/ / WEDNESDAY - Morning / /
Nerves were not something Phryne allowed herself to feel often. And today would be no different she decided firmly. Sitting up she greeted the day with a yawn.
She rose from her bed, leaving Jack snoring lightly to himself, and rang for coffee. Dot brought it up shortly, setting the tray down by Phryne's vanity and disappearing into the wardrobe. Phryne sipped gratefully, pleased with the silence. She looked at her reflection, calculating which bruises had faded and which had darkened. The changes over night were insignificant however, and so she set about carefully hiding each one under powder.
Dot returned with a deep red dress trimmed with floral cream lace. She carried with it the matching coat, a pair of red gloves, cream camiknickers, champagne stockings and a pair of red shoes.
"Thank you, Dot," Phryne murmured softly. "I will have my breakfast downstairs today."
"Yes, Miss," Dorothy lay the clothes across the chaise near the corner, then she left without a sound.
From the bed Jack's snoring had faded. He began to wake, rolling over and curling into his pillow with a slight groan. After a moment his arm reached out, searching for Phryne amongst the sheets, and finding the bed empty he looked up, blinking in confusion.
"Good morning," Phryne said from across the room.
He turned his gaze to her, pushing himself to sit up. "Good morning," he managed back, his voice low and rumbling with sleep.
Silence sat between them for a moment, Jack adjusting to wakefulness and rubbing his hands across his face. "How are you feeling?" he asked eventually.
His question may have sounded innocent enough, but Phryne heard the unspoken words that lay hidden within them. He didn't think it a good idea for her to meet the Baker's so quickly, while she was still recovering. Phryne sighed, deliberately not turning to face him. The bruises were vanishing easily enough.
"I'm well," she told Jack in lieu of an answer.
She put down her powder and reached for the rest of her make-up.
"I'm still going. Orpheus wants me there and I'm perfectly capable of going out to tea."
He nodded, but his eyes still watched her with worry. "And you're sure you don't want me to join you?"
"I will be fine."
"Phryne…"
Phryne turned to him, irritated, "I am not made of glass. Just because yesterday I-" she stopped, dropping her gaze. She did not want to fight with him about this.
"This isn't because of yesterday. I'm your- we are partners, Phryne, and I want to support you."
"Then support me in my choice to do this without you," she turned, looking into her own reflection to avoid his gaze from across the room. "Please Jack. I will be all right."
Jack sighed. He pushed back the bedcovers and stood, walking in his underclothes to stand behind her. She didn't meet his gaze and so he lowered himself to lean over her and press a kiss to her shoulder, a hand gently caressing her side.
"All right," he murmured, looking up and into her reflection. "I will support you Phryne. But when I spoke to Mrs Baker she gave no indication of having ever heard of you."
"If Aunt Prudence is to be believed, she knew me as a child. And she didn't sound surprised at all when I spoke to her on the phone. Mostly she sounded nervous. It may have been twenty years Jack, but I doubt she's completely forgotten where her daughter came from."
Jack nodded. "In that case," he said, straightening up and running his hand to rest on her shoulder, "I will be at the station all day, if you need me."
Phryne sighed, watching him in the mirror and reaching up to cover his hand with her own. "Thank you, Jack."
She leant back into his chest and tilted her head back. Jack took the hint and dipped down to kiss her softly, then he stepped away and left her to comb her hair as he began to ready himself for his day.
/ / /
Phryne stepped from the Hispano with ease and walked with her head held high to the small house in Richmond. Beside her Orpheus rolled on the balls of his feet, his hands clasped firmly behind him to prevent further fidgeting. She offered him a smile, then raised her hand and knocked.
They were not left waiting long before Mrs Baker opened the door and welcomed them hurriedly inside. She took them through to the parlour, where a tray of tea and biscuits sat waiting for them.
Orpheus sat in the old armchair and Phryne took place on the lounge, watching as Mrs Baker shakily poured tea. Into each cup went a splash of milk and a some sugar and she passed them hesitantly to her guests before sitting across from them on a footstool.
