just idolized E. A.'s father and therefore can't and doesn't want to believe it . . . ." Those had been almost Tim Slade's identical words to me, "Say, they don't want to believe it!" Miss Harding went on to say that her sister, Mrs. Votaw, could not understand why, if I cared so much for their brother, I should have found it necessary to tell so many people the story about Elizabeth Ann's identity as our daughter. It occurred to me that in a nation of millions, the real truth was that our story was known to amazingly few! I could count on less than ten fingers those who had heard it from my own lips, and this number included Daisy Harding and Tim Slade as well as certain members of my own immediate family who had been indispensable in the handling of our situa​tion to date. As for the two or three others, friends of mine, they had certainly shown their friendship for me in guarding well the secret entrusted to them. I determined to make a point of this picayunish written parley either to Miss Harding or to the Votaws when I wrote to them. I felt my resentment was justly indulged. If for six and one-half years I could, with Mr. Harding, protect almost to inviolability a secret as colossal as ours, it seemed to me I deserved credit for that much at least.
"As soon as you make arrangements for E. A.'s return to New York, let me know as to schooling, etc., and I'll help you as much as I can . . . . I want to help you," Daisy Harding wrote in this letter. I knew that the school circular I had sent her which specified $165 for Elizabeth Ann's kindergarten expenses could not as yet have reached her. Miss Harding spoke of having made some investments and promised me some help on my debts as soon as she realized some profit on her investments. Her letter, signed, "Lovingly, A. H. Lewis," was, on the whole, comforting. It was good to know that at heart she took a sympathetic view of my situation. But what a bitter disappointment that the Votaws should take the opposite attitude!
# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 143

I had readily perceived from Miss Harding's letter, received October 16th, 1925, that the line of thinking pursued by the Votaws as well as by herself led straight to the fear of exposure, and though, for their sake, I was ready to further guard their brother's and my secret from the world, in my heart I rated my child's future and my own sense of justice for her far above the continued consideration of protection of the Harding name. It lay with them and their sense of right toward Elizabeth Ann whether or not the story they wished to conceal were further revealed. I had assured them of my co-operation, and, except they fail me, I would continue to suffer the fictional explanations which surrounded the identity of Elizabeth Ann's father. But it seemed to me that our child, Warren Harding's and mine, possessed enough of distinction in being the only child of the 29th President of the United States, and I enough of pride in having been loved by Warren Harding and having borne him a child, to warrant an open expression of indifference if they in turn did not as dearly value the protection of their own family name. And the knowledge of their apparent lack of appreciation of my efforts up to that time filled me with hurt and righteous indignation. If, in the process of being obliged to approach personally friends of Mr. Harding, the story leaked out, I would know that I had done everything in my power to keep it intact, and that only the refusal of Warren Harding's own brothers and sisters to sponsor the cause of his own daughter had precipitated such revelation. I would sacrifice myself, in dedicating every remaining shred of nervous energy to protective efforts in their behalf, if they would make possible to me the possession of my child. But I would not forever tolerate unjust criticism of past conduct either on my part or on the part of their brother any more than I would countenance the figurative drawing away of ​skirts from the child who had every right in the world to tug at them in her rightful demand, through the voice of her mother, for recognition and equity.
# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 145

In the crowded three-room apartment where my mother, my baby and I were living, I was finding it all too difficult to devote as much quiet time to my course in playwriting as it required. It seemed to me far more desirable to retire early with ​my little girl and visit with her until she fell asleep on my arm. I was grateful for the attitude of Daisy Harding, but the attitude the Votaws had assumed made me heartsick, and when a realization of what it would all mean to Elizabeth Ann swept over me, I wanted literally to catch her up close to me and close her eyes and mine to life's cruelties.
The mental misery I suffered must surely have been reflected by Elizabeth Ann, for she was oftentimes restless and unnaturally apprehensive for a child of six. I remember one evening when she gave me a great shock, so really did she mirror my own mood. My mother had gone away that evening and Elizabeth Ann was in my bed awaiting me and the bedtime story I had promised to tell her. But when I came in from the bathroom I found her crying. "Why, whatever is the matter with my precious darling?" I asked her, taking her in my arms and kissing her wet cheek. "Oh, Nan, dear," she sobbed, and her voice grew hysterical, "I was just thinking about our poor dear Mr. Harding!" I had not mentioned Mr. Harding or any of the Hardings that evening, and it seemed an uncanny thing to have her express the heartache I was experiencing those days from contemplation of the attitude the Votaws had assumed. It has often seemed to me that Mr. Harding has even spoken to me through our daughter, and, as I took her in my arms that night and talked to her, it was not to depart from the subject of Mr. Harding but rather to promise him, through my words to her, that she and I would not forsake him. As Elizabeth Ann herself put it, "We'll always love our dear Mr. Harding, won't we, Nan?"
Who can say that he was not looking down upon his two loved ones, hovering near us in spirit, urging me to the exhaustion of every effort to establish his daughter's rights, and deploring with all his heart the struggle I was having to come into my own, to have our child?
But I could not have survived in an atmosphere of constant conscious worry, and there were days when the full buoyancy and optimism of my true self would assert themselves, and I would reflect gratefully and lovingly upon Miss Harding's ​prophecy that things would "come out all right," and dream of the day when my child would be welcomed into the hearts of those whom she should know as her own people.
When friends commented upon my taking Elizabeth Ann and my mother for the winter, I reminded them that I was alone in New York, awaiting the final decree of my marriage annulment, that my sister Elizabeth and her husband were busy teaching, and that it was the most natural thing in the world for me to want company.
# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 146

