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celticcrossanon · 3 years ago

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I’m so sorry for the rant. I just needed to clear my head and got compelled to do it in your inbox. 🙇🏾‍♀️

Not a question just some thoughts. Sorry I’m spamming you so much. I just read your latest reading about the wanna be“tour” and all I can do is SMH. I think to some extent we saw this coming but they are dialing it up and expanding. Conscious humans would’ve called it quits by now. The Remembrance Day pap walk, Going to elementary schools, “donations”, writing letters like they are world leaders, etc. On one hand I can’t see this becoming much of a “thing”. I don’t think MM and Jarry will go on doing this for long unless they can get some Hollywood to pay attention and acknowledge them. I think another reason with the more public European Royals work so well in their media is because their countries are relatively small, like California and Texas are on the large side in comparison, am I right? So much can happen on one side of the country that I only hear of thanks to friends back in California. I can’t see these two visiting any farm in Montana as “royals” if ever. They got a Clinton and Perhaps more big names and “engagement” is to come (oh god 🤦🏾‍♀️) I’m sure they and the sugars are just loving it but it all looks, sounds and feels so incrediblly STUPID & ABSOLUTELY VAPID AND INSULTING. etc etc. I cannot stand entitled people and the fact that these two cut off, trashed, and demand from their own families for a fleeting moment in the spotlight is unfathomable. That’s a testimony to how strong narcissistic delusions can be. It must be the best high I could ever ask for. 🖤Im new to “Royal Watching” if you can call what I do ‘that’, so I don’t really care about all the other indiscretions. I don’t trust the media and I think it’s just the BRF turn in the hot sun to catch hell. See Andrew, see the Clintons and all the others. Whatever drama is going on with Charles, see the rest of big business. I’m a narcissistic abuse survivor and I still study on the disorder. Now here I am watching these two who make my skin craw, this train needs to SPEED UP . I think I’m just looking for a bit of JUSTICE in the world right now. Between this administration, COVID, my job and all my other drama (I’m sure we all have some, if not BLESS YOU and pass it on 🥺) I’m flabbergasted and a little sick in my stomach at watching yet another set of people be able to walk through life seemingly so unbothered. It’s like the world is closing in and I’m suffocating. 🖤Like, your telling me that just because he was born a Prince and she married him and found a way to have children they get to get away with all of this?. The entitlement, the lies, the forced Wokery, using heavy and important subjects like mental health and racism for a PR boost all just to get a⭐️ on the Hollywood walk of Fame? For a couple of royals they sure know how to dump cold water on ya, they are the epitome of LIFE ISNT FAIR. And I’m sure that all depends on perspective, for example; their sugars who must be going diabetic RN. THEY think they have suffered as well. Look at the Cambridge’s who have not put a foot out of place yet have to deal with these tantrums from all over their family. All families have drama and I can see how the Harkles and the rest could be a payback of the Firm and family as a whole. The Queen covered so much and never really saw that Henry and Andrew and god knows who else were set straight. Look what having so much privilege can do. But is there a limit, anywhere?🖤

🖤Anyways, another thought I had was, this could be the end for any thought of reunion. This Narcissist has worked her magic and this clueless tone deaf fool has really gone and done it. I was driving and I thought of Prince William and the entire remaining Windsors & Mountbatten Windsor’s and the whole Aristocracy cutting the Harkles off entirely because the BRF called a wrap (or had to) and the UK became a Republic after Her Majesty. MM get the privlage in her narcissistic head that she’s the last ever to become a Duchess, Cathrine wouldn’t become the Princess of Wales and it all came down in part because of her and Henry’s actions. Yes Andrew and whoever else aren’t helping but these two made it exceptionally difficult. I think they would take pride in that especially publicly but only when they are praised for it. I think the Cambridge’s would have an easier time with moving on with their family, free to live as they please with no pressure to serve the public. Cathrine can be “lazy”, sleep in, & raise her kids and Wills is free to🖕 the paps who would surely still follow them. A La “where are they now”. The two that would have it the worse are the Harkles as they last bit of what they had to separate them from the rest of Hollywood is gone, no more Royal sheen but they don’t have much now. It would be stupid to use the titles after an abolished monarchy but they’d do it and expose themselves further.🖤 If you made it this far, one last thing. I got cut off while driving. That’s not unusual in this Miami traffic and usually i ignore it but with my mental state I couldn’t help but to compare. it was a packed road and I just really wanted to know where the heck the fire was. Why did this person need to rush so much on a busy road that no one else mattered even though we all have somewhere to go? That’s how I feel about the Harkles. What’s the point, where are they going? They went to New England for Christ sake to play faux royalty, in more trashy outfits might I add. 🤦🏾‍♀️

I guess I do have a question, DOES THE WORLD REALLY BELONG TO THOSE WHO JUST Get UP AND TAKE IT?

