The Prodigal Daughter (4 page)

When Miss
Tredgold picked up her charge from school that afternoon she could hardly miss
noticing that the child’s face was red from crying and that she walked with a bowed
head, clinging onto blue-faced FDR by his remaining arm. Miss Tredgold coaxed
the whole story out of Florentyna before they reached home. She then gave the
child her favorite supper of hamburger and ice cream, two dishes of which she
normally disapproved, and put her to bed early, hoping she would quickly fall
asleep. After a futile hour with nail brush and soap spent trying to clean up
the indelibly stained bear, Miss Tredgold was forced to concede defeat. As she
laid the damp animal by Florentyna’s side, a small voice from under the
bedcovers said, “Thank you, Miss Tredgold. FDR needs all the friends he can
get.

When Abel
returned a little after 10 P.m. – he had taken to arriving home late almost
every night – Miss Tredgold sought a private mocting with him.

Abel was
surprised by the request and led her at once to his study.

During the
eighteen months she had been in his employ, Miss Tredgold had always reported
the week’s progress to Mr. Rosnovski on Sundays between 10 and 10:30 a.m. when
Zaphia accompanied Florentyna to Sunday Mass at Holy Name Cathedral. Miss
Tredgold’s reports were always clear and accurate; if anything, she had a
tendency to underestimate the child’s achievements.

“What’s the
problem, Miss Tredgold?” asked Abel, trying to sound unworried. With such a
break in routine he dreaded the thought that she might want to give her notice.
Miss Tredgold repeated the story of what had taken place at school that day.

Abel became
redder and redder in the face as the story progressed and was scarlet before
Miss Tredgold came to the end.

“Intolerable”
was his first word. “Florentyna must be removed immediately. I’ll personally
see Miss Allen tomorrow and tell her exactly what I think of her and her
school. I’m sure you will approve of my decision, Miss Tredgold.”

“No, sir, I do
not,” came back an unusually sharp reply.

“I beg your
pardon?” said Abel in disbelief.

“I believe you
are as much to blame as the parents of Edward Winchester.”

“I” said Abel.
“Why?”

“You should have
told your daughter a long time ago the significance of being Polish and how to
deal with any problems that might arise because of it. You should have
explained the American’s deep-seated prejudice against the Poles, a prejudice
that in my own opinion is every bit as reprehensible as the English attitude
towards the Irish, and only a few steps away from the Nazi’s barbaric behavior
towards the Jews.”

Abel remained
silent. It was a long time since anyone had told him he was wrong about
anything.

“Do you have
anything else to say” he asked when he had recovered.

“Yes, Mr.
Rosnovski. If you remove Florentyna from Girls Latin, I shall give my notice
immediately. If on the first occasion the child encounters some problem you
choose to run away from it, how can I hope to teach her to cope with life?
Watching my own country at war because we wanted to go on believing Hitler was
a reasonable man, if slightly misguided, I can hardly be expected to pass on
the same misconstruction of events to Florentyna. It will be heartbreaking for
me to have to leave her, because I could not love Florentyna more if she were
my own child, but I cannot approve of disguising the real world because you
have enough money to keep the truth conveniently hidden for a few more years. I
must apologize for my frankness, Mr. Rosnovski, as I feel I have gone too far,
but I cannot condemn other people’s prejudices while at the same time condoning
yours.”

Abel sank back
into his seat before replying. “Miss Tredgold, you should have been an
ambassador, not a governess. Of course you’re right. What would you advise me
to do?”

Miss Tredgold,
who was still standing, she would never have dreamed of sitting in her
employer’s presence unless she was with Florentyna hesitated.

“The child
should rise thirty minutes earlier each day for the next month and be taught
Polish history. She must learn why Poland is a great nation and why the Poles
were willing to challenge the might of Germany when alone they could never have
hoped for victory. Then she will be able to face those who goad her about her
ancestry with knowledge, not ignorance. “

Abel looked her
squarely in the eyes. “I see now what George Bernard Shaw meant when he said
that you have to meet the English governess to discover why Britain is great.”

They both
laughed.

“I’m surprised
you don’t want to make more of your life, Miss Tredgold,” said Abel, suddenly
aware that what he had said might have sounded offensive. If it did, Miss
Tredgold gave no sign of being offended.

“My father had
six daughters. He had hoped for a boy, but it was not to be.”

“And
what of the other five?”

“They are all
married,” she replied without bitterness.

“And you?”

“He once said to
me that I was born to be a teacher and that the Lord’s plan took us all in its
compass so perhaps I might teach someone who does have a destiny.”

“Let us hope so,
Miss Tredgold.” Abel would have called her by her first name, but he did not
know what it was. All he knew was that she signed herself “W. Tredgold” in a
way that did not invite inquiries. He smiled up at her.

“Will you join
me in a drink, Miss Tredgold?”

“Thank you, Mr.
Rosnovski. A little sherry would be most pleasant. “

Abel poured her
a dry sherry and himself a large whiskey.

“How bad is
FDR
’

“Maimed for life,
I fear, which will only make the child love him the more. In the future I have
decided FDR must reside at home and will only travel when accompanied by me.”

“You’re
beginning to sound like Eleanor talking about the President.”

Miss TreAlgold
laughed once more and sipped her sherry. “May I offer one more suggestion
concerning Flarentyna?”

“Certainly,”
said Abel, who proceeded to listen intently to Miss Tredgold’s recommendation.
By the time they had finished their second drink, Abel had nodded his approval,
“Good,” said Miss Tredgold. “Then, with your permission, I will deal, with that
at the first possible opportunity.”