Soon after receiving the November 5th, 1925, letter from Daisy Harding, I received from her a draft for $65 for Elizabeth Ann's clothes. She wrote a very hurried note, signed, "Lots of love, A. V. H."
It was a delight to purchase winter things for Warren Harding's and my child with money received from Warren Harding's sister. It seemed so right. I retained all of the receipts for the purchase of these things in order to show them to Miss Harding if she should ever care to see them, and indeed the purchases ran over the $65 sent. Elizabeth Ann had no winter things to speak of, even though my sister Elizabeth had made her some pretty summer dresses. But I had to buy her winter things, from underwear to a coat, hat, galoshes and gloves. She looked adorable in them.
Under date of November 12, 1925, I replied to Miss Harding's brief note enclosing the check, and I wrote, "It makes me feel so good inside—the knowledge that it comes from you. And I love you. You know that." I also said that I felt sure it was Mr. Votaw who refused to understand my situation—and not Mrs. Votaw. Miss Harding had said she might be coming to New York soon and I wrote that it would be fine if she and Mrs. Votaw could come to New York to see me. On December 1st I wrote again to Miss Harding after I had finished the shopping ​for Elizabeth Ann, and I told her how very pretty the baby looked in her new things. She was growing out of her babyhood, however, and was beginning to shoot up, and I observed daily how much like Mr. Harding she was, with the Harding olive complexion, the Harding eyes, and the height which belonged to me as well as to her father.
# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 150

One evening I went home tired, soul and body. Elizabeth Ann met me as usual at the door. Simultaneously with my ringing the doorbell I could hear her voice, high-pitched in pleasurable excitement, "It's Nan, muz!" she exclaimed to mother, and came rushing to open the door to greet me. Realizing keenly my dire financial status, daring not to divulge to my mother how frantic I was, knowing she would immediately have insisted upon taking some kind of position which would make it necessary for me to again ask my sister Elizabeth to come East and get the baby, I felt particularly unable to match my daughter's playful mood. She wanted to recite a piece for me! Would I please sit down and listen?
Of course I would! I forced the gaiety I could not feel. It was all a familiar procedure, this reciting business, and I sank acquiescently into the nearest chair. Elizabeth Ann disappeared into the bedroom, and returned with a grown-up scarf around her shoulders to announce, as always, "Ladies, the princess will speak for you!" This, too, was familiar, for she had so self-styled herself very early, and somehow it seemed to me a most appropriate appellative considering the birth distinction that was hers.
"The princess will speak—which one shall I speak, muz?" she turned to inquire of my mother who was busy preparing dinner at the kitchenette, which occupied one side of the living-room. Mother whispered into her ear and Elizabeth Ann's face lighted with the joy she could not conceal in being encouraged to surprise me with her newest dramatic acquisition.
The Harding smile was directed at me, the "audience"; the Harding eyes twinkled mischievously; the Harding bow was elo​quently appealing; and the voice of the Harding child fell sweetly upon the ears of her mother:
The "piece" (by A. A. Milne) went on and on, and it was all the "audience" could do to keep from rising to its feet and embracing the speaker in her adorableness. But the "audience" was too well-trained. The princess, like the princess's father before her, demanded strictest attention from an audience, and this audience knew that the princess's kisses were given only upon completion of oratorical delivery.
Never did a queen more completely rule the hearts of her subjects than did this diminutive princess her "audience," whose heart she had always possessed! Never did the father of this princess move his myriad listeners to greater tranquillity of heart! The princess restored her mother's hopefulness and strength of purpose.
That night I prayed anew that her father's people would help me to keep my darling. Would my prayer be answered?
# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 152

