The Prodigal Daughter Read online

  “It’s not impudence, Papa. If I finish top, half the credit must go to Miss Tredgold.”

  “If not more,” said Abel, “and I’ll agree to your demands. But on one condition.” He folded his paper carefully.

  “What’s that?” said Florentyna.

  “How much do you have in your savings account, young lady?”

  “Three hundred and twelve dollars,” came the immediate reply.

  “Very well, if you fail to finish in the first four you must sacrifice the three hundred and twelve dollars to help me pay the tuition you haven’t saved.”

  Florentyna hesitated. Abel waited and Miss Tredgold did not comment.

  “I agree,” said Florentyna at last.

  “I have never bet in my life,” said Miss Tredgold, “and I can only hope my dear father does not live to learn of this.”

  “It should not concern you, Miss Tredgold.”

  “It certainly does, Mr. Rosnovski. If the child is willing to gamble her only three hundred and twelve dollars on the strength of what I have managed to do for her, then I must repay in kind and also offer three hundred and twelve dollars towards her education if she fails to win a scholarship.”

  “Bravo,” said Florentyna, and threw her arms around her governess.

  “‘A fool and his money are soon parted,’” declared Miss Tredgold.

  “Agreed,” said Abel, “for I have lost.”

  “What do you mean, Papa?” asked Florentyna. Abel turned over the newspaper to reveal a small headline that read: “The Chicago Baron’s Daughter Wins Top Scholarship.”

  “Mr. Rosnovski, you knew all the time.”

  “True, Miss Tredgold, but it is you who have turned out to be the better poker player.”

  Florentyna was overjoyed and spent the last few days of her life at Middle School as the class heroine. Even Edward Winchester congratulated her.

  “Let’s go and have a drink to celebrate,” he suggested.

  “What?” said Florentyna. “I’ve never had a drink before.”

  “No time like the present,” said Edward, and led her to a small classroom in the boys’ end of the school. Once they were inside, he locked the door. “Don’t want to get caught,” he explained. Florentyna stood in admiring disbelief as Edward lifted the lid of his desk and took out a bottle of beer, which he pried open with a nickel. He poured the flat brown liquid into two dirty glasses, also extracted from the desk, and passed one over to Florentyna.

  “Bottoms up,” said Edward.

  “What does that mean?” asked Florentyna.

  “Just drink the stuff,” he said, but Florentyna watched him take a gulp before she plucked up the courage to try a sip. Edward rummaged around in his jacket pocket and took out a crumpled package of Lucky Strikes. Florentyna couldn’t believe her eyes. The nearest she had been to a cigarette was the advertisement she had heard on the radio which said: “Lucky Strike means fine tobacco. Yes, Lucky Strike means fine tobacco,” a theme that had driven Miss Tredgold mad. Without speaking, Edward removed one of the cigarettes from the packet, placed it between his lips, lit it and started puffing away. He blew some smoke jauntily into the middle of the room. Florentyna was mesmerized as he extracted a second cigarette and placed it between her lips. She did not dare to move as he struck another match and held the flame to the end of the cigarette. She stood quite still for fear it would catch her hair on fire.

  “Inhale, you silly girl,” he said, so she puffed three or four times very quickly and then started coughing.

  “You can take the thing out of your mouth, you know,” he said.

  “Of course I know,” she said quickly, removing the cigarette the way she remembered Jean Harlow did in Saratoga.

  “Good,” said Edward, and drank a large draft of his beer.

  “Good,” said Florentyna, then swallowed a mouthful of her beer. For the next few minutes, she kept in time with Edward as he puffed his cigarette and gulped from his glass.

  “Great, isn’t it?” said Edward.

  “Great,” replied Florentyna.

  “Like another?”

  “No, thank you.” Florentyna coughed. “But it was great.”

  “I’ve been smoking and drinking for several weeks,” announced Edward.

  “Yes, I can tell,” said Florentyna.

