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“Good afternoon, Inspector.”
“Mr Butler,” Jack nodded, surrendering his coat and hat to the older man.
“Miss Fisher is in the parlour, sir. She has just received an urgent telegram,” Mr Butler explained, ending his phrase in glum tones and with a little nod, he retreated to the kitchen.
Curious as to what kind of news could merit such warning, subtle as it was, Jack knocked softly on the drawn doors. “Phryne?” he asked, entering the room quietly. He found her standing in front of the fireplace, her arm resting on the mantelpiece and her hand covering her lips, staring intently at something invisible and, apparently, worrisome. A sheet of paper in her other hand seemed to be the perpetrator, or at the very least, the bearer of bad news.
“Phryne?” he tried again. “Is something wrong?”
“I should have made sure… How will I…” Phryne looked up, still unseeing, her face still a waxen mask. “Oh Jack!” she exclaimed, turning to him, suddenly alive and deeply upset. She reached for him and leaned her head on his chest, already half descended in despair.
“Phryne! Whatever is the matter, love?” Jack held her tight, his hand smoothing her hair at the nape of her neck. He couldn’t make out her words amidst all her short, raspy gasps and he was getting more worried by the second. He had seen Phryne worried, and scared and hurt. He had even seen her crying, inconsolable, by her sister’s unmarked grave. But this… He had never seen her in this state, with wild eyes and panicking to the point of being rendered speechless.
“The. Money. Gone!” he managed to glean between her shaky breaths. Jack gently guided her to the chaise, trying not to jostle her. “Phryne, breathe,” he commanded, drawing long breaths himself, exaggerating every move of muscle, setting the rhythm for her to follow. Eventually, he felt the trembling subside and her controlled demeanour return. Once she straightened her back and returned his gaze, he was satisfied that the panic had run the worst of its course. He walked to the liquor cart, poured some liquid courage and returned to the chaise with a tumbler in each hand.
“Now,” he said, “tell me what happened”.
Phryne sighed and took another steadying breath. “I’ve been such a fool. I have just received a telegram from my investors in London. Great Britain has abandoned the Gold Standard”. She took a swig and looked him squarely in the eye. “My investments have all sunk. As unexpectedly and as tragically as the Titanic in its maiden voyage! All those souls…” Phryne’s head sunk in her hands and tears threatened to take her over.
His breath hitched, but in a second his mind had caught up. So what? He had never cared for her money. It was a constant in the picture she presented to the world, a useful weapon in her arsenal, but nothing more than that. Her money was inconsequential to her, and yet, this was Phryne Fisher; nothing if not resourceful.
“Miss Fisher…” Jack’s voice lilted with the weight of her name on his tongue, uttered with love and mischief. “I can hardly believe that you, of all people, invested all your eggs in one basket”. Smiling had become an involuntary reaction to his hidden smirk, she realised, even through the haze of her sorrowed mind.
“Well, I have found out that if the basket is just right for my eggs, there’s no reason I shouldn’t. It also turns out that I only really need one good, exceptional egg…” She pronounced the last consonant clearly, in that smooth staccato way of hers that always made him think of a Queen performing on a theatre stage, and looked up at him under her tear-speckled lashes.
He felt his pulse quicken and took a steadying sip himself. “So what happened to this particular basket then?”
Though her eyes refused to release his, the corners of her mouth turned downwards and she presented him with the offending telegram she was still clutching. “The investment firm I have been working with made several suggestions in the last two years. I commissioned some independent background checks to make sure that things were indeed as advertised, and though I have been able to keep up with the legal and financial terms the firm employed, I’m still not a financier. So I went with them. At the insistence of my father and Sir Warren Fisher, an uncle multiple times removed who however, is the head of the Civil Service and Permanent Secretary to the Treasury,” she said with a lofty voice, “I also invested in consols. Sir Warren Fisher,” she explained, her voice dripping with sarcasm at the name, “has been so vehement in his belief that the Gold Standard will never be abandoned that he even yelled at someone at the Treasury last week, that coming off it ‘is an affront to national honour’ and ‘quite unthinkable’”. She paused for a breath. “And now, now… Just a week later, the Gold Standard is abandoned, my investments are worth nothing, or will be worth nothing and all the money… The money…” she lamented, returning to the chaise she had jumped up from, and slouched down, her beautiful head in her hands, her delicate pashmina draped across her lap.
Jack had been listening to her rant, trying to keep up with her, wrapping his head around what she was throwing at him. And as much as he loved her, as much as he felt for her apparent terror, there was something that troubled him even more, that was nagging at him, demanding to be made coherent. He sat up, trying to pin down the issue.
“What does this mean, are you now insolvent? Will you need to liquidate the Wardlow, the Hispano?” he tried to reign his questions in, as he seemed to be agitating himself as well. He took her hand in his own and gently brushed his lips on her ring. “I know you are accustomed to a certain standard and lifestyle, but you are still a Collingwood girl. We will make do with what we have and we will be fine, darling. There are worse things one might lose in this life, money and luxury are the least of them,” Jack said, trying to convey all his love and to reassure her that she would not be alone in this. He would be by her side, come what may.
