The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 113
I planned to go to Athens, Ohio, to visit my mother in early March while Captain Neilsen was in Europe. I had promised my mother that she could come East to be with me that oncoming summer, thinking of course that I was to have an apartment and that I would be fully established in my new home with Elizabeth Ann. I despatched a letter to my sister Elizabeth, asking her to let Elizabeth Ann come to Athens for several weeks, and this she did, my mother going to Chicago for another purpose, but bringing Elizabeth Ann back with her to Athens on her return. I was heartsick to think I could not return to New York with my baby and feel free to become settled permanently. But I knew enough by then of the captain's financial situation to know this was impossible. I felt I had been trapped all around, though I could not that early accuse the captain of having misrepresented himself to me, and indeed I did not believe he would do such a thing. He had loved me so much, and he had actually thought that he would be able to get the money, I was sure. Still, I could not help remembering that he had told me distinctly that he had sufficient funds to keep us comfortably, and that had been an untruth, for I was not even at liberty to lease an apartment because we could not pay the rent in advance. The whole situation was inexplicable. The captain's generosity of former days, when he had sent me $200 to Europe and had had $200 awaiting my demand in New York, and had deprecated my repayment of these advances, all pointed to comparative affluence.
The more I thought about it the more distressed I became, and I could not even then admit to my family the truth of the matter. Instead, I found myself lauding the captain on all sides. I felt the situation would surely right itself, if, as he had asked me, I would give him just a little while to "get on his feet." Like a pendulum I swung from one decision about him to another, and in the night when I reflected that after all I might not be able to have my baby with me, it almost crazed me. No one knew the state of mentality I was in, for I could not admit that I had failed in marriage, and I had not divulged our plans of taking the baby away from my sister and her husband.
Here in Athens, Ohio, at my mother's home, I again had my baby with me and we slept together and played together, and I thought I could not stand it to give her back. I wanted her so badly that I didn't care whether or not I ever returned to New York if I could not take her with me and have her to keep always. I wanted to die rather than to go on as I might have to go on—without my child. Nevertheless, after the most severe misunderstanding I had ever had with my sister Elizabeth, who came on to Athens to get Elizabeth Ann after about a month, I regained control over myself and accompanied her and the baby back to Chicago, where I visited for a week or two longer before proceeding back to New York and to my husband.
I had received instructions from him to go to live with a woman whose husband was the captain of a U. S. liner, on which Captain Neilsen had accepted the position of second officer. I lived with her for a couple of weeks and when the captain returned from a voyage, we went temporarily to a hotel again.
The first of May we moved into a furnished apartment on West 114th Street. I realized, however, that we could not live there and pay the rent of $100 a month, unless I, too, went to work. So at Columbia University I obtained a position in the Appointments Office. I worked there a part of the time, and also took small pieces of dictation from the various professors, sometimes going to their offices and getting the work and doing it at home upon a typewriter which I had rented for the purpose. I never in my life worked so hard as I did that summer of 1924.
The captain wrote Elizabeth and Scott under date of May 16, 1924, and told them that we now wished to take Elizabeth Ann. I had determined that if the captain did not make good his promise to me to provide a home for her and me without my having to go back to work as I was then doing, that I would not under any circumstances permit her to be taken permanently by us, for I would eventually have to leave a man who had so erroneously represented himself to me. But I clung to the hope of fulfillment on his part and tried hard to banish these unpleasant thoughts, so together we devised a letter which the captain signed.
In his letter to Elizabeth and Scott the captain said that we would come that fall to get Elizabeth Ann, after she had returned with them from the farm where they went every summer, and where they expressed a wish to take Elizabeth Ann with them on a farewell visit to Scott's people.