  A bell sounded in the hall, and Edward quickly put the beer, cigarettes and the two butts in his desk before unlocking the door. Florentyna walked slowly back to her classroom. She felt dizzy and sick when she reached her desk and worse when she reached home an hour later, unaware that the smell of Lucky Strikes was still on her breath. Miss Tredgold did not comment and put her to bed immediately.

  The next morning Florentyna woke in terrible discomfort, scabious eruptions on her chest and face. She looked at herself in the mirror and burst into tears.

  “Chicken pox,” declared Miss Tredgold to Zaphia. Chicken pox, the doctor confirmed later, and Miss Tredgold brought Abel to visit Florentyna in her room after the doctor had completed his examination.

  “What’s wrong with me?” asked Florentyna anxiously.

  “I can’t imagine,” said her father mendaciously. “Looks like one of the plagues of Egypt to me. What do you think, Miss Tredgold?”

  “I have only seen the like of it once before, and that was with a man in my father’s parish who smoked, but of course that doesn’t apply in this case.”

  Abel kissed his daughter on the cheek, and the two grownups left.

  “Did we pull it off?” asked Abel when they had reached his study.

  “I cannot be certain, Mr. Rosnovski, but I would be willing to wager one dollar that Florentyna never smokes again.”

  Abel took out his wallet from an inside pocket, removed a dollar bill and then replaced it.

  “No, I think not, Miss Tredgold. I am too aware what happens when I bet with you.”

  Florentyna once heard her headmistress remark that some incidents in history are so powerful in their impact that most people can tell you exactly where they were when they first heard the news.

  On April 12, 1945, at 4:47 P.M., Abel was talking to a man representing a product called Pepsi-Cola who was pressing him to try out the drink in the Baron hotels. Zaphia was shopping in Marshall Field’s and Miss Tredgold had just come out of the United Artists Theater, where she had seen Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca for the third time. Florentyna was in her room looking up the word “teen-ager” in Webster’s dictionary. The word was not yet acknowledged by Webster’s when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia.

  Of all the tributes to the late President which Florentyna read during the next few days, the one she kept for the rest of her life was from the New York Post. It read simply:

  Washington, April 19—Following are the latest casualties in the military services including next of kin.

  ARMY—NAVY DEAD

  ROOSEVELT, Franklin D., Commander in Chief, wife Mrs. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, The White House.

  Chapter

  Six

  Entering Upper School at Girls Latin prompted Florentyna’s second trip to New York because the only establishment that stocked the official school uniform was Marshall Field’s in Chicago, and the shoes, Abercrombie & Fitch in New York. Abel snorted and declared it was inverted snobbery of the worst kind. Nevertheless, since he had to travel to New York to check on the newly opened Baron, he agreed as a special treat to accompany Miss Tredgold and his eleven-year-old daughter on their journey to Madison Avenue.

  Abel had long considered New York to be the only major city in the world not to boast a first-class hotel. He admired the Plaza, the Pierre and the Carlyle but did not think that any of the three held a candle to Claridge’s in London, the George V in Paris or the Danieli in Venice, and only those achieved the standards he was trying to reproduce for the New York Baron.

  Florentyna was aware that Papa was spending more and more time in New York, and it saddened her that the affection between her father an
d mother now seemed to be a thing of the past. The rows were becoming so frequent that she wondered if she was in any way to blame.

  Once Miss Tredgold had completed everything on the list that could be purchased at Marshall Field’s—three blue sweaters (navy), three blue skirts (navy), four shirts (white), six blue bloomers (dark), six pairs of gray socks (light), one navy-blue silk dress with white collar and cuffs—she planned the trip to New York.

  Florentyna and Miss Tredgold took the train to Grand Central Station and on arrival in New York went straight to Abercrombie & Fitch, where they selected two pairs of brown Oxfords.

  “Such sensible shoes,” proclaimed Miss Tredgold. “Nobody who wears Abercrombies needs fear going through life with flat feet.” They then proceeded over to Fifth Avenue, and it was some minutes before Miss Tredgold realized she was on her own. Turning around, she observed Florentyna’s nose pressed against a pane at Elizabeth Arden’s. She walked quickly back to join her. “Ten shades of lipstick for the sophisticated woman,” read the sign in the window.