Phryne studied his face, looking for something she apparently could not find, and a different weight seemed to settle on her features. She leaned towards him, grabbing his hand with a force that betrayed her feelings. “Jack…” she admonished, with a slight shake of her head. “I don’t care about the clothes, or the champagne, or the caviar. I would gladly give up the Hispano. I would sell all my jewellery, all my gowns. I would set up lodgers in all the rooms in the Wardlow. And the thought that you would leave me because I lost all our money” she stressed, “had not and never would cross my mind. I think too highly of you and know my own worth too well to even entertain the notion”.
“I… know you don’t really care about all these things, I would never doubt that. I fail to see, however, how these news, while justifiably upsetting, merit such a degree of despair on your part.” Jack rubbed his forehead in an attempt to undo the puzzle in his mind, hoping his insufficient explanation would not hurt her even more than his apparent lack of faith in her, in them, had seemed to.
Phryne smiled a sad smile, but her features had softened enough for that nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach to go away. “I wanted to offer Jane the world. The best education money can buy. I wanted her to travel and go on adventures, visit India, Morocco, explore her full potential. And Dot and the babes and darling Hugh and all the things I’ve been able to offer to all of them. And I need Mr B in my life, regardless of his wages, but Bert and Cec will have to go back to mostly depending on their cab fares. And all those students I will not be able to help, I will need to withdraw the Research Scholarship and Mac will be so disappointed.” She had jumped off the chaise again, pacing through the parlour, and was now refilling her empty glass.
“And the investment in the laundering business will need to go after a hefty profit and the Fallen and Friendless girls will not be protected anymore and oh, Jack,” she exclaimed as the lightbulbs in her head kept going off, “Jane’s mother needs the best care I can provide, I will have to make sure that is always settled first and I hope the other members can keep the Adventuresses’ Club afloat”. Phryne threw her hands up in despair and looked around, as if courage or inspiration would be found in her surroundings, but all she could see was evidence of her lifestyle. The piano with its grand tail, the bookcases heaving with collections and completed works, Jack’s favourite whiskeys and the paintings adorning the walls. So many paintings had been the object of discourse and bidding wars and cases she and Jack had solved, and Jack’s adorable blush that night in this very parlour. It was time she put the paintings to good use. She stretched her arms over the mantelpiece and practically yanked the painting down, when Jack appeared by her side, steadying it between them and halting her frenzy.
“What are we doing with this painting?” he asked. He had watched her pacing as she had listed all the reasons, all the selfless reasons her money mattered to her and understanding had thankfully dawned on him. He loved her more than ever and that certainty and admiration and faith in her had become a pillar in his life. Whatever else happened, he would follow this woman into war and battle and would throw down his life for her.
“We are selling it. Mr Butler can take all these paintings down and Dot can catalogue them. I will contact some of my acquaintances and arrange for a proper valuation”. Her pragmatical and anticlimactic response made him chuckle.
“I am sure that the one painting men would lay down their own fortunes for, is currently upstairs in the boudoir, but I am not sure if you are willing to part with it,” he said, while gazing at her lips a little too long for Phryne to miss his train of thought. She tilted her head and reigned in a smile, satisfied that their thoughts had once more converged.
“Why Jack, I did not know you were fond of any particular painting”, she practically sang while leaning in.
“It’s the one that depicts this very nose” he said, cradling her head in his hand and giving her an affectionate peck on the bridge, “and these very arms”, he continued, trailing his fingers down her shoulders all the way to her elbows, “and this very waist” he let his hand reach her waist while the other removed the watercoloured barrier between them and set it down. Astonishingly, he felt a blush reach his cheeks as he considered following the path he was on to its completion, and pulled her closer for a kiss, before her clever eyes caught on. She surrendered to his lips, and the kiss was slow and deep and comforting and glorious as always, with the ever-present rumble gathering forces. He rested his forehead on her fringe and hugged her tightly, giving her a moment to calm herself, lest she set off again in a whirlwind of action.
“What can we do?” he exhaled. “If it’s gone for good, that’s fine. We’ll make do as best as we can, as best as we both know how to. If it’s salvageable, how do we go about it?”
She gave the question some thought. “I had been meaning to transfer my portfolio to this other investment firm. Prudential Plc. I should have done it so much sooner, I mean the reason to trust them better is even in the name! I’ll see what is left that can be transferred and set up a telephone call with them to make arrangements. They have made a name for themselves investing and supporting in local businesses instead of dealing with bonds and securities and shares, and they seem to have been a better fit for me all along.”
“You see? Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat,” he quoted, cocking his head to the side.
“Sadly, Jack, the Roaring Twenties are definitely over. Mr Fitzgerald’s novels will from now on be read with a nostalgia of the good old times. Assuming I can manage to hold on to the Wardlow library,” she said rolling her eyes. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” she sighed, turning her gaze to the library.
“No, not boats; freight trains,” he returned with a smile.
“And not the past, but the future. Whatever she may hold,” she whispered, as she reached up to claim another kiss. He was all the Jack she needed.
