The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 49
During my stay in the Adirondacks I wrote many letters to Mr. Harding, saving them, of course, until such time as I should see him to deliver them in person. He wrote me, but more guardedly than ever before. During my stay there I also
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received a couple of letters from his sister Daisy, one of which I have and which asks me all about Eagle Bay, requesting the information on account of her desire to leave Marion, where, she said, she was under fire photographically and socially, and was growing weary of it all. Although I sent Miss Harding pictures of the hotel and instructions as to how one reaches there, she did not decide to join me. Which, from the standpoint of the following incident, was a good thing.
About the third or fourth week of my stay in the mountains, Mr. Harding sent the first communication which ever came from him to me by personal messenger.
I had been out walking in the late afternoon, and when I came into the somewhat deserted lobby of the Eagle Bay Hotel the manager at the desk called to me that a gentleman in the lounging room wished to see me. Of course, having been warned by Mr. Harding of shadowers and reporters, I became frightened, and it was with some misgivings that I approached the man who now came toward me with the query, "Is this Miss Britton?" I said it was, and in turn asked him who he was and why he wished to see me.
He immediately delivered into my hands a rather bulky envelope which was obviously more than a mere letter, and asked that I follow the instructions which he told me I would find inside. I retired to my room to do so. Mr. Harding had not dropped me a note apprising me of this proceeding. In the package he had enclosed $800 in bills and a short, hurried note, which he asked me to please return with one from me, telling him the money had been received and indicating the amount. This I did, not sending him, however, any of the love-letters I had written and been saving up to this time, but merely doing exactly as he requested. Then I joined the gentleman below.
The messenger was a man of slight build, with ruddy complexion and pleasing manner. Inasmuch as it was impossible for him to leave Eagle Bay before that evening (there being no train out), we took a walk down the road, and afterward returned to sit awhile down by the lake, on one of the porches of the casino. I had gone about very little with the young crowd up there, preferring for many reasons to be by myself the greater part of the time and to retire early, and I knew that this messenger had come direct from the one man I would rather be with than all the others put together. Therefore I felt friendly toward him.
He had not told me his name, and his obvious reticence had piqued my curiosity. When I inquired of him who he was, he indicated that he did not care to disclose his correct name. On his finger, however, he wore a signet ring, rather an unusually good-looking one I thought, and I made out the initial "S." "Mr. S." I called him then, and he smiled and substituted the name "Scott." So "Mr. Scott" it was during the remainder of his visit. He seemed to think I had selected the most God-forsaken, undesirable place in the world, and I did not blame him, for the mosquitoes were more than usually aggressive that evening. I had a lot of fun with him, and discovered to my delight that he had quite a sense of humor in the many suggestions he had for making Eagle Bay a passably habitable place for human beings who had small regard for where they lived!
The following Sunday in the paper I happened to see a picture of a man who, in this narrative, I shall call Tim Slade, chief secret service man and bodyguard to the President-elect, and in this newspaper likeness I identified the messenger who had come to me at Eagle Bay. In the same paper there was an excellent enlarged snapshot of Miss "Daisy" Harding and Mrs. Votaw, her sister, together in the garden of their father's home at Marion, and I cut it out and have it now, framed.
My sister Elizabeth, writing from Chicago, kept me pretty well posted about the baby, but there were times when I felt I just must get back immediately to her. I managed to gain several pounds while in the mountains, and in early August, if I remember correctly, I returned to Chicago. I found the baby pink and white, like a peach blossom, and was delighted with Mrs. Woodlock's fine care of her. She was getting prettier and prettier every day. And, oh, that Harding smile which captivated everyone who saw her!