  “Rose red is my favorite,” said Florentyna hopefully.

  “The school rules are very clear,” said Miss Tredgold authoritatively. “No lipstick, no nail polish, and no jewelry except one ring and a watch.”

  Florentyna reluctantly left the rose-red lipstick and joined her governess on her march up Fifth Avenue toward the Plaza Hotel, where her father was expecting them at the Palm Court for tea. Abel could not resist returning to the hotel where he had served his apprenticeship as a junior waiter, and although he recognized no one except old Sammy, the headwaiter in the Oak Room, everyone knew exactly who he was.

  After macaroons and ice cream for Florentyna, a cup of coffee for Abel, and lemon tea and a watercress sandwich for Miss Tredgold, Abel returned to work. Miss Tredgold checked her New York itinerary and took Florentyna to the top of the Empire State Building. As the elevator reached the one hundred and second floor Florentyna felt quite giddy, and they both burst out laughing when they discovered fog had come in from the East River and they couldn’t even see as far as the Chrysler Building. Miss Tredgold checked her list again and decided that their time would be better spent visiting the Metropolitan Museum. Francis Henry Taylor, the director, had just acquired a large canvas by Pablo Picasso; the oil painting turned out to be a woman with two heads and one breast coming out of her shoulder.

  “What do you think of that?” asked Florentyna.

  “Not a lot,” said Miss Tredgold. “I rather suspect that when he was at school he received the same sort of art reports as you do now.”

  Florentyna always enjoyed staying in one of her father’s hotels when she was on a trip. She would happily spend hours walking around trying to pick up mistakes the hotel was making. After all, she pointed out to Miss Tredgold, they had their investment to consider. Over dinner that night in the Grill Room of the New York Baron, Florentyna told her father that she didn’t think much of the hotel shops.

  “What’s wrong with them?” asked Abel, mouthing questions without paying much attention to the answers.

  “Nothing you can point to easily,” said Florentyna, “except that they are all dreadfully dull compared with real shops like the ones on Fifth Avenue.”

  Abel scribbled a note on the back of his menu, “Shops dreadfully dull,” and doodled around it carefully before he said, “I’ll not be returning to Chicago with you, Florentyna.”

  For once Florentyna was silent.

  “Some problems have come up here with the hotel and I have to stay behind to see they don’t get out of hand,” he said, the line sounding a little too well rehearsed.

  Florentyna gripped her father’s hand. “Try and come back tomorrow. Eleanor and I always miss you.”

  Once Florentyna had returned to Chicago Miss Tredgold set about preparing her for Upper School. Each day they would spend two hours studying a different subject, but Florentyna was allowed to choose whether they should work in the mornings or the afternoons. The only exception to the rule was on Thursdays, when their sessions took place in the morning as it was Miss Tredgold’s afternoon off.

  At two o’clock promptly every Thursday she would leave the house and not return until seven that night. She never explained where she was going, and Florentyna never summoned up the courage to ask. But as the holiday progressed Florentyna became more and more curious about where Miss Tredgold spent her time, until finally she resolved to discover for herself.

  After a Thursday morning of Latin and a light lunch together in the kitchen, Miss Tredgold said goodbye to Florentyna and retired to her room. As two o’clock struck she opened the front door of the house and headed off down the street carrying a large canvas bag. Florentyna watched her carefully through her bedroom window. Once Miss Tredgold had turned the corner of Rigg Street, Florentyna dashed out and ran all the way down to the Inner Drive. She peered around to see her mentor waiting at a bus stop on Michigan Avenue. She could feel her heart beating at the thought of not being able to follow Miss Tredgold any farther. Within minutes she watched a bus draw up and come to a halt. She was about to turn back for home when she noticed Miss Tredgold disappear up the circular staircase of the double-decker. Without hesitation, Florentyna ran and jumped onto the moving platform, then quickly made her way to the front of the bus.