That night I returned home late, having been at the Club writing the lengthy letter to Miss Harding, and I found a cheering answer from Miss Harding to my wire to her sent that morning early. She had been away from home for two weeks and my message had reached her the very hour of her return home. She would fulfill my request on Saturday! The following day I received another telegram from Miss Harding in which she stated that the money had been wired to the wrong address. Would I call the Postal Telegraph and trace the money? It was with a sense of relief I had not known for some time that I had the money traced by the telegraph office, and you may imagine my joy to find she had doubled the amount asked for by me. ​She had sent me $400! I wrote her immediately. I told her I was going to pay two months' rent, which would be $260, and this I did, and have the cancelled voucher in my possession. I repaid $50 to one of the officers of the Club who had kindly advanced that amount to me, and $40 to the Club for overdrawn salary. That totalled $350, and left $50 for minor indebtednesses.
In my letter to Miss Harding I also inquired of her whether or not she felt I ought to write direct to Dr. Harding, her brother in Columbus. I had not known Dr. Harding and took it for granted that Miss Harding had informed him of the situation in hand. As for the Votaws, of them I wrote frankly. I would not have been my natural self had I not expressed the resentment I felt.
I also wrote the Votaws a short letter in an attempt to shame them after I had received the $400 from Daisy Harding, and I sent them a carbon of the letter of thanks which I had just written to Miss Harding. Not one of these various letters I sent the Votaws ever came back to me, so I assume they must have received them.
# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 154

Under date of February 12th, I answered Miss Harding's letter. I took it paragraph by paragraph. Seeing it expressed the same fear about exposure, which had been regarded as paramountly the most important issue by all of them, even to apparent indifference to the issue that was to me the most important and was always their brother's first consideration, I tried to calm her fears.
I said further that "I refuse to use 'tactics' of any kind. I am simply frank and honest about things and cannot be diplomatic in this respect." I further wrote that I felt the provision I wanted for Elizabeth Ann was left in some way for her, that time might prove this to be true; but if so, someone had intercepted it in a way which might be almost impossible to prove. And my concluding sentence was reminiscent of bygone days when I had had her brother to cheer and comfort me in moments that seemed too difficult to bear.
I added a supplemental letter to this one later in the day, sending her a couple of photographs of Elizabeth Ann and asking her to show them to the Votaws if she went through Washington enroute South.
"The hotels are wonderful and not exorbitant," wrote Miss Harding to me shortly after she arrived in Miami Beach, Florida. They had taken an apartment. Miss Harding said, "We have . . . a dining alcove, a large living-room, dressing-room and bath, all for $150 a month. Isn't that reasonable? . . ." She was quite enthusiastic over Miami. ". . . Perhaps when you get to writing and want new local coloring you can come down here and enjoy a winter in the sub-tropics . . ." ​Weary and sick at heart, this prospect seemed pleasant, even if a bit distant.
Miss Harding had received the pictures of Elizabeth Ann and said she thought they were good ones. "She certainly looks sturdy and strong . . . the front view is all Britton, but I can't quite tell about the side view. The cheek and eye are similar to those of yours truly or I imagine it . . ."
She requested me not to write to the Votaws again until I heard from her; she expected, she said, to be there about the last week in March. As usual, her letter was signed, "Lovingly yours."
I answered this letter on March 7th. I explained that Miss Breed, whose assistant I was at The Town Hall Club, had been ill and that that fact had doubled my own work at the Club again. I agreed to abide by her request not to write the Votaws. I told her Tim Slade had been in New York the previous week and I had had luncheon with him at the Waldorf on Thursday. I mentioned that I hoped we could have him with us at our conference, for he could give the Votaws some strong evidence.
# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 160

When Daisy Harding and I were doing up the dishes that evening, I said to her, "Why, you said he would probably be very severe in his remarks to me. He wasn't so terrible—just wanted to know dates. I was not afraid of him." I did not add that rather had I felt sorry for him. Miss Harding replied that he had threatened to "pin me down" to every little thing. However, he hadn't needed to contemplate any such strenuous course of action, for I was all too ready to talk freely and truthfully. Miss Harding sighed. "Brother Deac is not well. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he were to go any day; his heart is very weak." I said I was sorry to hear that. I was pretty weak myself.
I told Miss Harding that her brother had asked me for the dates of the two checks which I had sent personally to my sister Elizabeth, for the baby's care, in amounts of $500 and $525, and I had promised to send these to him. Also he had asked me for the date upon which Mr. Harding had sent me my watch, and this date, also, I would send him from New York immediately upon my return.
I did not think Miss Harding seemed anxious for me to remain over until the following day, and so I decided to return on the late train that night. Her husband, Mr. Lewis, bade me goodbye and retired early, leaving Miss Harding and me to talk together until my taxi came. Ralph Lewis seemed to be such a dear, and I have often wondered exactly what is in his mind as to my liaison with his wife's brother. Yes, I thought, as I shook hands with him that night, I would give a lot to know just what Ralph Lewis thinks—the good-natured man who used to sell me sour pickles in his grocery-store—when I was a little girl!