Джеффри Арчер - The Prodigal Daughter

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.

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 and 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.