/ / WEDNESDAY - Mid Morning / /
The room was completely silent.
Poor Mrs Baker felt her knees begin to give out, and with a hand pressed to her chest she sat quickly back on her footstool, a sob heaving at her chest. Louise rushed to attend to her mother, bending down until she knelt on the floor by the older woman's feet.
"How did you know?" Mrs Baker asked. She was weeping, her hand shaking as she raised Orpheus's handkerchief to her face. "How did you know, darling?"
Lolly waited for her mother to dry her eyes, then took her hands in her own.
"I heard you and father arguing," she murmured softly. "Years ago, and then again these last few nights. You said a policeman had been asking questions about a woman called Fisher, and here they are mother- I… It's them isn't it? They're my parents."
"Actually no," Phryne said; and she was shocked to see the girl looked disappointed.
Phryne decided to explain. "Well I'm not. Orpheus is my brother, not my husband. But he is," she paused, glancing to her brother, then to Mrs Baker who looked faintly sick and Louise still crouched by the woman's feet. Phryne swallowed, "He is your father, Miss Baker. And I'm your aunt."
Lolly's eyes flickered to Orpheus. He had tears welling in his eyes, and he gripped the arms of his chair dreadfully tight. Slowly the young woman pulled her gaze away and over to her mother as if to seek approval or permission.
Mrs Baker gave Lolly's hands a squeeze then let them go to blow her nose into the monogramed handkerchief. Cautiously, young Louise stood up and turned to face the Fishers properly. She took a nervous step forward, and then another, and another after that. Until she was close enough to hold out her hand to the man with such familiar blue eyes.
"Hello, father," she murmured.
Orpheus blinked, then swallowed thickly and reached a shaking hand to meet hers.
"Hello Louise," he choked out, "I am so- so pleased to meet you. After all this time…" He stood, his eyes scanning over her.
Their handshake dropped, but Orpheus stayed close, his hands reaching up until the hovered in the air by her face.
"May I?" he asked.
Louise swallowed, "If you tell me why you've come for me now, and not- not when I was born."
It was to be a long and exhausting conversation. But it was one Orpheus was very much willing to have. Before they started the group relocated to the dining table in the kitchen. Mrs Baker tried to keep her hands busy and her tears at bay by making more tea for them all. Phryne helped her as Lolly and Orpheus sat opposite each other at the table.
"Until a week ago I had no proof you were even alive, but for a feeling deep in my heart," Orpheus began. "I was not in Melbourne for your birth, I had moved to Sydney for work. I sent money to your birth mother every week. I wrote to her often, and had many hopes for the future. But I was in no place to marry. I could not afford to give up the work that my family -my sisters just young children at the time- relied upon. And I could not send for your mother to join me in Sydney, where I lived in a small boardhouse that would have kicked me out if they knew."
He swallowed, thinking hard about how to proceed.
"From my perspective, I received a letter one day, telling me very clearly not to send anymore of my money for the babe, as she had died in childbirth. And no matter how I tried after that, no one would talk about it. I never heard another word from your mother, or any of her family. And my own mother consistently ignored my questions, until she too stopped writing except for the occasional holiday. I have since learnt the other side to the story," he looked to Phryne and she walked over from where Mrs Baker was pulling the whistling kettle from the stove, to sit next to him at the table.
"Our mother's sister," Orpheus said, "spoke to us about what she knew to have happened."
"Your mother," Phryne cut in kindly, and Orpheus sighed slightly in relief, "was just fifteen when she was pregnant. She was unmarried and poor, living with her mother and her brother in Collingwood. Her mother could not afford a baby, and appealed to our mother to take you once you were born. But of course we were poor too. Our father was a drunk and a gambler, and I was just five years old, my sister perhaps two. With the threat that you may be given to an orphanage looming over her head, Mother turned to her sister. They had come from a good family, and unlike my mother, Aunt P had married well and was living in some luxury with her husband and their sons."
Lolly nodded, taking all of this information in carefully, filing it away in her mind so she wouldn't ever forget.
"Mother confessed her worries and fears to her sister, and as is her wont, Aunt P found a solution in the form of her young and happily engaged maid…"
Mrs Baker set down the tray of fresh tea then, and Orpheus and Phryne both accepted a cup keenly, their nerves shaken. Taking a steadying breath Mrs Baker sat down next to her daughter and spoke the words she'd feared for the last twenty odd years.
"Mrs Stanley approached me, darling, about her sister's delicate issue. And- after your father 'nd I talked to her, and after we was married, it was arranged by Mrs Stanley that on your birth the midwife she hired would say the babe had passed. Then in secret she brung you to us, and we signed a birth certificate. You were our very own, and we swore we would never breath a word. To anyone."
Lolly took her mother's hand. She had tears running down her cheeks, but she didn't care to wipe them away.
"But you wanted to tell me, didn't you mother? That is what you and Dad were fighting about."
"Yes," Mrs Baker sniffed. "A policeman came to the house and said Miss Phryne Fisher was missing, and that she had our phone number written down. He told me she was a lady detective, that she was meaning to contact us, and I knew it would come out. I knew. I thought it was finally time to tell you. We shoulda' told you when you was 18 -I almost did, darlin', but your Dad came home early to surprise us. He's never wanted to tell you. But please don't think badly on 'im. You're 'is little girl, love, and he didn't want some stranger stealin' you away from us. Especially when we learnt how the Fishers had come into money- we thought they might swoop you off ta England- we was terrified."
