Miss Fisher and an Honorable Man
Author’s Note: This would make sense only if you have seen Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and are a Phrack fan. The three seasons were followed by a movie after a long gap – Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears. While it gave some apt Phryne-Jack scenes, I didn’t like the setting and the story of the movie one bit. The Indiana Jones-iasation of Miss Fisher didn’t work for me. So, I took what I liked of Phrack in the movie and set them in the context where it makes sense to me. Enjoy!
—
“I had told her that her luck will run out. But she would never listen. That foolish, foolish, girl,” Mrs. Stanley had started weeping, once again forgetting all about the actual problem she had called Jack to deal with.
Jack couldn’t take it any more. Everyone was distraught. Anybody who had known Ms. Fisher could talk to him about nothing other than her death and how they saw it coming and how they had always worried for her and how big a loss it was to them.
Dr. Mac was the only exception, but Jack couldn’t get himself to treat her the way others were treating him. As a sink, for their feelings, quite unmindful of his own.
And what were his feelings? In her life, he hadn’t presumed to resent her for her recklessness, her adventures, her being herself. He wasn’t going to do that in her death. He had no other feelings to counter his unfathomable grief. No resentment, no anger, no sense of foreknowledge. He had no way to come to terms with it either. The grief was just going to be there with him. Always. Just like Phryne Fisher was since the day they had bumped into each other, on “their” first case together.
“Mrs. Stanley,” he managed to interrupt Aunt Prudence’s tirade, “I will go to Newtown tomorrow. It will be necessary for the investigation.”
“Oh, thank you, Inspector. With Phryne gone…”
“Victorian police will still function, Mrs. Stanley. Good day to you.”
As he picked up his hat, yet another scene from past played before his eyes.
“…you paid dearly in millinery terms. For the next woman who decides to use your hat for her target practice.”
That sort of thing didn’t happen when Miss Fisher was not around. The world was much less dangerous and much more predictable without Miss Fisher in it. And yet, what kind of a world was it.
He hadn’t been able to wear the hat she had given him ever since the news had arrived. He had gotten a new one. He shook his head to get rid of visions when the door to the parlor was flung open.
“Aunt Prudence, what is wrong with your staff?”
Jack Robinson still had the ability to distinguish the reality from visions and he knew instantly that this was no vision. But it hit him like a hammer on his head. His ears ringed, his senses refused to be coherent. He froze on his spot.
“Phryne!” he heard Mrs. Stanley’s shocked voice, but tuned out everything after that. He kept staring at her, he saw her familiar animated manners, and her amused attempts at calming her aunt down, and suddenly his grief took a new form. Of anger. Anger that he couldn’t feel when she was dead.
—
Once Phryne managed to calm Aunt Prudence down and sent her to assure her staff that she was not a ghost, she turned around with the intention to slump on the armchair. Her heart leapt when she found Jack, his eyes fixed on her.
“Jack! What are you doing here?” she jumped forward in excitement.
He took a step back.
Her eyes fell on his hat. She couldn’t help teasing him. “Is that a new hat?”
“Is that all you have got to say to me? Do you have any idea what it was like for me? Reading that you died a horrible death over the ocean, in the middle of nowhere?”
“Why are you so angry?”
“Your aunt was planning a memorial. I wrote a eulogy. For you.”
“You did? What does it say?” Her animated response didn’t help his mood.
“It says that I am done with you.” He put on his hat at last and made to leave.
“Jack, wait!” Phryne panicked. This was unusual. She wasn’t able to get through to him with her antics. She threw another random bait, “How can you just leave? You were here for Aunt Prudence, weren’t you? She must have needed your help.”
“She needed my help because you were…” he stopped and swallowed. Despite his anger, he couldn’t get himself to utter the word “dead”. “Because you weren’t here. Now you are and you are more than capable of solving her problem, Miss Fisher. Have a good day.”
Phryne watched him storm out. She needed to figure this out. Any attempts to detain him now was only likely to hurt him more. She collapsed in the chair as she had originally intended to. She had to admit that she couldn’t fathom what he was going through. She could understand the grief he must have felt. She had lost Janey. And still grieved for her. But how would she react if it had been miraculously revealed that Janey was alive after all. She had no idea.
She would have to reach out to Jack again. And in a way that would connect them again. What was that way? She smiled. There was one thing that always connected them. A case. And Aunt Prudence seemed to have one. That’s what she had called Jack here for.
—
It was after Jack was inside the car that the relief he should have felt finally washed over him. He laughed and cried at the same time. He hadn’t lost her. She was alive, and well, and her usual self. He would take the pain of writing a hundred eulogies to finally have this relief. Oh, he would. He was still angry, and he would have it out with her. He would make her suffer. But he hadn’t lost her.
