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Really, it was all Jack’s fault.
She’d noticed the chest almost the moment she’d first opened the wardrobe. She’d been distracted at first, of course, by the sight of Jack’s crisply laundered shirts hanging in a neat row besides his suits, and his modest collection of well-shined shoes. The neatness was just so quintessentially Jack, right down to the foot or so of space that he had created for her, so symbolic of the way he’d accommodated her in every aspect of his life, big and small. However, the empty space just drew Phryne’s eyes straight down to the bottom of the wardrobe, where stood the chest.
It was a small wooden chest which, despite its size, looked like something Captain Flint would have buried. ‘J.S.R.’ was stamped on the top with black paint that was both faded and chipped. Phryne’s fingers physically tingled with the desire to open it. She didn’t, since at that moment Jack appeared by her side, slid his arm around her waist to pull her towards him, and she had had other things to think about.
But she saw the chest every time she opened the wardrobe, and she wondered about it every time. Jack never mentioned it, and more importantly he never moved it somewhere more… secure.
He knew that she was blessed with a natural curiosity. He couldn’t possibly expect her to not investigate something so intriguing. Which meant that he probably wanted her to look inside.
That’s what she told herself, anyway, as she pulled it out of the wardrobe and onto the rug. Jack was in the kitchen washing up after dinner, so she only had a few minutes, but the temptation had just become too strong. She would have a quick look, to find out just what was inside, and then she would find a time to investigate further if necessary.
There was no lock. The lid was stiff but opened easily enough to reveal… well, she wasn’t sure, actually.
There seemed to be all manner of random things in the chest. Papers, cards, photographs... a candle? Phryne frowned and picked it out - it was a just a plain white candle, used, with about three inches of wax left. A faded velvet pouch caught Phryne’s eye, and she could feel something heavy inside. A small, flat white box that felt as if it was empty when she picked it up. A faded pocket book opened to reveal an old warrant card for a Senior Constable Jack Robinson. Underneath that was a picture of a very pretty, young woman - as she reached for it, Phryne realised with a start that the woman was Rosie, and her hand fell to her lap. Underneath the photograph, she could see the top a bundle of old letters, and just make out the words ‘Lt. J. Robinson’ written on the top envelope.
Phryne shifted uncomfortably where she knelt on the floor. This was, perhaps, not her best idea. What she’d taken at first for a box of knick knacks in fact seemed to be a collection of deeply personal mementos.
That was the moment she felt Jack’s eyes on her. She didn’t need to turn around to know that he was in the room, and that he’d seen what she was doing. She turned around anyway, and forced herself to look at him.
His face was blank.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Jack gave her tight smile. “I was going to have a nightcap, would you like to join me?”
Phryne managed a nod, and Jack turned and walked back out of the room.
Phryne shook her head, and quickly replaced the things she’d taken out of the chest before closing the lid. Jack hadn’t looked angry, or sounded angry, but she felt dreadful. Why hadn’t she just asked him about it? Why had she just decided to look? Why did she always have to look?
She got to her feet and went to put the chest back in the wardrobe, but changed her mind and closed the door without doing so. She took it through to Jack’s living room, where she found him sitting on the settee, nursing a tumbler of whisky. Another glass sat on the coffee table in front of him. The fire was lit, bathing Jack in its soft glow. He looked utterly delicious, sprawled against the corner cushions with one leg stretched out in front of him, the sleeves of the jumper she had bought him in London pushed up past his elbows and his shirt undone at the collar. Ordinarily she would waste no time curling herself into his side with her own whisky, but tonight she hesitated by the coffee table.
Jack’s eyes flicked down to the chest in her hands before he looked at her, and Phryne was surprised to see that he didn’t look annoyed - if anything, he looked amused.
She put the chest down on the table. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
Jack shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“No, I shouldn’t have been snooping,” she said.
Jack took a sip of his whisky. “No, but I know you can’t help yourself,” he said teasingly. Phryne winced, and Jack’s expression turned serious. “It really is fine - if it needed to be kept secret I would have hidden it.”
“It’s not a secret?” Phryne asked, taking a step closer.
Jack rolled his eyes. “Of course not,” he said.
“It seems… personal.”
“It is,” Jack said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s secret - not from you, anyway.”
Phryne sank down onto the settee, her shaking her head with a smile. “I should have just asked.”