"Well I'm not going to go anywhere," Lolly said. "Of course not, I will stay with you and Dad."
"And what of your true family, Lolly?" Mrs Baker asked, squeezing her daughter's hand, "Don't you want to know them?"
"Of course," Lolly said, and she turned to face Orpheus, meeting his eye, "I very much look forward to getting to know you. Both of you."
"But things will need to move slowly," Phryne murmured softly, offering her niece a kind smile. "We would not want to upset any of you."
"And there is more to consider," Orpheus murmured awkwardly. "I have a family of my own, in Sydney. A wife. A son. I will need to broach this with them, delicately."
"Then you should return to Sydney," Lolly said, "and as you explain to them, we will write. I have always wanted a pen-pal."
Orpheus smiled, "I think that is a most wonderful idea."
"I agree," Phryne said. "Orpheus will explain to his wife as you explain to your husband, Mrs Baker. And I will explain to my own daughter. Until then, perhaps we should best leave you some space. To think and discuss between yourselves."
She pulled out a card. "And please, don't hesitate to call if you would like to meet again. In fact, I would be delighted to have you to lunch, some time next week perhaps?"
Lolly accepted the card with a smile. They agreed to a lunch date the following week as the Baker's led them back to the door. Polite goodbyes were exchanged with Mrs Baker, and tentative hugs given to the two Fishers by Lolly. She waved them goodbye from the door as reluctantly Orpheus walked with his sister down the path and back to the Hispano.
Phryne climbed in and he joined her, both returning Lolly's wave as the engine started and the red car tore into the street.
They turned a corner and Orpheus let out a shaky breath.
"Are you all right?" Phryne asked idly, not taking her eyes from the road before her.
"Quite."
"She seems a smart and pleasant girl."
"Yes."
"Very friendly."
"Yes."
"It is a good sign, I think."
"I hope so."
Phryne paused, licked her lips slightly with worry before opening her mouth once more.
"She looks awfully like Janey."
Orpheus frowned, "Does she?"
Phryne glanced at him, then back to the road quickly as she heard the yells of other drivers.
"You didn't notice?" she asked.
"I-" Orpheus hesitated, "Phryne I don't really- the last I saw Janey was during her infancy."
Phryne felt her throat constrict. Of course. "She would be twenty-six next month."
Orpheus was not sure what to say to that. He said nothing, and silence fell between them.
/ / /
Paperwork was not something Jack had ever found enjoyable. Today however, he almost welcomed it. It kept his mind busy, away from thoughts of Phryne and her brother, or Stanley Thomas and his fate in the hospital. It kept his hands occupied too, carefully scrawling down his notes and reports, dotting each I and crossing each T. Of course it wasn't exactly pleasant to recount the events of the last few days, but it was better than living them. Better than the fear in his chest that he would be too late, and Phryne would be-
Jack cut off the thought before he could finish it, shaking his head as though it may fly away and fall into the waste basket where it probably belonged.
His stomach took this opportunity at Jack's slip in concentration and growled at him. Jack ignored it. Clearing his head once more he returned to his current report, rereading the words he'd written so far. But before he could return to the task of completing the report, his office door swung wide.
Jack looked up to find Phryne standing in the doorway, sunglasses resting high on the bridge of her nose. She smiled at him tiredly, closed the office door behind her and removed the glasses.
She blinked a moment, her eyes adjusting to the change, then stepped forward and around Jack's desk to bend and kiss him in greeting.
He smiled, kissing her softly, allowing his hand to brush just briefly over her hip before she pulled back and sat neatly on his desk.
"How did it go?" He asked, leaning back in his chair and watching her carefully.
"Almost better than we could have expected," she told him, leaning back on her hands. "Lolly walked in halfway through tea and outright asked if we were her parents."
Jack's eyes widened in surprise.
"She's agreed to come for lunch next week and, well I would be very grateful to you, if you could be there. As my… support."
Her eyes met his, still starkly red. He could see her meeting today had affected her more than she wished to admit.
"Of course," he told her. "Where is your brother?"
"On his way home I'd expect. I let him take the car."
Jack nodded, and his stomach growled again, filling the pause in conversation. Phryne's lips curled into an amused smile and she looked at him fondly.
"Hungry, Inspector?" She teased.
"I haven't stopped for lunch yet," he explained.
Phryne grinned, slipping off the desk to stand before him expectantly.
"Well then Jack, how would you like to join me for lunch?" she asked. "And perhaps we could find somewhere... private, to enjoy it?"
Jack's gaze darkened, and he swallowed, sitting forward in his chair slightly. "You certainly know how to sate a man's appetite, Miss Fisher."
"The way to a man's heart is through his stomach after all."
"And the rest of him?" Jack asked.
Phryne licked her lips, "You tell me, darling."
Jack just smirked, then dropped his half complete report into a drawer and stood. "You know," he said as Phryne took his arm and replaced her sunglasses. "I find myself not that hungry after all."
"Really, Inspector?" Phryne murmured. "Then whatever shall we do during your much deserved break?"
Jack reached out a hand and opened his office door. "I can think of a few things," he murmured low in her ear, so only Phryne could hear. "This way."
AN: And this is it, the last chapter! But don't worry, there is a short epilogue that I will post tomorrow. :)