"Now that I see you, Mrs Baker, I believe I do remember you," Phryne said, breaking the silence. "You were always very kind to me when I scraped my knees chasing Orphie and Guy."
Mrs Baker nodded with a timid smile. "I don't believe you ever went home once without some scrape or bruise, Miss Fisher."
"Please, call me Phryne," Miss Fisher said, "and do forgive me for not removing my glasses. I have recently had a rather large scrape of sorts, and the after effects are rather alarming."
"The policemen that came by a few days ago, Miss- Phryne, they said you were missing."
"I was," Phryne said simply, "but as you can see, I have since been found."
Mrs Baker nodded. She flicked her gaze to Orpheus. He was holding his cup of tea in such a tight grip Phryne was almost surprised it hadn't shattered between his fingers.
"You know why we're here, don't you, Mrs Baker?" Phryne said kindly.
The older woman swallowed thickly. "Your mother finally told you about Louise."
This surprised Phryne, and next to her on the armchair Orpheus took a deep breath.
"No," he explained, telling Mrs Baker about Celia and his move to Sydney. How he longed to find out for sure what had happened. How Phryne had helped, how their aunt had finally confessed. "But Mother, she has never spoken to me about it."
"She felt so terribly," Mrs Baker murmured. "She come to see me, during the war. Bill was off fightin' and I was here with Lolly. She come to me and said she and Mr Fisher had come into money and were off to England. Would never come back, she said; too many sad memories. But she was hopin' to see her granddaugh'er before she left."
"Did you let her?"
"I couldn't tell her no. Didn't seem right. I'd read, in the papers, about little Janey. Such terrible things."
Phryne closed her eyes, pulling in a long slow breath. Orpheus said nothing.
"Tell us about her," Phryne said eventually. "About Louise."
Mrs Baker offered them a weak smile. "She's a good girl. Church every Sunday, and she helps me with with the house and the cooking. She done well in school, stayed longer than I ever did, or Bill. Has a job with Mr Russell at his bookshop."
"Does she know that she's… adopted?"
"No. We never said a word to her. Mrs Stanley said we could never tell her, and your mum too. She played with Lolly all day, gave her a new teddy and some sweets - won her little heart she did. But she insisted she was just a friend of mine, from far away. Never tell anyone, she said to me. And so we didn't. What if they tried to take her from us?"
Phryne wasn't sure what to say to that, and even less sure what to do when Mrs Baker began to cry. Orpheus set down his teacup and reached for a handkerchief passing it to poor Mrs Baker, and she accepted it gratefully.
"Lolly's a sweet hearted girl," Mrs Baker told them, sniffling. "I tried my best to bring her up right, and all the money Mrs Stanley gave us, it all went to her. On her clothes an' her toys and her schoolin'."
"Where is she now?" Orpheus asked.
"I told her to go to the pictures. I didn't say you were coming, not even to Bill."
"We are not here to try and take Louise away from you, Mrs Baker," Phryne murmured softly. "But we would like to know her. And, if she would like, have the chance to be her family."
"How am I supposed to tell 'er what we did?"
"I wouldn't worry about what she thinks of you, Mrs Baker," Orpheus said. "The choice you and your husband made did nothing but save her from a childhood of misery. If it had not been for you she could have found herself growing up in an orphanage, and I never would have found her there. You are the saviour in this story. You educated and raised and loved her as your own. I can not offer her another childhood."
Mrs Baker blew her nose, her tears still falling steadily. Phryne chewed her lip.
"There is also the matter of her further relatives," Phryne cut in, "I have a daughter who could always use older female role models in life, and Orpheus has a young son. Louise's half-brother."
Mrs Baker smiled and gave a small hiccough through her tears. "Lolly's always wanted a baby brother or sister."
Keenly Orpheus reached into his pocket, producing the same photo he had shown to Phryne and Dot just over a week ago. Mrs Baker took it.
"A beautiful boy," she murmured.
