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. . . .
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,
Nan Britton"
Mr. Harding had, while alive, provided ample funds for the care of our child. During the time of his incumbency in the presidential office, after the adoption had been arranged, he had given me $500 a month to give to my sister and her husband for their care of the baby, and had also provided more than generously for me. The income on my suggested $50,000 would only be $250 a month. So it was surely unfair both to his sense of justice and to his daughter's rightful requests, through her mother, for Miss Harding to thus summarily dismiss the matter of a reasonable trust fund for Elizabeth Ann.
Where was Justice? Where was Right? Where was Honor? Surely the spirit of these high truths dwelt not among those who perceived them only microscopically! If my child, the child begotten of the President of the United States, and maintained by him as such, gladly, with fond acknowledgment of his fatherhood,—if this child could not obtain justice at the hands of her blood relations, how futilely must thousands and thousands of unhusbanded mothers plead for the recognition of their little ones over all the land! Fidelity to my sweetheart, loyalty to his family, truth and honesty of purpose, were rewarded thus! Surely Jesus knew the human heart and the temptation to harbor rancor when he said to his disciples, "After this manner therefore pray ye . . . forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
_36.png)