A Modern Major General

Thank you to the wonderful Kerry Greenwood for her marvellous creations and for inspiring the ABC's establishment of Jack and Phryne as a romantic couple.

If you haven't already done so, please contact the ABC and beg them to continue producing the show. Even one more episode featuring a Phryne/Jack resolution would be better than nothing.

I admit to feeling pretty unsure about this chapter, I've never really had a knack for comedy. If you think this works, please let me know. If it doesn't work, I'd be grateful for any suggestions.

Happy reading!

xxxx

It was a busy afternoon in the Fisher household. Dot was preparing for her afternoon of investigation at the Temperance Tea Dance and Phryne was looking forward to afternoon tea with Jack Robinson's younger sister Julia Phillips.

Phryne was in her bedroom examining the contents of her wardrobe when Dot appeared in the doorway wearing her new brown and gold Crepe de Chine and looking as pretty as a picture.

"Oh Dot, you do look lovely."

"Thank you Miss. I feel lovely." Dot stroked he hand down the skirt of her frock, enjoying the silken drape.

Phryne looked at the mantle clock. "Hugh should be here in about half an hour, are you clear and what you have to do?"

"Yes Miss." Dot listed the requirements. "I can mention that you met Doris's mistress Mrs Simpson, last night. I can say that you told me about one of the guests falling down the stairs. I can't let on that I know about the accusation against her mistress and you want me to find out anything I can about why the women don't like Mrs Richards. Is that alright Miss?"

"Yes Dot, well done." Phryne handed Dot an envelope containing some money and the two tickets for the Tea Dance. "Make sure that Hugh doesn't spend his own money. You are both helping the investigation which means you get expenses. Have you filled Hugh in on the plan?"

Once Dot had assured her mistress of her readiness to tackle the task, they turned the attention to Phryne's choice of outfit for her visit from Julia Phillips.

To Dot's surprise, her normally self assured and decisive employer was showing every sign of nerves about the impending visit. It had actually taken three changes of outfit before Phryne had been satisfied. She had started out wearing her favourite white wool trousers and white silk shirt only to realise that wearing white might be considered somewhat tactless given Albury's description of her assailant. Phryne had then elected to switch to a stunning trouser suit in dark red with oodles of exquisite gold embroidery on the cuffs and lapel of the jacket, but although she looked gorgeous, Phryne had found herself feeling rather over dressed.

Finally, feeling completely overwhelmed by her many options, "What is the point of having all these clothes Dot, if one can't find something to wear?" she had given up and allowed her maid to select an outfit for her. Dot picked well and satisfied at last, Phryne stood in front of her mirror to examine her appearance. Black velvet trousers paired with a beautiful silk caftan covered in an array of brightly coloured Rainbow Lorikeets. Relaxed, comfortable and utterly divine, it was an outfit to raise even the most depressed spirits.

At the appointed time, Julia had arrived looking very pretty in a soft green broadcloth suit and cloche. Mr Butler, at his formal best, had shown her into the parlour where Phryne was glad to end her interminable wait. The woman greeted each other warmly, neither showing any sign of how anxious they were to please and acutely conscious of their connection by way of a certain policeman. Once the formalities were over both were somewhat more relaxed.

"Shall I ask Mr B. to bring in the tea straight away Julia, or would you prefer to sample one of his excellent cocktails?"

"Oh a cocktail please Phryne." Julia laughed. Jack's told me of your Mr Butler's skill with a cocktail. I've been dying to try one."

"Two of your famous cocktails please Mr B." Phryne nodded and the butler left the room to perform the mysterious rights of his craft in the Butler's Pantry and quietly gloat over Jack Robinson's praise.

With difficulty, Phryne resisted the temptation to ask Julia what else Jack had said about the various aspects of her life and set herself to get the business end of the afternoon's agenda out of the way.

"How are you feeling after last night's events Julia? It must have been very distressing situation for you all."

Julia sighed. "Yes, I'm afraid it was. Poor Albury, I'm glad she's going to be alright of course, but I can't help feeling there's something very wrong with her. We were so shocked when Constable Collins told us that she'd accused Meredith of pushing her. Merri, is such a gentle person, she can't even bear to see a mouse killed, she's the last person in the world to deliberately hurt someone."

"Do you really think Mrs Richards made up seeing a woman in white just to cause trouble?"

"I honestly don't know what to think Phryne. It's all so strange. She's a very strong minded person, not the type to have hysterics and imagine things really. No, I'm very much afraid that she's lying."

Phryne nodded. "You know Julia, I'm generally quite a good judge of character and when I met Mrs Richards yesterday, she seemed like a very nice woman."

Julia instinctively responded to Phryne's unspoken question. "If I didn't know better, I'd think so too. On the surface she's lovely, intelligent and has a wide variety of interests and her husband Andrew adores her, in fact all the menfolk think she's a topping girl...It's almost like she's two different people, I can't make it balance. I really don't know what we're going to do, we were always such a happy set." Julia sighed, looking rather miserable and Phryne, as she offered her sympathy, silently promised herself that she would solve this mystery as much for Julia's sake as Albury's.

"Mrs Haines and Mrs Allen mentioned some kind of scandal; is there any chance that you've got it wrong?"

"No I'm afraid we've had it directly from the horse's mouth as it were."

Phryne appeared to give the matter some thought. "Julia, I know it's a very sensitive situation, but perhaps... if you told me about it, I could help?"