Thanks for humoring me and providing this space. ✌🏾

Note: My apologies for this very long post, everyone. I can't put a page break in and the writer needs to let it all out. I am sure a lot of you will be feeling somewhat similar to them.

Reply under the cut, so this is not any longer

Hi april14vc,

You are welcome to rant here.

It sounds like you have a lot going on at the moment and it is all becoming a bit much to handle, as there is no relief anywhere. Is there something fun and relaxing that you can do for you sometime today, just to have a break from it all? I feel like you need to tune out for a bit and do something that is just for you.

I am so sorry that you suffered from narcissistic abuse, and so glad that you survived this. I think the Harkle shenanigans must hurt you in a more personal way than those of us who have never suffered under a narcissist. It is very hard to watch the Harkles seemingly get away with all their entitled abuse without any form of justice coming for them.

I think the Harkles are suffering. They usually are unable to get any sort of attention from the media unless they pay for it, and even then they don't trend - it is a 'blink and you miss it' situation. Look at what happened with Meghan's 40 for 40 program - it was dead in the water before the day was over, and she spent a fortune on PR for that. Compare that to the natural (not paid for) hype that surrounds anything that the BRF does, especially the Cambridges or HMTQ. That hype and attention is what Meghan wants, and she is not getting it.

What the Harkles are getting, and what they hate, is mockery. Look at the response to their Times 100 cover. Look at the comments on this pseudo-royal tour. They are a walking joke, and no narcissist would like that. They tried to cull all negative press while they were members of the BRF, were unsuccessful in stemming all of it, and now have no clout at all to stop any negative media attention. The Harkles may live in a delusion of success, but to the vast majority of people they are no more than very risible z-list celebrities.

The Harkles also have serious money troubles. They may be ignoring them, but those debts will have to be paid, one way or another.

What we are seeing now is the slow slide of the Harkles into obscurity, and their desperate attempts to reverse the process, which never work. They are no more popular and wanted now than they were at the time of Megxit, and in fact their popularity has declined since those days. They may look like they are winning, but it is all an illusion, caused by the amounts of money they are prepared to pay to give the illusion of wealth and star-quality celebrity. The paid for events happen, and then nothing. The paid for PR happens, and then nothing. Their slide downwards continues, and nothing that they do is reversing it.

Yes, at the moment they are on a high and beaming put of every report on their activities. Wait a week and then see where they are. This is like the Oprah interview all over again.

My next reading is going to be on the consequences of this pseudo-royal tour for the Harkles, so maybe there will be some justice for you there.

Edited to add: As for taking down the monarchy, I can't see that happening. For starters, the British government would have to put the matter to the people for a vote, and even if they are insane enough to do that, I can't see the British public voting to remove a beloved Queen because of the antics of two people who are despised that that country. The logistics of replacing the monarchy are also staggering - you have to rework the entire government of not just Great Britain, but of all the commonwealth realms who have HMTQ as Head of State, and that is not an easy task or a light undertaking. In addition, those Commonwealth Realms can keep HM as their head of state even if she is ejected by the British people (which would never happen, but I am stretching the bounds of probability here). After HMTQ comes Charles, who will have a short reign simply because of his age and health, and then William will be king, and he is also loved by the British public. I just can not see all that thrown away for the Harkles, who are rightly hated by the British public.