Jack smiled again. “Probably,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.” He took another sip, leaned forward to put his glass down, and then reached across her to slide the chest along the table until it was right in front of her.
Phryne worried her lip. “Are you sure?”
Jack sat back again. “To be honest, I’d assumed you’d already had a look before now,” he said. “They’re just trinkets.”
“Trinkets?”
Jack gave her a rueful look. “My mother gave me the box when I was seven,” he said. “If there’s anything I ever want to keep, it goes in there.”
Phryne grinned. “Jack-in-a-box?”
He chuckled. “Something like that,” he said. He nodded to the chest. “Go ahead.”
Phryne was a great detective, but she’d yet to work out what she’d done to deserve the love of a man like Jack. She ran her hand over the top of the chest, over the painted letters that she could see now had clearly been applied by a child’s hand, and then shook her head. She tucked her feet up under her on the settee and leaned into Jack’s side. His arm automatically wrapped around her shoulders.
“I’d love to see what’s in there,” she said. “Will you show me?”
Jack smiled and bent his head to kiss her. He tasted of whisky. Phryne lost herself in the sensation for a moment, but eventually pulled back, looking at him expectantly; Jack dropped one more kiss on her lips and then scooted forward to the edge of the sofa, reaching for the box. Phryne picked up her glass and settled herself cross-legged next to him, watching as he carefully opened the lid and ran his fingers over the objects on top.
“I haven’t been through this thing properly in years - I don’t know where to start,” he said.
“The beginning?”
Jack shot Phryne a rueful look. “You mean the bottom,” he said playfully. Phryne just smiled, and Jack started to remove items, placing them carefully on the table next to the box. Phryne watched eagerly, impatient to know what meaning these seemingly innocuous trinkets had to her never-ending source of mystery.
“My sister used to call this my obsessions box… in a way she was right,” Jack said, when he’d removed a fair amount of the items.
“Oh?”
Jack smiled. “You can probably see them in layers if you looked at it the right way,” he said. He reached into the box and pulled out a sheaf of crumpled papers. “So the reason my mother bought it for me in the first place was so I could have somewhere to put all of these.”
He held out the papers to her, and Phryne took them from him. They were thin, and clearly rather old, and though the typeface was faded she could see at once what they were, and her eyebrows shot up.
“Concert programmes?”
“Hmm,” said Jack, reaching for his whisky again. “Obsession number one - the piano.”
Phryne grinned at the idea of tiny Jack Robinson attending piano concerts and carefully putting aside the programmes afterwards.
“How old were you when you learnt?”
“Bashing away at my mum’s piano is my earliest memory actually,” Jack said. “She was my first teacher, and then I started having lessons a couple of times a week from Mrs Gilson down the road.”
And she’d done a good job - listening to Jack play her piano was one of Phryne’s greatest pleasures.
“Was it to impress Mrs Gilson that you learnt how to seduce a woman with your fingers and your voice?” She asked with a smirk.
“Absolutely,” said Jack drily. “The seventy-three-year age difference meant nothing to me.”
Phryne laughed, and Jack grinned at her. “Anyway, I would make whatever family member I could bully into it take me to whatever concert performance was ever performed in the city.” He took the programmes from her and carefully replaced them in the box. “I wanted nothing more than to be a professional pianist.”
“So why aren’t you?”
Jack’s was tilted thoughtfully. “Well, first of all I discovered other pastimes such as cycling and playing cowboys, which meant I wasn’t practicing the requisite ten hours a day,” he said playfully. “I didn’t think Buffalo Bill would be that impressed with my piano skills…”
“Every Wild West saloon needs a good pianist,” said Phryne, making Jack chuckle.
“True. Anyway, Mrs Gilson passed away when I was eleven, and I decided not to try and find another teacher,” he said. “To be honest I think my family were rather relieved. They got their quiet evenings back.”
Phryne bumped her shoulder against Jack’s.
“So did Buffalo Bill come next?”
“Um-hmm.”
“Did your badge live in here until it found its new home in my jewellery box?”
Jack smiled and reached for the empty white box Phryne had picked up earlier. “It did - in here, in fact,” he said. “My next-door neighbour Harry got me into Buffalo Bill, he was really into it all. In fact I won the badge off of Harry in a bicycle race.”