Julia smiled gratefully. "Thank you Phryne, I appreciate the offer more than you know, but I really shouldn't be talking about this. Meredith has suffered enough, she really couldn't' stand the shame of anyone else knowing. She hasn't even been able to bear telling her husband."

Phryne's ears pricked up the clue, Meredith. She leant forward in her seat and put her hand on Julia's arm. "I quite understand my dear. Enough said. Now, let's talk about something more pleasant."

The two women had a lovely afternoon together, though they probably imbibed one or two more of Mr Butler's cocktails than was wise. They stuck to Phryne's suggestion to talk of pleasant things. Phryne learned a lot about her new friend's hopes and dreams and enjoyed tales of Julia's travels in India with her husband. She was highly gratified by just how familiar Julia was with many aspects of her life; Jack had indeed spent a great deal of time talking about Miss Fisher.

"You drive him mad Phryne, in a good way of course, and I'm so glad because it's brought him alive again. He hasn't been this happy since before the war." Julia pretended not to notice Phryne's blush of pleasure at the compliment.

In fact over the course of their conversation, Julia detected a faint flush to Miss Fishers features whenever Jacks name was mentioned and so took the trouble to tell a number of anecdotes about Jack's childhood. Phryne was well entertined but there was one particular story she was very keen to hear.

"Now Julia, I'm not asking you to break any confidences but Jack once told me about an underwhelming performance as the Major General in Pirates of Penzance. I've been dying to hear the story ever since. I don't suppose..."

Julia laugh, "Underwhelming did you say Phryne?"

"Jack's words not mine I'm afraid."

"No, not underwhelming. I'd say more like an absolute riot." And interspersed is lots of giggles and miming for effect, Julia told the story of Jack's performance.

"It was when he was reading the arts at the University. Jack was about seventeen and very sure of himself in those days. He decided to join the Amateur Dramatic Society. Goodness knows why, probably chasing some girl. Anyway, despite his lack of experience he managed to score the role of the Major General. He was determined to be word perfect and spent hours and hours practicing his patter and lines." Julia paused for a moment with a wide smile, remembering. "Actually, I know them quite well myself thanks to the amount of time I spent hearing him."

"And Phryne, you should have seen him when he got his costume. It was a gorgeous thing, resplendent in gold frogging and tassels with a darling little pith helmet and bright pink parasol. He was so proud. He wore it around the house for days. Strutting up and down, twirling the parasol and admiring himself in the mirror. Of course I teased the life out of him about it, following him behind and poking him with my own lace parasol. He'd get so mad with me that his face would go bright red." At that point Julia had to stop and let Phryne catch her breath because she was laughing fit to burst.

"So it was opening night and I swear he had it all down pat, he knew his lines back to front and upside down. But of course..."

"Stage fright?"

"Stage something... It all started when some wag decided to tie a big pink bow on the tip of his helmet whilst he was waiting in the wings. He had no idea that it was there of course. He marched in and it fluttered along for all the world like a big pink butterfly. Of course everyone was in fits, including the other members of the cast. One of the maidens danced around behind him in an effort to take it off but only ended up choking him with the strap of the pith helmet."

"Oh dear," giggled Phryne , "the poor man."

"Yes, I'm afraid the line went something like: From Marathon to Water –erk and the erk part was quite squeaky. Well amazingly he managed to keep going, I was actually quite proud of him. Though there was one more awful moment when he was conducting the daughter's chorus and his parasol suddenly opened right in Mable's eye." After another good laugh Julia sobered a little. "All things considered though, he did rather well, but the reviewer was not kind and Mater and Pater were most displeased." Julia stopped and then asked quite seriously. "Has Jack told you about our parents Phryne?"

Phryne had heard enough to know that the Robinsons had been determined to see their son distinguished and that they'd often used the phrase 'What will people think?' Phryne thought that explained a lot about the type of people they had been. Jack had been very fortunate to have inherited some money from his Grandmother which meant that he'd not had to rely on his parent's conditional support and had been free to follow his ambition to be a policeman.

"Poor Jack." Phryne sigh.

"Yes, poor Jack." The two women looked at each other again and started to giggle.

As Julia went to take her leave at the end of the afternoon, she hesitated. Ever since she'd spoken to her brother on the telephone that morning, she'd been trying to make up her mind to broach the subject of Rosie.

"Jack's asked me to join him at Rosie's sister's house for supper tonight."

In spite of her concerns about Rosie's role in Jack's life, Phryne accepted the remark without jealousy. "He's a good man Julia. Rosie was devastated when she found out about Sidney and her father. Jack said he'd never seen her like that."

"He is a good man and unfortunately Rosie's well aware of that and knows how to use it to her advantage." Julia's assertion did not come as any surprise to Phryne. "Jack's has never really seen Rosie for the sort of person she is. I know he blames himself for the failure of their marriage but she was not kind to him after he'd returned from the war. You see, though she hides it better, Rosie's just like our Mother. Social standing is extremely important to her; she has a great deal of ambition. She wanted Jack to be the sort of person her father was and when he told her he wasn't interested she was furious. I hope you don't think I'm speaking out of turn by telling you this Phryne. I just wanted to make sure you know that Rosie's going to go out of her way to make Jack's life difficult."

Phryne was very sorry to see Julia go and stood on the footpath in farewell until Julia's car was out of sight. As she turned back to the house Miss Fisher reflected on the lovely afternoon and that Julia had left her plenty to think about.

Note:

Rainbow Lorikeets – Native Australasian Parrot. If you've never seen one, please Google them. They are very beautiful