And now he was getting late for his meeting with the commissioner. After six weeks, six weeks that he had mourned for her, he might just be able to focus on what was being discussed in the meetings. Or perhaps not, but for a very different reason now.
—
With her impeccable timing, Miss Fisher’s car stopped in the front of the constabulary just as he was returning there. When he saw her, he turned on his heels and started walking away.
“Jack, wait!” How delicious that familiar refrain sounded, he smirked knowing she couldn’t see him yet. “Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“What? In the middle of the day?”
He stopped, turned back, and walked up to her, and stood close.
“So, what? Will you complain to the commissioner?”
“I can’t. You were going in the wrong direction.”
He turned and started walking away again.
“Jack. Why are you angry?” she cried out.
“Couldn’t you have at least informed me that you were safe?” He shouted back and continued walking.
“I didn’t know that they were reporting my death.”
“Good for you.”
“Alright! I am sorry. I am sorry that I didn’t inform you. And I am even more sorry for not being dead and disappointing you.”
He came back again and glowered at her.
“You know what the best way to keep yourself updated on all my troubles is?”
“Lock you up? In the cell overlooking my office?”
“Accompany me on the cases. And Aunt Prudence has one.”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t really leave me alone to drive to Newtown with Aunt Prudence, would you? Even Dot can’t come with me in her condition.”
“Still, no.”
“But I have heard there are spiders there, Jack.”
“No!”
She smirked as she looked in his eyes. She had him, and she knew it.
Jack gave in, and pulled her in an embrace. Finally letting himself feel the relief in its entirety.
“You must behave yourself in front of Aunt Prudence, Jack,” she teased him as he released her.
“Let me get my suitcase from the car. Then we can pick her up.”
“You are already prepared?” Phryne was genuinely surprised.
“Always, Miss Fisher, for you.”
He had made a trip home after his meeting. Phryne wouldn’t wait until tomorrow to leave for Newtown, he knew that.
—
“So, our man of interest has left for a town that is at least 6-hours drive away, even for me,” said Phryne as they came out of a shady-looking house in Newtown, “It’s already dark, Aunt Prudence can’t possibly be put through the torture of a night-time drive, and the only decent hotel in town is shut for renovation.”
“Aptly summarized, Miss Fisher,” Jack’s responded with a flick of eyebrow and a slight tilt of his head.
“I would rather have a crashed plane in the ocean than break this news to Aunt Prudence.”
“There is a motel at the outskirt of the town. Not the best place, but we do need a roof over our head.”
Phryne shrugged.
It turned out that a huge group of Red Raggers had just checked in, and despite them taking one room for every five of them, all the rooms in the motel were occupied.
“My missus is out,” the owner offered, “So, I could give you one room that we use ourselves. I will be out here for the night anyway.”
“You and Mrs. Stanley should take that, Ms. Fisher,” Jack said hastily, “I will be in the car.”
“Is there nothing else you can do?” Phryne asked the owner.
“The gentleman here could take a tent. We do have a few set up on the grounds about a mile from here. My boys can quickly clean one up for you. We accommodate people in it during spring festival. Right now there are no other occupants, I am afraid.”
“Clean up two,” Phryne said, “I will also take one. Aunt Prudence will be more comfortable if she had the entire room for herself.”
The owner and Aunt Prudence objected simultaneously. Jack just smirked and saw her destroy those two within next two minutes. After setting Aunt Prudence in the room which she didn’t find particularly tasteful, and promising to come back for her at the first light in the morning, Phryne and Jack took off in the car to the ground a mile away. The boys were ahead of them in a carriage and came back after cleaning up the tents to the extent possible.
—
Jack could not sleep. It had been an extraordinary day and it just wasn’t possible for his mind to rest enough for him to fall asleep. And then it was made more extraordinary when he heard a gunshot. Almost definitely coming from the the next tent.
“Miss Fisher!” Jack entered her tent, worried, holding his pistol ready to strike at whosoever dared harm this adventuress.
“Jack! There was an enormous tarantula.” Miss Fisher’s own weapon was ready and pointed, right at him, while she stood atop her bed.
“You…” he cleared his throat to stop himself from guffawing, “shot a spider.” As comical and amusing as her fear was for someone who had braved a crashed plane in the middle of the ocean not too long ago, he wouldn’t belittle her by laughing.
“No. I missed,” only The Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher could utter those words with such sincerity under these circumstances, “It went that way.”
Inspector Jack Robinson maintained an impassive expression, an ability that came handy all the time while dealing with Miss Fisher, whose antics and masterstrokes were often indistinguishable.