“Is that so?” Phryne raised her eyebrow. “And that’s several mentions of bicycles now…”
Jack smiled. “Yes, that was certainly my next obsession,” he said. He reached out and picked up a set of cards, which he handed to Phryne. They were faded and dog-eared, and seemed to depict different famous cyclists - not that Phryne had ever heard of any of them. Closer inspection revealed that they were winners of the Tour de France from the 1910s.
Inspection also revealed that they all sported thighs to die for, rather reminiscent of her own cycling enthusiast.
“I got my first bike aged eleven. It was the beginning of the summer, and I spent every single day outside, riding as far and as fast as my legs would carry me,” Jack was saying. Phryne looked up at him, and he gave her a serious look. “You have to train hard to win the Tour de France.”
Phryne nodded solemnly. “Well of course.” She handed the cards back to him. “So what happened?”
Jack placed the cards neatly on top of the concert programmes. the concert programmes. “I don’t think I was ever in any kind of serious position to get there, but…” Jack paused and reached for his drink again. “My dad died when I was fifteen. Very suddenly. And I couldn’t spend my free time riding a bike anymore - I needed an after-school job. So I left the cycling club and that was that.” He took a moment to have a long pull on his whisky; Phryne placed her hand on his arm and squeezed. He’d mentioned his father’s death to her before, but she knew he didn’t like to talk about it, knew he’d never made peace with how suddenly his father had died.
She could certainly understand that.
Jack gave Phryne a small smile, which she returned before turning her attention back to the table.
“So what came next?” She asked. “How old were you when you joined the police?”
Jack put down his drink and started rooting through the items on the table, clearly looking for something. “Eighteen,” he told her, before sitting back with a piece of folded card in his hand. He handed it to her with a rueful smile, and Phryne took it curiously, wondering why he looked so… expectant. She immediately understood why upon flipping the card open: inside was a photograph of a very young man in a police constable’s uniform, hat in hand, serious expression firmly in place for the camera.
“Oh my word…” Phryne gasped delightedly.
It was just about recognisable as being Jack, but he looked impossibly young - his face seemed rounder somehow, his cheekbones less defined, and his hair was quite simply flattened to his head, emphasising ears that stuck out a little. She had seen one or two photos of Jack as a child, which was one thing, but somehow seeing him as a teenager was utterly bewitching - so close to being the Jack she loved, but not quite there yet.
Jack went to take the photograph back, but Phryne held it away, angling her shoulder to block him. “Uh-uh - I’m keeping this, I’m getting it framed!” She declared.
Jack glared at her. “Phryne.”
Phryne grinned and pressed herself against his arm. “Look at you - oh I just want to eat you up!”
Jack smirked. “Later.”
Phryne smirked right back and darted in to press a quick kiss to his lips. Then she placed the photograph on the table, just out of Jack’s reach.
“So was that the next obsession?” She asked, as Jack rolled his eyes. “Policing? The quest for justice?”
Jack smiled softly, and then handed Phryne another photograph. It was the one she’d seen before, a young woman in an old-fashioned but pretty gown and matching bonnet, smiling for the camera in the sunshine of a flowering garden, her eyes shining. Rosie.
Phryne took the photograph. “She was very beautiful.”
“She was,” said Jack. “It was love at first sight. For me, anyway.” He gave Phryne a rueful smile, and she leant into his side.
“It took a little longer for her?”
“I don’t think she even noticed I was in the room until about the fifth time we met - just another one of her father’s faceless constables,” said Jack.
“I refuse to believe that,” said Phryne indignantly. “You were adorable, I have the photographic proof.”
Jack chuckled. “Well, we certainly didn’t speak for a couple of months,” he said. “And then we did I was worse than Collins when he first met Dot.”
Phryne smirked. “Well, she was your superior’s daughter…”
“Exactly.” Jack took the photograph back from Phryne, looking down at it with a soft smile. “I was… looking back now, I can see I was infatuated with her. I thought she was perfect. I somehow convinced her to marry me, and I came to realise that she wasn’t - and I think that’s when I really fell in love with her.”
Phryne pressed a kiss to Jack’s shoulder and then rested her head on the same spot.
Jack sighed. “And then…”
Phryne sighed as well. “The war.”
“We’d been married less than a year when I joined up,” Jack said. “I was deployed the day after our anniversary. So at least I was on leave for it. A day’s furlough before we shipped out.”