"Do you have photographs?" Orpheus asked hesitantly. "Of Louise; Lolly?"
Flushing slightly, Mrs Baker nodded. "Just a small few."
She handed Orpheus his photograph before standing and moving past them to the mantle on the wall behind their chairs. A vase of flowers sat prettily between frames, one of what had to be Mrs Baker's wedding, and another of a small girl sitting upon a beautiful old rocking horse. She selected the latter and handed it first to Orpheus.
Phryne waited. Her brother took his time with the photograph, memorising the sight and tracing a finger over the glass.
"She is so charming," he said after a long moment. "Look, Phryne, how sweet she is," he reached across and Phryne accepted the frame, preparing to find some false compliment for a child long grown into the young woman she'd rather know.
But as she looked down to the girl in the photograph the words froze on her lips. Tears formed behind her round sunglasses before she could stop them. Her chest began to constrict, her heart leaping to her throat and cutting away her breath. It was all Phryne could do not to run from the room that instant.
"Oh my," she managed to say, her voice choked as she battled back her tears. "Such a sweet child. Excuse me."
She handed the frame back to her brother and stood, swiftly leaving the room without a further word to her brother or the startled Mrs Baker.
Phryne found herself in the kitchen and had started to run water from the sink before she realised she would not be able to wash her face. She began to shake, silent sobs pulling at her chest, and she longed for a moment that Jack had come with them. Now that she had seen that girl Phryne was unsure that she could do this without him. That she could do this at all.
She heard the sound of a door open and close, and footsteps through the house. For a ridiculous moment Phryne wondered if perhaps her brother was leaving to fetch the Inspector, or perhaps a doctor for what he could perceive as her having the vapours. That notion was cut short however when a soft voice called out.
"Mum, I'm home. What's that fancy red car in the street?"
"Lolly!" Mrs Baker exclaimed, and Phryne heard footsteps rushing through the small parlour, "You're supposed to be at the pictures!"
"They were closed until this afternoon."
Curiosity took hold of Phryne. She took a breath and pushed her tears and her worries to the very depth of her mind, before silently the lady detective stepped back from the kitchen into the parlour.
Mrs Baker was not there, but Orpheus sat alarmed in the armchair. His wide eyes met Phryne's instantly across the room and she moved to him, taking his shaking hand in her own and squeezing it.
"Lolly dear, I have guests. Perhaps you should go to the shops or-"
"Guests? The fancy car is here to see us? Who is it?!" The girl's voice was delightfully excited by the idea and the door to the parlour began to push open as Mrs Baker called behind her,
"Lolly, don't!"
But it was too late. The young woman had stepped into the room and spotted the teacups and plate of biscuits. She smiled brightly at the sight of a finely dressed woman with fashionably short hair tucked beneath a red velvet cloche hat, and next to her a slickly dressed man, his hand currently held tight to the red gloved ones of the woman.
"Hello," she said happily to the strangers, "I'm Louise Baker."
Orpheus could not speak. He merely stared dumbly up at the young woman as Mrs Baker stood fretting in the doorway.
Silence hung heavy in the air, and as poor Louise began to frown at the rudeness of these guests Phryne swallowed the large lump in her throat and pulled her hand free of Orpheus's to extend.
"Hello," she said, her voice low and uncharacteristically hesitant. "I'm Phryne Fisher, and this- this is Orpheus."
Louise smiled and took Phryne's hand shaking it for a moment. Phryne held her breath.
She was a beautiful girl, standing as tall as Phryne in a modest dress that was probably made by the wearer herself. Her cheeks were high and her eyes a familiar blue, and her smile was like looking into a mirror. But what caught Phryne's attention was the overall striking look of those eyes with that face and that long blonde hair artfully coiled back into a braided bun.
She had seen it in the photograph and she saw it in the woman before her. It was a glimpse to what might have been. Like after sixteen long and lonely years, seeing Janey all grown up.
"It's nice to meet you," Louise said, and her eyes sparkled in delight. "Are you my birth parents?"