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skylefanfiction · 2 years ago

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There is a wonderful show that I love and want another season of about the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign called Victoria which is similar to The Crown about their descendant Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. These two pictures are from the final season/series of the show although unfortunately there are only 3 seasons. Both of the actors who played Victoria and Albert looked just like the two of them in the paintings and portraits from those years that are depicted in the series just like the actors that have played the royal family on The Crown although there is one actor that appeared on both series: the actor who played the abdicated Edward VIII II in the first two seasons of The Crown plus the season 5 flashbacks also played Victoria and Albert’s uncle Leopold I of Belgium who was basically the matchmaker for his niece and nephew just like his relative Louis Mountbatten played matchmaker for Elizabeth and Philip who ended up having a loving marriage like their ancestors. Out of the deceptions of the royals that I have seen so far and I know there are so many more I haven’t seen yet, my three all-time personal favorites are Victoria, The Crown, and The King’s Speech. Both Prince Philip and King Charles III were like their ancestor Prince Albert in terms of wanting something for themselves while at the same time Charles knew that he was going to be end up being King 🤴 when his mother died just like his ancestor Albert Edward knew he was going to end up being King 🤴 when their mothers passed although none of them had any idea they would have such long reigns. Watch this show as it is so good and we see so many similarities that have passed on the family line through the generations! #victorianroyals #victoriatvseries #victoriatvshow #jennacoleman #tomhughes #victoriaandalbert #queenvictoria #queenvictoriaofengland #princealbert #princealbertofsaxecoburgandgotha #kingedwardvii #edwardvii #edwardviioftheunitedkingdom #edwardviiofuk #ukroyalfamily #britishroyalfamily #britishroyals https://www.instagram.com/p/Ck89Pc6vW6Z/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#victorianroyals #victoriatvseries #victoriatvshow #jennacoleman #tomhughes #victoriaandalbert #queenvictoria #queenvictoriaofengland #princealbert #princealbertofsaxecoburgandgotha #kingedwardvii #edwardvii #edwardviioftheunitedkingdom #edwardviiofuk #ukroyalfamily #britishroyalfamily #britishroyals

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satin-swallow · 7 years ago

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Mystery at Mountbatten || Chapter Eight || Straight Down to Earth

“Josephine stared at her with tortured pain etched all across her face, ‘I can already see her in your eyes.’”

Fandom: Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Characters: Phryne Fisher & Jack Robinson Rating: T Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Ghost Story

By the light of day, no one really dares to share what they've been through.

Please read and comment at AO3 if you have a moment. Thank you!

“Paint ghosts over everything, the sadness of everything.”

(Richard Siken, War of the Foxes)

They had - none of them - dared to speak a word about it.

As they sat down the hall from Arthur Johns’ hospital room, there was silence apart from the mumbling that could be heard beneath the door as doctors shuffled about their morning duties. The muted babble gave the air of strained questions and dim concerns. Reginald stood near the window of the waiting room, his face the most serious any had perhaps seen it as he gently held his arm, which was bound and slung, a grazed bullet-wound rendering it all but useless for the moment. Hugh’s head was in his hands as he sat forward on an old wooden chair, guilt clawing at him ferociously, and the feeling of his pistol - now confiscated - still resting heavy in his palm. Mac, not quite as incapacitated as poor Dr Winslow, had leaned against a nearby table after she had been ushered out of the room; even with a patch of gauze to mark the spot in which she had been injured, she still wore the white coat that illustrated the care she had insisted on giving the boy at once.

Soon, though, it had been time for questions.

The doctor had now turned her attention to Phryne, watching her closely as she stood at the centre of the room, staring at the door as though it might grant her access to the interview down the way by sheer will. Her eyes were fixed and if Mac knew anything - which of course she did, and a great deal - she knew that meant that her friend was deeply troubled by the whole affair.

Then, weren’t they all?

When that door finally opened, it seemed that Phryne had been in some sort of trance, frozen in place until the moment she had stepped forward into Jack’s path and pressed him without speaking for everything he knew. His face was grave, clearly exhausted, and the shake of his head made all in the room hold their breaths.

“He won’t speak,” he muttered hoarsely to Phryne, and it broke her heart on the spot. Her fingers curled round until they were clutching at his sleeve, and held his gaze with an earnest grief, “He just… he can’t.”

“Not even to his parents?”

Jack simply shook his head.

“It’s the trauma,” Mac added gravely, “we’ve seen it before with children, a kind of shell shock.”

That the same impact could be visited on a child as on a man returned from war, none fancied to consider for long. Jack swallowed before the practicality of his work wrapped up those concerns into a more functional outlook, “Yes, well, at least he’s now safe. His parents will stay with him and report anything further to the Constabulary as it arises.”

The silence seemed to ring. Could the entirety of the thing really come to nothing more than a watching brief?

“And our reports?” Reginald offered up meekly.