Jack picked up his drink, and Phryne reached for hers as well. She knew that Jack didn’t like to talk about the war - neither did she - but she couldn’t deny that she was curious. She’d never pushed him for any details, hadn’t even known he’d achieved the rank of Lieutenant until she’d caught a glimpse of his letters when she’d first opened the chest that evening… but she wasn’t going to push him.
Jack drained the rest of his drink and then swapped his empty glass for the stack of envelopes. “These are the only thing I kept.”
Phryne threaded her arm through Jack’s, wrapping herself around him. “Letters were a lifeline for a lot of the soldiers I knew,” she said softly.
“They were for me, too,” said Jack. “At first.” His fingers were tracing the edges of the aged envelopes. He handed the letters to Phryne and then scooted forward to reach for the whisky bottle of the far side of the table. Phryne’s hand fell back to her lap as he moved, and she watched Jack for a moment before looking down at the letters. She did as Jack had done, running her fingers over the edges of the envelopes, over the string that held the bundle together, over the faded letters of his name and unit. She knew that he expected her to read them, knew that’s why he’d handed them to her, but she wasn’t going to. She couldn’t.
“Every day I hoped for a letter from Rosie, or my mum, anything to take me away from that place,” said Jack, sitting back again with his replenished glass. “I used to read them over and over. But as it went on, as it got… worse and worse… the letters were just…”
Phryne folded her legs under her and leant into Jack’s side. “Too unreal?” She suggested softly.
Jack gave her a grateful look. “Exactly.” He lifted his arm so that she could fit against him properly, which she did immediately, thankfully. “I couldn’t sit there, waist deep in the freezing mud with my friends’ blood on my jacket, reading about garden parties and knitting clubs back home. It didn’t bring me comfort anymore, it made me angry. It wasn’t fair on anyone back home but I couldn’t help it.” He paused. “It made me feel so ashamed.”
Phryne wrapped her arms around Jack’s waist and buried her face in his shoulder. There was nothing she could say, she just hoped he knew that she understood.
Jack pressed his lips to her hair before continuing. “So I kept the letters. I’ll read them again, some day.”
They were both silent for a few moments, the letters untouched on Phryne’s lap.
“It was after the war that I became obsessed with - how did you put it? The quest for justice,” said Jack. “I spent hours at work, threw myself into cases. Got promoted quickly. Rosie was happy at first, thought that if I was doing well at work it meant I was doing well with everything else but… I wasn’t.”
Phryne tightened her grip and looked up at Jack’s face - he was serious, contemplative, but didn’t seem troubled, just thoughtful. He caught her eye and gave her a quick smile. He started to rub her arm with his thumb.
“For years after the war I was just lost, and work was the only thing that kept me going,” he said. “The puzzle of a new case, something else to focus on other than the memories and the knowledge that I was failing as a husband.” He looked away from Phryne and had some more whisky. “By the time I came out the other side, it was too late for me and Rosie. We were different people. We tried, for years, but eventually we had to admit that it was better for both of us to stop pretending.”
“It was very brave,” said Phryne. “Of both of you.”
Jack was silent for a long minute, and Phryne stayed where she was, wrapped around Jack and thinking over all he’d told her, about the things he’d been through to get to that moment. She wondered if it were selfish of her to be grateful for them.
“Anyway,” said Jack, squeezing Phryne’s shoulder and then gently disengaging himself from her arms. He scooted forward on the sofa and put his glass down.
“The rest of it is just bits and bobs that I want to keep for sentimental reasons, silly things,” he said. He started to put the rest of the items back in the box. Phryne sat forward as well and carefully placed his letters back in the chest.
Jack kept up a running commentary as he placed items on top of the letters. “This is a brooch that belonged to my mother – this candle was from my sister’s wedding, ten years ago in January – my old warrant cards – this is a theatre stub from a show my mate was in just after the war – photos of my grandparents – this is from one of my first dates with Rosie – this is a letter my nieces sent me –”
Then Jack picked up a piece of paper that Phryne immediately recognised.
“That’s that drawing Jane gave you!”
Jack smiled. Jane had given it to him the day of Phryne’s birthday party, the year before last, just after they’d found Janey. It was of an Egyptian ankh, a simple but beautiful charcoal drawing, with Jane’s initials in the bottom corner.
