Джеффри Арчер - The Prodigal Daughter

‘What? Why?’ said Florentyna, shocked. ‘I’ve never heard of your father. How do they even know each other? You must be mistaken.’

‘I wish I were,’ said Richard, and he repeated the little his mother had once told him about the quarrel with her father.

‘Oh, my God. That must have been the “Judas” my father referred to when he told how he changed banks after twenty years,’ she said. ‘What shall we do?’

‘Tell them the truth,’ said Richard. ‘That we met innocently, fell in love and now we’re going to be married. And that nothing they can do will stop us.’

‘Let’s wait for a few weeks,’ said Florentyna.

‘Why?’ asked Richard. ‘Do you think your father can talk you out of marrying me?’

‘No, Richard,’ she said, touching him gently as she placed her head back on his shoulder. ‘Never, my darling. But let’s find out if we can do anything to break the news gently before we present them both with a fait accompli . Anyway, maybe they won’t feel as strongly as you imagine. After all, you said the problem with the Richmond Group was over twenty years ago.’

‘They still feel every bit as strongly, I promise you that. My father would be outraged if he saw us together, let alone thought we were considering marriage.’

‘All the more reason to leave it for a little before we break the news to them. That will give us time to decide the best way to go about it.’

He kissed her again. ‘I love you, Jessie.’

‘Florentyna.’

‘That’s something else I’m going to have to get used to,’ he said.

To begin, Richard allocated one afternoon a week to researching the feud between the two fathers, but after a time it became an obsession, biting heavily into his attendance at lectures. The Chicago Baron’s attempt to get Richard’s father removed from his own board would have made a good case study for the Harvard Business School. The more he discovered, the more Richard realized that his father and Florentyna’s were formidable rivals. Richard’s mother spoke of the feud as if she had needed to discuss it with someone for years.

‘Why are you taking such an interest in Mr. Rosnovski?’ she said.

‘I came across his name when I was going through some back copies of The Wall Street Journal .’ The truth, he thought, but a lie.

Florentyna took a day off from Bloomingdale’s and flew to Chicago to tell her mother what had happened. When Florentyna pressed her as to what she knew of the row she spoke for almost an hour without interruption. Florentyna hoped her mother was exaggerating, but a few carefully worded questions over dinner with George Novak made it painfully obvious that she hadn’t been.

Every weekend the two lovers exchanged their knowledge, which only added to the catalogue of hate.

‘It all seems so petty,’ said Florentyna. ‘Why don’t they just meet and talk it over? I think they would get on rather well together.’

‘I agree,’ said Richard. ‘But which one of us is going to try telling them that?’

‘Both of us are going to have to, sooner or later.’

As the weeks passed, Richard could not have been more attentive and kind. Although he tried to take Florentyna’s mind off ‘sooner or later’ with regular visits to the theater, the New York Philharmonic and long walks through the park, their conversation always drifted back to their parents.

Even during a cello recital that Richard gave her in her flat, Florentyna’s mind was occupied by her father: how could he be so obdurate? As the Brahms sonata came to an end Richard put down his bow and stared into her gray eyes.

‘We have got to tell them soon,’ he said, taking her in his arms.

‘I know we must. I just don’t want to hurt my father.’

‘I know.’

She looked down at the floor. ‘Next Friday, Papa will be back from Washington.’

‘Then it’s next Friday,’ said Richard quietly, not letting her go.

As Florentyna watched Richard drive away that night she wondered if she would be strong enough to keep her resolve.

On the Friday they both dreaded, Richard ducked his morning lecture and traveled down to New York in time to spend the rest of the day with Florentyna.

They spent that afternoon going over what they would say when they respectively faced their parents. At seven o’clock the two stepped out of Florentyna’s apartment onto the pavement of Fifty-seventh Street. They walked without talking. When they reached Park Avenue they stopped at the light.

‘Will you marry me?’

It was the last question on Florentyna’s mind as she braced herself to meet her father. A tear trickled down her cheek, a tear that she felt had no right to be there at the happiest moment of her life. Richard took a ring out of a little red box — a sapphire set in diamonds. He placed it on the third finger of her left hand. He tried to stop the tears by kissing her. He and Florentyna broke and stared at each other for a moment. Then he turned and strode away.

They had agreed to meet again at the apartment as soon as their ordeal was over. She stared at the ring on her finger, and at the antique ring on her right hand, her favorite of the past.

As Richard walked up Park Avenue he went over the sentences he had so carefully composed in his mind and found himself on Sixty-eighth Street long before he felt he had completed the rehearsal.

He found his father in the drawing room drinking the usual Teacher’s and soda before changing for dinner. His mother was complaining that his sister didn’t eat enough. ‘I think Virginia plans to be the thinnest thing in New York.’ Richard wanted to laugh.

‘Hello, Richard, I was expecting you earlier.’

‘Yes,’ said Richard. ‘I had to see someone before I came home.’

‘Who?’ said his mother, not sounding particularly interested.

‘The woman I am going to marry.’

They both looked at him astonished; it certainly wasn’t the opening sentence Richard had planned so carefully.

His father was the first to recover. ‘Don’t you think you’re a bit young? I feel sure you and Mary can afford to wait a little longer.’

‘It’s not Mary I intend to marry.’

‘Not Mary?’ said his mother.

‘No,’ said Richard. ‘Her name is Florentyna Rosnovski.’

Kate Kane turned white.

‘The daughter of Abel Rosnovski?’ William Kane said without expression.

‘Yes, Father,’ said Richard firmly.

‘Is this some sort of joke, Richard?’

‘No, Father. We met in unusual circumstances and fell in love without either of us realizing there was a misunderstanding between our parents.’

‘Misunderstanding? Misunderstanding?’ he repeated. ‘Don’t you realize that jumped-up Polish immigrant spends most of his life trying to get me thrown off my own board — and once nearly succeeded? And you describe that as a “misunderstanding.” Richard, you will never see the daughter of that crook again if you hope to sit on the board of Lester’s Bank. Have you thought about that?’

‘Yes, Father, I have, and it will make no difference to my decision. I have met the woman with whom I intend to spend the rest of my life and I am proud that she would even consider being my wife.’

‘She has tricked and ensnared you so that she and her father can finally take the bank away from me. Can’t you see through their plan?’

‘Even you can’t believe something as preposterous as that, Father.’

‘Preposterous? He once accused me of being responsible for killing his partner, Davis Leroy, when I—’

‘Father, Florentyna knew nothing of the circumstances surrounding your quarrel until she met me. How can you be so irrational?’

‘She has told you she’s pregnant so you will have to marry her.’