“What we need in the first instance has already been handled by the constables on duty at the Hall,” Jack responded, “we’ll call you in for the formalities tomorrow, when you’ve had a chance to rest.”

Phryne’s grasp had not left Jack’s sleeve, just as her eyes had not left his face. They now seemed to echo the thoughts from around the room that ‘rest’ might not be had for some time.

“You’re free to leave,” Jack said. Nobody moved.

None asked what was next either, since the precarious nature of the whole was more than apparent. Indeed they were sure that the announcement of Arthur Johns’ reappearance would be widely reported considering the surrounding circumstances - which more than a few might consider unusual - and which never seemed to work in the Constabulary’s favour. Whatever had happened to the boy over the past few days, it would be speculated about until it was strangled into absurdity. Actual police work would be a nightmare and the truth would grow more obscure as the days wore on. If they could not get the words direct from Arthur’s mouth, they might be lost altogether to the annals of history and conspiracy.

Much, Phryne reflected with a little irony, like the story of Lady Cavanaugh herself.

The sun was pouring in through the windows, however, as though to mark the charge of time, and there seemed little but to break and reconvene when the whole twilight atmosphere of the affair had been seared by its bright beams into a more manageable reality. They ought to have learned by that point, of course, that the entire matter of reality was spinning wildly beyond expectations.

No sooner had the room settled into the impasse, when a commotion awoke violently in the corridor outside, voices rising from incivility to outright hostility in a few moments. Jack blinked, but it was Phryne who recognised the peculiarity of the source within an instant. She pressed passed him and through the door with a stride that was reserved for dealing with only one person in the world.

“Aunt P?” she called out as she emerged amongst the white coats and caps, Jack in tow and the others following in similar curiosity. The older woman, however, was much too busy trying to persuade the cause of the ruckus that making a scene was hardly in his favour.

Chester Willis, imposing and clearly upset, was having none of it, however, as he towered over the man Phryne knew to be Mr Johns. The pair were caught up in an exchange of bitter aggression, and it was not long before concern turned to intervention and Phryne was running.

“Keep your delinquent son away from my boy, Willis!” cried Mr Johns, days of grief that Phryne well understood marked across his face. “Hasn’t he done enough?!”

“Frederick is as much a victim of this situation as Arthur!” Chester yelled back.

“And yet here he stands while my son can’t even speak!”

“Hey!” Jack finally called out, forcing himself between the men as it looked like it might come to blows.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve bringing him here like this, as though he has the right after what he dragged Arthur into – “

“He didn’t drag – “

“Stop it, both of you!” Jack interjected, and Phryne instinctually turned to poor Frederick, standing limply next to Aunt Prudence as though he might die on the spot, white through from head to toe. She took a hold of his forearm with a reassuring squeeze.

“I think you had better go home – “

“Not until my son has seen his friend,“ Chester pressed.

“His friend?” Johns saw red, “This is how he treats his friends is it?!”

“He doesn’t mean any harm, Mr Johns, I assure you,” Prudence foolishly attempted a defence, but received only the tail end of the man’s ire.

“That’s just it though, isn’t it?” Johns hissed, “He didn’t think beyond what he wanted all those nights ago, and now my boy is in the hospital and another one is dead! And you’re all coddling around him to make sure that dear Frederick isn’t put out!”

“He had nothing to do with – !“

“He was the last one on the scene! Who else could have – “

Chester Willis at once shoved forward again at the implication, swinging wide only to meet Jack’s immediate prevention. Aunt Prudence was too horrified by the statement to contain herself any longer. The stress of a million little pressures snapped within her, “Stop it! Stop! He just wants to see Arthur!”

Phryne reacted almost instantly, taking a firm hold of her aunt’s shoulder and turning her away at once, while Jack managed the temper of both father’s with Hugh coming in to pull Willis clear of the fray. Frederick stood stupefied, and Phryne knew that nothing would do him as much good right now as getting away from the whole debacle. She moved at once towards the doors, pressing the boy and her aunt on by the elbow.

“He just wants to see Arthur,” Prudence muttered again, distraught as the quiver in her voice devastated her niece completely.

“I know, Aunt P,” she answered softly, “I know.”

***

“I’ve given her a tonic for her nerves,” Mac confirmed as she stepped into Aunt Prudence’s drawing room, closing the door behind her and placing her hands squarely in her pockets, “she’s resting now.” Her voice sounded as weary as Phryne felt, even as she had extracted herself from the effects of her aunt’s emotions to manage the fallout of her own.

