84
In my position at Northwestern University, as President Walter Dill Scott’s secretary, which position I filled for six months, I was being thrown into a social element I might have enjoyed had it not been for my preoccupation in my own trying matter. Acting on impulse, I decided to give up my work with President Scott and go into the University as a student. I set about to gain Mr. Harding’s consent and approval. I wrote him I wanted to see him on a matter, and he set the date of my coming. It was in January, 1923, and the second semester of school would begin in February.
Mr. Harding’s latest letter had inclined me to think that perhaps we might be able to have more than a formal visit, and so I invested in a lovely orchid neglige and ostrich-befeathered mules. These I hoped I might have occasion to need upon my visit to Mr. Harding, and you may be sure this intimation from him had set my heart beating wildly. Perhaps I needed this intimate nearness to re-affix a certain sanity I seemed to have lost; perhaps he needed me to help banish the harassing fears besetting him on all sides.
Mrs. Warren G. Harding, wife of the President of the United States, was a very sick woman. According to the bulletins she was still in a critical condition at the time I saw Mr. Harding, despite the fact that she had, I think, passed the crisis of her illness. Brigadier-General Sawyer, personal physician to Mrs. Harding, headed the list of doctors in attendance upon her. But Mrs. Harding had, as far back as I could remember, been ill or ailing most of the time, and one time in particular, when Mr. Harding was Senator, he had come over to New York to see me during her illness and told me very calmly that they had been “sure she would die.” So the credence given by most people at that time to the unusual severity of her illness was somewhat discredited by those of us who knew the chronic character of her sickness. And when Mr. Harding wrote thus hopefully to me in very early January, I felt sure that the papers had grossly exaggerated the First Lady’s illness, and that likely by the time I reached Washington she would be on her way to Florida, or some other place, for a period of recuperation.
85
I recall for many reasons that visit to the White House in January of 1923. Sometimes it recurs to me with such vividness that I long with all my heart to be able to forget it. Mr. Harding’s letter conflicted greatly with the situation as I actually found it, and I had not been long with him when I saw that what I had taken literally as high hope on his part to be able to have me as of our old sweetheart days was really a dreamy lapse on his part into contemplation in writing of what he would love to do, rather than what he could do.
My reaction to his unwitting deception was such as to sink me immediately into a state of weeping, a bitter railing against fate, and complaint such as I had never allowed myself to voice on any previous visit to the White House no matter how low my spirits had been.
My preparations for this visit had been quite elaborate and extended not only to the purchase of a new neglige, but also to a lovely hat and dress and slippers. The dress was a stunning grey thing, and with it I wore a hat which I had purchased at Joseph’s and for which I had paid $55. My slippers were high-heeled patent leather trimmed with grey suede. Mr. Harding helped to remove my squirrel coat and, as always, remarked in an adorably off-hand manner which was really intimate, “That’s a very good-looking outfit, Nan!” Then he looked at me and said almost fiercely with that look which I always knew foretold a tremendous hug and many kisses, “You pretty thing!” But I did not feel in a dressy mood now that I knew the real situation with him.
We sat first in his private office, on the leather couch. I had brought with me, to show to Mr. Harding, a cunning doll which I had bought myself for Christmas, in company with the many dolls I had bought for Elizabeth Ann. It was really a doll’s head mounted upon a stick, and for the doll’s bodice there was a round music box, covered with a frock which came down nearly to the end of the stick. When one twirled the stick the frock stood out very stiffly and the doll appeared to be dancing and humming a tune. The tune was a little German folk-song, and it was this rather mournful melody which had attracted me; it somehow chimed in with my spirit of persistent melancholy.
“What ’ave y’ got there, dearie?” asked Mr. Harding, looking down at the doll. The day, I remember, was not particularly bright, and he strained his eyes to look. I stopped crying and smiled wanly as I slowly twirled the dancing doll. The sweet sadness of the music seemed to fill the silent room. Mr. Harding smiled and took the doll out of my hands. “Sh! darling,—they can hear out there in the hall.”