'Thank you, thank you,' she said as she took each note, her old eyes watering with pleasure.
Abel bent over to kiss his foster - mother, but she backed away - Flor - entyna took her father's arm and led Abel out of the cottage and back down the forest track in the direction of their car.
The old woman watched from her window until she was sure they were out of sight. Then she took the new bank notes, crumpled each one into a little ball and placed them all carefully in the grate. They kindled immediately.
She placed twigs and srnall logs on top of the blazing zlotys and sat slowly down by her fire, the best in weeks, rubbing her hands together at the comfort of the warmth.
Abel did not speak on the walk back to the car until the iron gates were once again in sight. Then he promised Florentyna, trying his best to forget the little Cottage, 'You are about to see the most beautiful castle in the world,'
'You must stop exaggerating, Daddy.'
'In the world,' Abel repeated quietly.
Florentyna laughed. 'I'll let you know how it compares with Versailles.'
They climbed back into the car and Abel drove through the gates, remembering the vehicles he had been in when he last passed through them, and up the mile - long drive to the castle. Memories came flooding back to him. Happy days as a child with the Baron and Leon, unhappy days of his life when he was taken away from his beloved castle by the Russians, imagining he would never see the building again. But now he, Wladek Koskiewicz, was returning, returning in triumph to reclaim what was his.
The car bumped up the winding road and both remained silent in anticipation as they rounded the final bend to the first sight of Baron Rosnovski's home. Abel brought the car to a halt and gazed at his castle.
Neither of them spoke, but simply stared in disbelief at the devastation of the bombedout remains of his dream.
He and Florentyna climbed slowly out of the car. Still neither spoke.
Florentyna held her father's hand very, very tightly as the tears rolled down his cheeks. Only one wall remained precariously standing in a semblance of its former glory; the rest was nothing more than a neglected pile of rubble and red stone. He could not bear to tell her of the great halls, the wings, the kitchens, the bedrooms. Abel walked over to the three mounds, now smooth with thick green grass, that were the graves of the Baron and his son Leon and the other of beloved Florentyna. He paused at each one and could not help but think that Leon and Florentyna could still be alive today. He knelt at their heads, the dreadful visions of their final moments returning to him vividly. His daughter stood by his side, her hand resting on his shoulder, saying nothing. A long time passed before Abel rose slowly and then they tramped over the rums together. Stone slabs marked the places where once magnificent rooms had been filled with laughter. Abel still said nothing.
Holding hands, they reached the dungeons. There Abel sat down on the floor of the damp little room near the grille, or the half of the grille that was still left. He twisted the silver band round and round.
'This is where your father spent four years of his life.'
'It can't be possible,' said Florentyna, who did not sit down.
'It's better now than it was then,' said Abel. 'At least now there is fresh air, birds, the sun and a feeling of freedom. Then there was nothing, only darkness, death, the stench of death, and worst of all, the hope of death.'
'Come on, Daddy, let's leave. Staying here can only make you feel worse!
Florentyna led her reluctant father to the car and drove him slowly down the long avenue. Abel didn't look back towards the ruined castle as they passed for the last time through its iron gates.
On the journey back to Warsaw he hardly spoke and Florentyna abandoned her attempts at vivacity. When her father said 'There is now only one thing left that I must achieve - in this life,' Florentyna wondered what he could mean but did not press him to explain. She did, however, manage to coax him into spending another weekend in London on the return journey, which she convinced herself would cheer her father up a little and perhaps even help him to forget the memory of his demented old foster - mother and the remains of his castle in Poland.
They flew to London the next day. Abel was glad to be back in a country where he could communicate quickly with America. Once they had booked into Claridges, Florentyna, went off to reunite with old friends and make new ones. Abel spent his time reading all the papers he could lay his hands on, in the hope of bringing himself up to date with what had happened in America while he had been abroad. He didn't like to feel things could happen while he was away; it reminded him only too clearly that the world could get along very well without him.