“Yes, I had to keep it,” Jack said, placing it in the chest. Phryne smiled - Jane would be thrilled to know that Jack had kept it.
Jack picked up a small white card. “This was my first announcement undercover as Archie Jones - I don’t often go undercover, thought that a souvenir was in order.”
Phryne took it from him with a smirk. “Absolutely,” she said. She ran her thumb over the neatly-printed news items on the card. “So... you’re still adding things to this day?”
“Yes, it’s a work in progress,” Jack said, placing the last few items in the chest. Phryne sat back slightly and watched as he finished replacing everything. He put the lid back on, and turned to face her with a small smile.
The smile vanished instantly. “Are you alright?”
Phryne blinked. “Yes.” Jack frowned, and Phryne forced a smile. “I am, of course,” she said. She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Jack. For sharing this with me.”
“Even the maudlin parts?”
“All of it. It’s all made you who you are today.” Phryne ran her free hand along Jack’s jaw. “And I wouldn’t change you for the world.”
Jack leant forward to kiss her, and for a moment the heavy feeling in Phryne’s stomach lifted. It returned, though, as Jack pulled away and her eyes fell on the chest once more. She cleared her throat and got to her feet. “Here, let me put this back,” she said quickly, picking it up and disappearing back into the bedroom. She knew she was being ridiculous, knew that Jack would notice and want to know what was wrong, but she couldn’t help it. She stood for a moment, staring down at the chest. She was happy that Jack had been so willing to share it with her, so grateful that he had such a level of trust in her and in them. She felt it too – Jack meant the world to her… which was why she was so…
No. She really was being ridiculous.
She closed the wardrobe doors and turned to see Jack in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, watching her. His face was blank again, just like when he’d found her with the chest in the first place.
Phryne gave him a quick smile. “I think I’ll get ready for bed,” she said.
Jack nodded. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll finish cleaning up and then join you.”
Phryne nodded back, and Jack turned around and left.
Phryne sighed and rested her forehead against the wardrobe for a moment, before retrieving her night things and heading into Jack’s bathroom. As she went through her nightly routine she scolded herself for acting like such a fool, for allowing such a small thing to get to her. It was narcissistic, it was selfish, it was beneath her. Jack loved her - she knew it to the depths of her soul. He loved her, and she didn’t need any proof of any kind.
Phryne finished applying her night cream and then stared at her reflection. “Don’t be an idiot,” she whispered, before pulling on her silk robe and heading back to the bedroom.
She found Jack sitting on the edge of his bed, down to his singlet with his trousers low around his hips. He looked so delicious that Phryne almost didn’t notice the small wooden box on the bed next to him.
“What’s that?”
Jack jerked his head to indicate she should come closer, and when she was within reach he took her hand and pulled her over to sit down next to him. “This one I actually did hide,” he said. “On my bookshelf, on the bottom shelf behind some magazines.”
Phryne frowned. “What is it?”
Jack smiled and handed it to her. It was a lot smaller than the other one, and clearly much more modern. “It’s my greatest obsession,” Jack told her.
Phryne’s heart sped up at the sight of his knowing smile, and she swallowed as she prised open the lid. Her breath caught.
“Jack…”
Like the other box, it was full of a strange collection of papers, photos and items, but this time Phryne recognised all of them. A ticket stub to a production of Ruddygore. A bundle of telegrams sent to Melbourne from various places between Australia and England. A newspaper clip with a photo and a terrible tennis pun. A photo of herself using her fingers as glasses. A Moroccan silk scarf. A dried-out piece of mistletoe.
“It never felt right to add any of it to my childhood chest,” Jack said softly as Phryne’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s so representative of my past, I just…” Jack picked up the photo of her, and smiled at it. “Even when I first met you, I never felt as if you’d be something I could just look back on, with everything else. So I never put you in the chest.”
Phryne shook her head, unable to say anything. It wasn’t just that Jack had kept all of these things, all of these wonderful items that were so important to them both, it was that he’d known exactly what was wrong with her and exactly what to do about it without her saying a word. She didn’t deserve him.
She looked up to find Jack watching her with a slightly worried expression. She dashed her hands under her eyes to try and catch her tears, shaking her head again.
“Jack Robinson,” she said softly, reaching out and cupping his cheek. “What am I going to do with you?”
Jack smiled and turned his head to kiss her palm. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”