  When the ticket collector asked her where she was going, Florentyna suddenly realized she had no idea of her destination.

  “How far do you go?” she asked.

  The collector looked at her suspiciously. “The Loop,” he replied.

  “One single for The Loop, then,” Florentyna said confidently.

  “That’ll be fifteen cents,” said the conductor.

  Florentyna fumbled in her jacket pocket to discover she had only ten cents.

  “How far can I go for ten cents?”

  “Rylands School” came back the reply.

  Florentyna passed over the money, praying that Miss Tredgold would reach her destination before she would have to get off, while not giving any thought to how she would make the return journey.

  She sat low in her seat and watched carefully each time the bus came to a halt along the lake front, but even after she had counted twelve stops and passed the University of Chicago, Miss Tredgold still did not appear.

  “Your stop is next,” the conductor said a few minutes later.

  When the bus next came to a halt, Florentyna knew she was beaten. She stepped down reluctantly onto the sidewalk thinking about the long walk home and determined that the following week she would have enough money to cover the journey both ways.

  She stood unhappily watching the bus as it traveled a few hundred yards farther down the street before coming to a stop once more. A figure stepped out into the road which could only have been Miss Tredgold. She disappeared down a side street, looking as if she knew exactly where she was going.

  Florentyna ran as hard as she could, but when she reached the corner, breathless, there was no sign of Miss Tredgold. Florentyna walked slowly down the street wondering where her governess could have gone. Perhaps into one of the houses, or might she have taken another side street? Florentyna decided she would walk to the end of the block and if she failed to spot her quarry then, she would have to make her way home.

  Just at the point when she was considering turning back she came into an opening that faced a large white archway on which “South Shore Country Club” was embossed in gold.

  Florentyna didn’t think for a minute that Miss Tredgold could be inside, but out of curiosity she peered through the gates.

  “What do you want?” said a uniformed guard standing on the other side.

  “I was looking for my governess,” said Florentyna.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Miss Tredgold,” Florentyna said unflinchingly.

  “She’s already gone into the clubhouse,” said the guard, pointing toward a Victorian building surrounded by trees about a quarter of a mile up a steep rise.


  Florentyna marched boldly through, without another word, staying on the path because “Keep off the grass” signs were displayed every few yards. She kept her eye on the clubhouse and had ample time to leap behind a tree when she saw Miss Tredgold emerge. She hardly recognized the lady dressed in red-and-yellow-checked tweed trousers, a heavy Fair Isle sweater and heavy brown brogues. A bag of golf clubs was slung comfortably over one shoulder.

  Florentyna stared at her governess, mesmerized.

  Miss Tredgold walked toward the first tee, where she put down her bag and took out a ball. She placed it on a tee at her feet and selected a club from her bag. After a few practice swings she steadied herself, addressed the ball and hit it firmly down the middle of the fairway. Florentyna couldn’t believe her eyes. She wanted to applaud but instead ran forward to hide behind another tree as Miss Tredgold marched off down the fairway.

  Miss Tredgold’s second shot landed only twenty yards from the edge of the green. Florentyna ran forward to a clump of trees at the side of the fairway and watched Miss Tredgold chip her ball up onto the green and hole it out with two putts. Florentyna was left in no doubt that Miss Tredgold had been playing the game for some considerable time.

  Miss Tredgold then removed a small white card from her pocket and wrote on it, before heading toward the second tee. As she did so she gazed toward the second green, which was to the left of where Florentyna was hidden. Once again Miss Tredgold steadied herself, addressed the ball and swung, but this time she sliced her shot and the ball ended up only fifteen yards from Florentyna’s hiding place.

  Florentyna looked up at the trees, but they had not been made for climbing other than by a cat. She held her breath and crouched behind the widest trunk, but could not resist watching Miss Tredgold as she studied the lie of her ball. Miss Tredgold muttered something inaudible and then selected a club. Florentyna let out her breath as Miss Tredgold swung. The ball climbed high and straight before landing in the middle of the fairway again.

  Florentyna watched Miss Tredgold replace her club in the bag.