When Captain Neilsen arrived, I found myself in a suitably revealing frame of mind. I told him the whole truth. I confessed how miserable I was without Elizabeth Ann, and gave him the entire picture just as it stood. He was kindness itself, and repeated his oft-expressed desire that I marry him. “Well, can I really have Elizabeth Ann?” I asked him. “Of course you can!” he acquiesced heartily. He then told me he wished me to understand his financial status, explaining that he was actually worth something over $125,000, and even itemizing on paper his holding for me to see. He said, however, it was not all available in ready cash. I said that didn’t matter if only I could have my baby. The captain knew of my natural extravagances in little ways, and he had, as I have said, visited at my sister’s apartment in Chicago and knew that, although I was not used to great luxury, I was at least used to modest comforts. And I was very sure I could depend upon him to provide more than generously for both my child and myself.
During the next day, not having the usual phone call from the captain, I decided impulsively that he was avoiding me, having concluded that if I actually married him I might do so from unfair motives. But I could not reconcile these conclusions with his oft-repeated proposals of marriage on any grounds that would please me. “Marry me,” he would say, “and I’ll make you happy!” I felt that he meant that he would be so generous in his material manifestations of love that I could bring myself to care for him through sheer gratitude.
But my fears were groundless. He phoned the following day and that night took me to the theatre. He asked me again and again to marry him and let him provide for me and for Elizabeth Ann, but I found that I could not even then, after my own careful decision to do just that, tell him that I would marry him. “Well, if you refuse to marry me, I will make a will tomorrow anyway, and leave all I have to Elizabeth Ann when I die. I can at least do that for you,” he said, as we sped along back to my hotel in the taxi under the elevated tracks on Columbus Avenue. This to me was the acme of generosity and touched me very deeply, though I didn’t let him know it. I told him, half-jestingly, that I would certainly go on a search the following day for an engagement ring of my liking! To this he also heartily agreed.
But the following day, after I had actually selected the ring I thought would look well with the ring my beloved Warren had given me and which I meant to keep always on my engagement finger, the captain met me and said he had been unable to convert into cash some stocks which he owned and requested that I wait a while before deciding upon a ring. I felt sorry, though slightly provoked that he should act this way—first to convey the impression that money meant nothing to him, and then to refuse to buy an engagement ring for the woman he seemed to want so badly for his wife. But I decided he must be “trying me out,” and I determined I would prove to him that I didn’t have to have the ring in order to marry him. Elizabeth Ann was my sole motive and purpose.
112
I thought about it all very seriously that night and when Friday, January the 4th, came, and Captain Neilsen called me on the telephone in the evening, I informed him that I had decided to marry him the following day, Saturday, January 5th.
With my actual acceptance of his offer of marriage, it seemed to me he was taken somewhat aback, though he said he would meet me, as I asked him to do, at the Municipal Building, the following noon. He was late, but explained that he had been inspecting a ship and could not come when he had planned.
We secured our marriage license. When the man asked what the captain’s business was I spoke up and said, as he had told me many times, “He is a ship broker.” The captain looked slightly embarrassed as he said to the clerk, “Better say ‘ship’s master’.” I didn’t know that this different title meant another kind of business and it didn’t worry me specially.
With the license in hand we went over to the Savarin in the basement of the Woolworth Building for our luncheon. As we were crossing the street, I remember that the captain had said that his money was not all available. So I asked him, “You could raise $50,000 if you had to, couldn’t you?” thinking I would avail myself of $30,000 to put in trust immediately for Elizabeth Ann, and the captain, Elizabeth Ann and I would keep the other $20,000 to live upon and have a home for ourselves, until he went back to work after our proposed honeymoon. “Oh, of course, if I had to, I could raise $50,000. I should say so!” The captain was very certain about it.
This was all the assurance I needed. Anyone who could raise $50,000 would have enough and plenty to keep me and my baby. And I would be economical, and would try my best to love him to show him how grateful I was that he had made it possible for me to have my baby with me.