Inspector didn’t want to shoot a spider with his service weapon. So, he stuck it in his pants and relieved her of her pearled pistol. He gave her his signature sideways nod, which could mean anything from an instruction to an assurance to his capitulation to an expression of amusement and Phryne Fisher seemed to be able to read it right every time. This time she stood rooted to her place, as he stepped out to purportedly chase the tarantula which had terrified her so. Once outside, he allowed himself a few seconds of amusement and even some inward gloating before firing a shot in the air. The weapon was solid, one would be idiotic to underestimate it because it was customized to suit Miss Fisher’s impeccable sense of fashion. If the poor spider had indeed been shot…
“Got it,” he shouted for her benefit.
He came back to find Phryne standing at the same spot where he had left her. He deposited the weapon on a foot stool and offered her his hand. She took it, and said as he helped her down, “This is my only fear, Jack.” Then she stood deliciously close to him and continued, “Apart from sharing a long drive with Aunt Prudence.”
There had been enough overtures. They had been received well by both sides, even if, unfortunately, interrupted every time in the past. Now was the time to plunge into the opera. He could not stand the do-si-do any longer. The close and intimate waltz had to be concluded, consummated.
Jack could hear her breathing as clearly as his own. They were both panting, as if there wasn’t enough oxygen in the atmosphere to support the rate of their heartbeats, and they had to struggle to grab more of it.
“I don’t think that’s true,” he spoke in his throaty, guttural voice that made her go weak in knees.
“No?” she responded, her sassiness completely missing. She wanted his objection to be right, whatever it was. “What else am I afraid of?” She managed to sound more of her own self with this question, but just so. Jack knew it was an act and he was on the right track.
“Me,” he said, and noticed that she didn’t even flinch. He continued, interrupted occasionally now only by his own heart threatening to jump out right through his throat, “You are afraid that if… you fall in love with me, I will turn you into… a policeman’s wife. And stop you from saving the world.”
“Well, it can’t happen, Jack,” She responded quickly, holding his gaze unflinchingly, “You know that I am a life-long member of the celibacy society, sworn on my life.”
“I assure you, Miss Fisher,” Jack continued in the same vein, equally unflinching, “There is no such society in existence. And if you have been taken advantage of by some crooks, the Victorian police will leave no stones unturned in reaching to the bottom of the matter, but as for me… I don’t need to marry you.”
He felt her heartbeat quicken even more if that was possible. He continued, “I do need your heart though. Because, God knows, you have got mine.”
To someone uncertain of her answer, the time she took to respond might have felt like an agonizing eternity. But as her hands inched upwards to his chest, Jack enjoyed the wait. At last, she spoke, “Jack. I gave you that a long time ago. For a detective you don’t notice much.”
He acknowledged her successful banter with a barely perceptible nod and leaned further into her. Their lips met each other like long-lost soulmates. He couldn’t have enough of her, not she could of him when something else struck Jack and he suddenly stopped in his track, then withdrew.
“Jack!” Phryne looked scared, for the first time as far as he could remember. Not the ephemeral, irrational fear resulting from a phobia of spiders. But a deep, gut-wrenching fear of that one rejection you can’t take. It didn’t take Jack even a moment to read it right, but he had to be sure he could really address that fear for her. It wasn’t completely in his hands. Despite the long, patient wait, he might have just rushed into things today.
“Phryne. I love you so much for what you are. Domesticity is not something I ever dream about with you. I will probably die a thousand deaths when you go off on your adventures, God know I have in very recent past, but I will never ask you to change who you are. I will never ask you for marriage, but this relationship… I can’t be as liberal minded with that as you may need me to be. That’s just who I am. I can’t change that. And…”
“Jack!” she closed the distance between them, “I am not asking you to do that. I will never ask you to do that.” The perfect full circle. He had promised her that once, and lived up to it. He didn’t want her to change. It was time for her to promise that to him. She didn’t want him to change himself either.
“So, you are..”
“Committed. To you, Jack. You are an honorable man and you have made an honest woman out of me if you will,” she chuckled. “And I have been so for a long time now.”
He felt his eyes moistening. He had dreamed of this, but he hadn’t dared hope. Despite the overtures, despite the kiss before she had left for England, despite the ceaseless flirting, despite the undisguised admiration for each other, despite having each other’s back, always, despite even the declaration made just moments ago. But his dream had come true. Her had her heart, and her commitment. What else did he need? Just to assure her that nothing else.
“Phryne, your honesty was never even a question,” he said, words barely escaping his throat.
“It was a joke, Jack. Can’t you take one?”
He had to clear his throat before replying, “On me? A million. On you? I am afraid not one.”
“You are the most liberal-minded man I have ever known, Jack Robinson.”
She initiated the kiss this time.
“By the way,” Phryne said when they had broken their kiss, “There wasn’t really a tarantula.”
“Good,” he replied as they started divesting each other of their clothes, “I didn’t really shoot one.”
He couldn’t help making a happy mental note that she had planned this. It wasn’t an antic, after all. It was a masterstroke!
– The End –