The Prodigal Daughter Read online

  WELCOME BACK TO WASHINGTON, SENATOR KANE

  Chapter

  Thirty-Two

  Nineteen eighty-five was to be a year for funerals, which made Florentyna feel every day of her fifty-one years.

  She returned to Washington to find she had been allocated a suite in the Russell Building, a mere six hundred yards from her old congressional office in the Longworth Building. For several days while she was settling in, she found herself still driving into the Longworth garage rather than the Russell courtyard. She also could not get used to being addressed as Senator, especially by Richard, who could mouth the title in such a way as to make it sound like a term of abuse. “You may imagine your status has increased, but they still haven’t given you a raise in salary. I can’t wait for you to be President,” he added. “Then at least you will earn as much as one of the bank’s vice presidents.”

  Florentyna’s salary might not have risen, but her expenses had as once again she surrounded herself with a team many senators would envy. She would have been the first to acknowledge the advantage of a strong financial base outside the world of politics. Most of her old team returned and were supplemented by new staffers who were in no doubt about Florentyna’s future. Her office in the Russell Building was in Suite 440. The other four rooms were now occupied by the fourteen staffers, led by the intrepid Janet Brown, who Florentyna had decided long ago was married to her job. In addition, Florentyna now had four offices throughout Illinois with three staffers working in each of them.

  Her new office overlooked the courtyard, with its fountain and cobblestoned parking area. The green lawn would be a popular lunch place for senate staffers during the warm weather, and for an army of squirrels in the winter.

  Florentyna told Richard that she estimated she would be paying out of her own pocket over $200,000 a year more than her senatorial allowance, an amount which varies from senator to senator depending on the size of their state and its population, she explained to her husband. Richard smiled and made a mental note to donate exactly the same sum to the Republican Party.

  No sooner had the Illinois State Seal been affixed to her office door than Florentyna received the telegram. It was simple and stark: “WINIFRED TREDGOLD PASSED AWAY ON THURSDAY AT ELEVEN O’CLOCK.”

  It was the first time Florentyna was aware of Miss Tredgold’s Christian name. She checked her watch, made two overseas calls and then buzzed for Janet to explain where she would be for the next forty-eight hours. By one o’clock that afternoon she was on board the Concorde and she arrived in London three hours and twenty-five minutes later at nine twenty-five. The chauffeur-driven car she had ordered was waiting for her as she emerged from Customs and drove her down the M4 motorway to Wiltshire. She checked into the Landsdowne Arms Hotel and read Saul Bellow’s The Dean’s December until three o’clock in the morning to counter the jet lag. Before turning the light out she called Richard.

  “Where are you?” were his first words.

  “I’m in a small hotel at Calne in Wiltshire, England.”

  “Why, pray? Is the Senate doing a fact-finding mission on English pubs?”

  “No, my darling. Miss Tredgold has died and I’m attending the funeral tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Richard. “If you had let me know I would have come with you. We both have a lot to thank that lady for.” Florentyna smiled. “When will you be coming home?”

  “Tomorrow evening’s Concorde.”

  “Sleep well, Jessie: I’ll be thinking of you—and Miss Tredgold.”

  At nine-thirty the next morning a maid brought in a breakfast tray of kippers, toast with Cooper’s Oxford marmalade, coffee and a copy of the London Times. She sat in bed savoring every moment, an indulgence she would never have allowed herself in Washington. By ten-thirty she had absorbed the Times and was not surprised to discover that the British were having the same problems with inflation and unemployment as those that prevailed in America. Florentyna got up and dressed in a simple black knitted suit. The only jewelry she wore was the little watch that Miss Tredgold had given her on her thirteenth birthday.

  The hotel porter told her that the church was about a mile away, and since the morning was so clear and crisp she decided to walk. What the porter had failed to point out to her was that the journey was uphill the whole way and his “about” was a “guesstimate.” As she strode along, she reflected on how little exercise she had had lately, despite the pristine Exercycle, which had been shipped up to Cape Cod. She had also allowed the jogging mania to pass her by.

  The tiny Norman church, surrounded by oaks and elms, was perched on the side of the hill. On the bulletin board was an appeal for 25,000 pounds to save the church roof; according to a little blob of red on a thermometer, over 1,000 pounds had already been collected. To Florentyna’s surprise she was met in the vestry by a waiting verger and led to a place in the front pew next to an imperious lady who could only have been the headmistress.

  The church was far fuller than Florentyna had expected it to be and the school had supplied the choir. The service was simple, and the address given by the parish priest left Florentyna in no doubt that Miss Tredgold had continued to teach others with the same dedication and common sense that had influenced the whole of Florentyna’s life. She tried not to cry during the address—she knew Miss Tredgold would not have approved—but she nearly succumbed when they sang her governess’s favorite hymn, “Rock of Ages.”

  When the service was over, Florentyna filed back with the rest of the congregation through the Norman porch and stood in the little churchyard to watch the mortal remains of Winifred Tredgold disappear into the ground. The headmistress, a carbon copy of Miss Tredgold—Florentyna found it hard to believe that such women still existed—said she would like to show Florentyna something of the school before she left. On their way, she learned that Miss Tredgold had never talked about Florentyna except to her two or three closest friends, but when the headmistress opened the door of a small bedroom in a cottage on the school estate, Florentyna could no longer hold back the tears. By the bed was a photograph of a vicar who, Florentyna remembered, was Miss Tredgold’s father, and by its side, in a small silver Victorian frame, stood a picture of Florentyna graduating from Girls Latin next to an old Bible. In the bedside drawer, they discovered every one of Florentyna’s letters written over the past thirty years; the last one remained unopened by her bed.

  “Did she know I had been elected to the Senate?” Florentyna asked diffidently.

  “Oh, yes, the whole school prayed for you that day. It was the last occasion on which Miss Tredgold read the lesson in chapel, and before she died she asked me to write to tell you she felt her father had been right and that she had indeed taught a woman of destiny. My dear, you must not cry; her belief in God was so unshakable that she died in total peace with this world. Miss Tredgold also asked me to give you her Bible and this envelope, which you must not open until you have returned home. It’s something she bequeathed you in her will.”

  As Florentyna left, she thanked the headmistress for all her kindness and added that she had been touched and surprised at being met by the verger when no one knew she was coming.

  “Oh, you should have not been surprised, child,” said the headmistress. “I never doubted for a moment that you would come.”

  Florentyna traveled back to London clutching the envelope. She longed to open it, like a little girl who has seen a package in the hall but knows it is for her birthday the following day. She caught the Concorde at 6:30 that evening, arriving back at Dulles by 5:30 P.M. She was seated at her desk in the Russell Building by 6:30 the same evening. She stared at the envelope marked “Florentyna Kane” and then slowly tore it open. She pulled out the contents, four thousand shares of Baron Group stock. Miss Tredgold had died presumably unaware that she was worth over half a million dollars. Florentyna took out her pen and wrote out a check for 25,000 pounds for a new church roof in memory of Miss Winifred Tredgold and sent the shares to Professo