The Prodigal Daughter Read online

  “I should have kept a straighter arm on the first shot and then we would never have met.”

  Florentyna assumed Miss Tredgold was admonishing herself yet again and remained behind the tree.

  “Come here, child.” Florentyna obediently ran out but said nothing.

  Miss Tredgold took another ball from the side pocket of her bag and placed it on the ground in front of her. She selected a club and handed it to her charge.

  “Try to hit the ball in that direction,” she said pointing toward a flag about a hundred yards away.

  Florentyna held the club awkwardly before taking several swings at the ball, on each occasion digging up what Miss Tredgold called a “divot.” At last she managed to push it twenty yards toward the fairway. She beamed with pleasure.

  “I see we are in for a long afternoon,” declared Miss Tredgold resignedly.

  “I am sorry,” said Florentyna. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  “For following me, yes. But for the state of your golf, no. We shall have to start with the basics, as it seems in the future I am no longer to have Thursday afternoons to myself, now you have discovered my father’s only sin.”

  Miss Tredgold taught Florentyna how to play golf with the same energy and application as if it were Latin or Greek. By the end of the summer holiday Florentyna’s favorite afternoon was Thursday.

  Upper School was very different from Middle School. There was a new teacher for every subject rather than one teacher for everything but gym and art. The pupils moved from room to room for their classes, and for many of the activities the girls joined forces with the boys’ school. Florentyna’s favorite subjects were current affairs, Latin, French and English, although she couldn’t wait for her twice-weekly biology classes, because they gave her the chance to use a microscope and admire the school’s collection of bugs.

  “Insects, dear child. You must refer to the little creatures as insects,” Miss Tredgold insisted.

  “Actually, Miss Tredgold, they’re nematodes.”

  Florentyna continued to take an interest in clothes and noticed that the mode for short dresses caused by the enforced economies of war was fast becoming outdated and that once again skirts were returning toward the ground. She was unable to do much about experimenting with fashion, as the school uniform was the same year in and year out; the children’s department of Marshall Field’s, it seemed, was not influenced by Vogue. However, she studied all the relevant magazines in the library and pestered her mother to take her to more shows. For Miss Tredgold, on the other hand, who had never allowed any man to see her knees, even in the self-denying days of Lend-Lease, the new fashion only proved she had been right all along.

  At the end of Florentyna’s first year in Upper School the modern-languages mistress decided to put on a performance of Shaw’s Saint Joan in French. As Florentyna was the one pupil who could think in the language, she was chosen to play the Maid of Orleans, and she rehearsed for hours in the old nursery, with Miss Tredgold playing every other part as well as being prompter and cue reader. Even when Florentyna was word-perfect, Miss Tredgold sat loyally through the daily one-woman shows.

  “Only the Pope and I give audiences for one,” she told Florentyna as the phone rang.

  “It’s for you,” said Miss Tredgold.

  Florentyna always enjoyed receiving phone calls, although it was not a practice that Miss Tredgold encouraged.

  “Hello, it’s Edward. I need your help.”

  “Why? Don’t tell me you’ve opened a schoolbook…”

  “No hope of that, silly. But I’ve been given the part of the Dauphin and I can’t pronounce all the words.”

  Florentyna tried not to laugh. “Come around at five-thirty and you can join the daily rehearsals. Although I must warn you, Miss Tredgold has been making a very good Dauphin up to now.”

  Edward came around every night at five-thirty and although Miss Tredgold occasionally frowned when “the boy” lapsed back into an American accent, he was “just about ready” by the day of the dress rehearsal.

  When the night of the performance itself came, Miss Tredgold instructed Florentyna and Edward that under no circumstances must they look out into the audience hoping to spot their parents; otherwise those watching the performance would not believe the character they were portraying. Most unprofessional, Miss Tredgold considered, and reminded Florentyna that Mr. Noël Coward had once left a performance of Romeo and Juliet because Mr. John Gielgud looked straight at him during a soliloquy. Florentyna was convinced, although in truth she had no idea who John Gielgud and Noël Coward were.

  When the curtain went up, Florentyna did not once look beyond the footlights. Miss Tredgold considered her efforts “most commendable” and during the intermission particularly commented to Florentyna’s mother on the scene in which the Maid is alone in the center of the stage and talks to her voices. “Moving,” was Miss Tredgold’s description. “Unquestionably moving.” When the last curtain finally fell, Florentyna received an ovation, even from those who had not been able to follow every word in French. Edward stood a pace behind her, relieved to have come through the ordeal without too many mistakes. Glowing with excitement, Florentyna removed her makeup, her first experience of lipstick and powder, changed back into her school uniform and joined her mother and Miss Tredgold with the other parents who were having coffee in the dining hall. Several people came over to congratulate her on her performance including the headmaster of the Boys Latin School.

  “A remarkable achievement for a girl of her age,” he told Mrs. Rosnovski. “Though when you think about it, she is only a couple of years younger than Saint Joan was when she challenged the entire might of the French establishment.”

  “Saint Joan didn’t have to learn someone else’s lines in a foreign language,” said Zaphia, feeling pleased with herself.

  Florentyna did not take in her mother’s words; her eyes were searching the crowded hall for her father.

  “Where’s Papa?” she asked.

  “He couldn’t make it tonight.”

  “But he promised,” said Florentyna. “He promised.” Tears welled up in her eyes as she suddenly realized why Miss Tredgold had told her not to look beyond the footlights.

  “You must remember, child, that your father is a very busy man. He has a small empire to run.”

  “So did Saint Joan,” said Florentyna.

  When Florentyna went to bed that night, Miss Tredgold came to turn out her light.

  “Papa doesn’t love Mama any more, does he?”

  The bluntness of the question took Miss Tredgold by surprise and it was a few moments before she recovered.

  “Of only one thing I am certain, child, and that is that they both love you.”

  “Then why has Papa stopped coming home?”

  “That I cannot explain, but whatever his reasons, we must be very understanding and grown-up,” said Miss Tredgold, brushing back a lock of hair that had fallen over Florentyna’s forehead.

  Florentyna felt very un-grown-up and wondered if Saint Joan had been so unhappy when she lost her beloved France. When Miss Tredgold closed the door quietly, Florentyna put her hand under the bed to feel the reassuring wet nose of Eleanor. “At least I’ll always have you,” she whispered. Eleanor clambered from her hiding place onto the bed and settled down next to Florentyna, facing the door: a quick retreat to her basket in the kitchen might prove necessary if Miss Tredgold reappeared.

  Florentyna did not see her father during the summer vacation and had long stopped believing the stories that the growing hotel empire was keeping him away from Chicago. When she mentioned him to her mother, Zaphia’s replies were often bitter. Florentyna also found out from overheard telephone conversations that she was consulting lawyers.

  Each day, Florentyna would take Eleanor for a walk down Michigan Avenue in the hope that she might see her father’s car drive by. One Wednesday, she decided to make a break in her routine and walk on the west side of the avenue to study the