The Prodigal Daughter Read online

  “I’m listening,” said Henry, still not looking up from his glass.

  “I want to lay my hands on a substantial shareholding in Kane’s Boston bank.”

  “You won’t find that easy,” said Henry. “Most of the stock is held in a family trust and cannot be sold without his personal concurrence.”

  “You seem very well informed,” said Abel.

  “Common knowledge,” said Henry.

  Abel didn’t believe him. “Well, let’s start by finding out the name of every shareholder in Kane and Cabot and see if any of them are interested in parting with their stock at a price considerably above par.”

  Abel watched Henry’s eyes light up as he began to contemplate how much might be in this transaction for him if he could make a deal with both sides.

  “If he ever found out he’d play very rough,” said Henry.

  “He’s not going to find out,” said Abel. “And even if he did, we’d be at least two moves ahead of him. Do you think you are capable of doing the job?”

  “I can try. What did you have in mind?”

  Abel realized that Henry was trying to find out what payment he might expect, but he hadn’t finished yet. “I want a written report the first day of every month showing Kane’s shareholdings in any company, his business commitments and all details you can obtain of his private life. I want everything you come up with, however trivial it may seem.”

  “I repeat, that won’t be easy,” said Henry.

  “Will a thousand dollars a month make the task easier?”

  “Fifteen hundred certainly would,” replied Henry.

  “A thousand dollars a month for the first six months. If you prove yourself, I’ll raise the figure to fifteen hundred.”

  “It’s a deal,” said Henry.

  “Good,” said Abel as he took his billfold from his inside pocket and extracted a check already made out to cash for one thousand dollars.

  Henry studied the check. “You were pretty confident I would fall into line, weren’t you?”

  “No, not altogether,” said Abel as he removed a second check from his billfold and showed it to Henry. It was made out for fifteen hundred dollars. “If you come up with some winners in the first six months, you’ll only have lost three thousand overall.”

  Both men laughed.

  “Now to a more pleasant subject,” said Abel. “Are we going to win?”

  “The Cubs?”

  “No, the election.”

  “Sure, Landon is in for a whipping. The Kansas Sunflower can’t hope to beat FDR,” said Henry. “As the President reminded us, that particular flower is yellow, has a black heart, is useful as parrot food and always dies before November.”

  Abel laughed again. “And how about you personally?”

  “No worries. The seat has always been safe for the Democrats. The difficult thing was winning the nomination, not the election.”

  “I look forward to your being a congressman, Henry.”

  “I’m sure you do, Abel. And I look forward to serving you as well as my other constituents.”

  Abel looked at him quizzically. “Considerably better, I should hope,” he commented as a sirloin steak that almost covered the plate was placed in front of him while another glass was filled with a Côte de Beaune 1929. The rest of the lunch was spent discussing Gabby Hartnett’s injury problems, Jesse Owens’s four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics and the possibility that Hitler would invade Poland.

  “Never,” said Henry, and started to reminisce about the courage of the Poles at Mons in the Great War.

  Abel didn’t comment on the fact that no Polish regiment had seen action at Mons.

  At two thirty-seven, Abel was back at his desk considering the problems of the Presidential Suite and the eight thousand fresh rolls.

  He did not arrive home from the Baron that night until nine o’clock, only to find Florentyna already asleep. But she woke immediately as her father entered the nursery and smiled up at him.

  “Presidunk, Presidunk, Presidunk.”

  Abel smiled. “Not me. You perhaps, but not me.” He picked up his daughter and kissed her on the cheek and sat with her while she repeated her one-word vocabulary over and over again.

  Chapter

  Three

  In November 1936, Henry Osborne was elected to the United States House of Representatives for the Ninth District of Illinois. His majority was slightly smaller than his predecessor’s, a fact that could be attributed only to his laziness because Roosevelt had carried every state except Vermont and Maine, and in Congress the Republicans were down to 17 senators and 103 representatives. But all that Abel cared about was that his man had a seat in the House, and he immediately offered him the chairmanship of the Planning Committee of the Baron Group. Henry gratefully accepted.

  Abel channeled all his energy into building more and more hotels—with the help of Congressman Osborne, who seemed able to fix building permits wherever the Baron next desired. The cash Henry required for these favors was always paid in used bills. Abel had no idea what Henry did with the money, but it was evident that some of it had to be falling into the right hands, and he had no wish to know the details.

  Despite his deteriorating relationship with Zaphia, Abel still wanted a son and began to despair when his wife failed to conceive. He initially blamed Zaphia, who longed for a second child, and eventually she nagged him into seeing a doctor. Finally Abel agreed and was humiliated to learn that he had a low sperm count: the doctor attributed this to early malnutrition and told him that it was most unlikely he would ever father again. From that moment the subject was closed and Abel lavished all his affection and hopes on Florentyna, who grew like a weed. The only thing in Abel’s life that grew faster was the Baron Group. He built a new hotel in the North, and another in the South, while modernizing and streamlining the older hotels already in the Group.

  At the age of four, Florentyna attended her first nursery school. She insisted that Abel and Franklin D. Roosevelt accompany her on the opening day. Most of the other girls were chaperoned by women who Abel was surprised to discover were not always their mothers but often nannies and, in one case, as he was gently corrected, a governess. That night he told Zaphia that he wanted someone similarly qualified to take charge of Florentyna.

  “What for?” asked Zaphia sharply.

  “So that no one in that school starts life with an advantage over our daughter.”

  “I think it’s a stupid waste of money. What would such a person be able to do for her that I can’t?”

  Abel didn’t reply, but the next morning he placed advertisements in the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times and the London Times, seeking applicants for the post of governess, stating clearly the terms offered. Hundreds of replies came in from all over the country from highly qualified women who wanted to work for the chairman of the Baron Group. Letters arrived from Radcliffe, Vassar and Smith; there was even one from the Federal Reformatory for Women. But it was the reply from a lady who had obviously never heard of the Chicago Baron that intrigued him most.

  The Old Rectory

  Much Hadham

  Hertfordshire

  12 September 1938

  Dear Sir,

  In reply to your advertisement in the personal column on the front page of today’s issue of The Times, I should like to be considered for the post of governess to your daughter.

  I am thirty-two years of age, being the sixth daughter of the Very Rev. L. H. Tredgold and a spinster of the parish of Much Hadham in Hertfordshire. I am at present teaching in the local grammar school and assisting my father in his work as Rural Dean.

  I was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, where I read Latin, Greek, French and English for my higher matriculation, before taking up a closed scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge. At the University, I sat my finals, gaining first class awards in all three parts of the Modern Language tripos. I do not hold a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University, as their statutes preclude