“Certainly,”
repeated Abel.
“Of course, when it comes to these morning
sessions.
it
may not be practical for me to do
a whole month without a break.” Miss Tredgold was about to speak when Abel
added, “There may be appointments that I cannot reschedule at such short
notice. As I am sure you will understand.”

“You must, Mr.
Rosnovski, do what you think best, and if you find there is something more
important than your daughter’s future, I am sure it is she who will
understand.”

Abel knew when
he was beaten. He canceled all appointments outside Chicago for a full month
and rose each morning thirty minutes early. Even Zaphia approved of Miss Tredgold’s
idea.

The first (lay
he started by telling Florentyna how he had been born in a forest in Poland and
adopted by a trapper’s family and how later he had been befriended by a great
Baron who took him into his castle in Slonim, on the Polish-Russian border. “He
treated me like his own son,” Abel told her.

As the days went
by, Abel revealed to his daughter how his sister Florentyna, after whom she had
been named, joined him in the castle and the way he discovered the Baron was
his real father.

“I know, I know
how you found out,” cried Florentyna.

“How can you
know, little one?”

“He only had one
nipple,” said Florentyna. “It must be
,
it must be.
I’ve seen you in the bath. You only have one nipple, so you had to be his son.
All the boys at school have two...”

Abel and Miss
Tredgold stared at the child in disbelief as she continued, “
but
if I’m your daughter, why have I got two?”

“Because it’s
only passed from father to son and is almost unknown in daughters.”

“It’s not fair.
I want only one,” Abel began laughing. “Well, perhaps if you have a son, he’ll
have only one.”

“Time for you to
braid your hair and get ready for school,” said Miss Tredgold.

“But it’s just
getting exciting.”

“Do as you are
told, child.”

Florentyna
reluctantly left her father and went to the bathroom.

“What do you
think is going to happen tomorrow, Miss Tredgold?” Florentyna asked on the way
to school.

“I have no idea,
child, but as Mr. Asquith once advised, wait and see.”

“Was Mr. Asquith
in the castle with Papa, Miss Tredgold?”

In the days that
followed, Abel explained what life was like in a Russian prison camp and what
had caused him to limp. He went on to teach his daughter the stories the Baron
had told him in the dungeons over twenty years before. Florentyna followed the
stories of the legendary Polish hero Tadeusz
Kosciuszko,
and all the other great figures through to the present day, while Miss Tredgold
pointed to a map she had pinned on the bedroom wall.

Abel finally
explained to his daughter how he had come into possession of the’silver band
that he wore on his wrist.

“What does it
say?” demanded Florentyna, staring at the tiny engraved letters.

“Try to read the
words, little one,” said Abel.

“Bar-on Ab-el
Ros-nov-ski,” she stuttered out. “But that’s your name,” she insisted.

“And it was my
father’s.”

After a few more
days, Florentyna could answer all her father’s questions, even if Abel couldn’t
always answer all of hers.

At school,
Florentyna daily expected Edward Winchester to pick on her again, but he seemed
to have forgotten the incident, and on one occasion even offered to share an
apple with her.

Not everyone in
the class, however, had forgotten, and one girl in particular, a fat, rather
dull classmate, took special pleasure in whispering the words “Stupid Polack”
within her hearing.

Florentyna did
not retaliate immediately, but waited until some weeks later when the girl,
having come in at the bottom of the class in a history test while Florentyna
came in at the top, announced, “At least I’m not a Polack.” Edward Winchester
frowned, but some of the class giggled.

Florentyna
waited for total silence before she spoke. “True. You’re not a Polack; you’re a
third-generation American, with a history that goes back about a hundred years.
Mine can be traced for a thousand, which is why you are at the bottom in
history and I am at the top.”

No one in the
class ever referred to the subject again. When Miss Tredgold heard the story on
the way home, she smiled to herself.

“Shall we tell
Papa this evening?”

“No,
my dear.
Pride has never been a virtue. There are some occasions on which it is wise to
remain silent.”

The six-year-old
girl nodded thoughtfully before asking: “Do you think a Pole could ever be
President of the United States?”

“Certainly,
if the American people can overcome their own prejudice.”

“And
how about a Catholic?”

“That will
become irrelevant, even in my lifetime.”

“And a woman?”
added Florentyna.

“That might take
a little longer, child.”

That night, Miss
Tredgold reported to Mr. Rosnovski that his lessons had proved worthwhile.

“And when will
you carry out the second part of your plan, Miss Tredgold?”

Abel asked.

“Tomorrow,” she
replied, smiling.

At three-thirty
the following afternoon Miss Tredgold was standing on the comer of the street
waiting for her ward to finish school. Florentyna came chattering out through
the gates and they had walked for several blocks before she noticed that they
were not taking their usual route home.

“Where are we
going, Miss Tredgold?”

“Patience,
child, and all will be revealed.”

Miss Tredgold
smiled while Florentyna seemed more concemed with telling her how well she had
done in an English test that morning, a monologue she kept up all the way to
Menomonee Street, where Miss Tredgold began to take more interest in the
numbers an the doors than in Florentyna’s real and imagined achievements.

At last they
came to a halt outside a newly painted red door which displayed the number 218.
Miss Tredgold rapped on the door twice with her gloved knuckle. Florentyna
stood by her side, silent for the first time since leaving school. A few
moments passed before the door opened to reveal a man dressed in a gray sweater
and blue jeans.

“I’ve come in
response to your advertisement in the Sun,” Miss Tredgold said before the man
had a chance to speak.