“Thank you,” she offered softly, her lips shrugging into a genuine gratitude, “I’m afraid she’s taking the whole thing entirely to heart.” She stepped away from the window, taking in an abiding breath and releasing it into a deep sigh, “I can’t really blame her – it is the cruelest trick of fate that he should be called ‘Arthur’.”

Mac’s sympathy was meted out in silence, alongside her more pointed concern, “It’s one of a few upsetting coincidences.”

Phryne’s eyes fixed on her friend, and she knew inherently that this was a question more than an observation. “I’m fine, Mac, honestly.”

“I don’t think that you are,” she refused.

“I’m managing,” she clarified, “if I fell to pieces over every missing child, I’m sure I’d be catatonic.”

Mac didn’t argue, looking to the floor and knowing to pick her battles. “Where’s Frederick?” she opted for the more easily answered.

Phryne did not miss the transition, and she frowned with dissatisfaction at the entire affair, “His father took him home.”

There, at least, was something they could agree on.

Mac’s lip curled slightly in dislike, “If I were Fred, I’m not sure I’d want him for me, or against.”

“I definitely don’t have as many scruples,” Phryne tossed aside at once, “the man is odious, no matter what side he’s on.” It earned a chuckle, a relief in the circumstances, and sufficient to set aside the charge of the room. Phryne smiled in response and stepped up to the doctor to examine the damage, “And how are you?”

“Oh, you know me,” Mac responded tilting her head slightly to allow the inspection, and touching two fingers to the little gauze patch, “I have a hard head – I’ve had to adapt for survival.”

Phryne grinned, “I’m sorry we dragged you into the fray.”

Mac looked alarmed at once, “Don’t you dare – if you didn’t, I’d have to lie awake at night worrying, and there are far better things to lose sleep over.”

The moment descended on them and the weight of the unspoken pressed itself in from all sides as though it had been waiting behind the emerald drapes. Phryne opened her mouth to ask, but Mac quickly put a stop to it, “I’m tired Phryne, and so are you – it can wait. Arthur is safe now, it can wait.”

It was never the right answer for Phryne’s relentless desire to know, the instinct that had driven so many of her passionate pursuits, and her investigating streak particularly, but she would accept it because she couldn’t bring herself to demand more of a friend who had already given her so much.

“All right,” she acquiesced.

“Good,” Mac seemed only slightly suspicious, “now I’m going home – and so should you.”

***

Phryne had not followed suit immediately; even as Mac had picked up her hat and departed, the lady detective had taken the time to make sure that Mrs Lovell had settled her aunt well enough, and leave strict instructions that she was to telephone Wardlow first thing in the morning. Even so, it seemed beyond belief that the sun might be dipping into late afternoon as she finally approached the Hispano, and she inwardly questioned whether or not she should be driving at all. Her limbs bore that heavy, lulled feeling so often present in the wake of adrenaline and sleep deprivation, and her mind had begun to feel sluggish as she barely registered the decisive clicking of her heels on the outside stairs. The thought of a hot bath and bed was sufficient, then, to switch her off to the world, and prevent the wave of questions which threatened to break the moment there was room for it.

It was for that reason that she did not recognise Josephine Randall until the woman was nigh on upon her.

“You’ve seen her,” she pressed immediately, almost belligerently, and Phryne let out a curse so distinct she was surprised it did not instantly arouse Aunt P from upstairs. “I told you,” she seemed greatly distressed, “warned you.”

“Mrs Randall, I’ve little time for this,” Phryne was not in the mood, “and I’ll thank you never to trespass on my aunt’s property again.” How she had followed them in the first place beggared belief. “If you have something to tell the police – ”

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” the old woman didn’t listen, “it’s just like the first time – he came back from the islands without a care in the world, even when other’s told him what was at stake. He had to go ahead in his arrogance.”

Phryne had tried desperately not to rise to it, even opening her car door to avoid the hook, but Mrs Randall had played her hand remarkably well. “What are you talking about?” she stopped.

The woman seemed suddenly cowed, however, now that she’d said what had clearly rested on her for some years, and the same shake Phryne had seen at Mountbatten returned to her frame with a vengeance, “Polynesia. When the expedition returned, everyone could feel the cloud it brought down on the house. He wouldn’t listen… “

“Wouldn’t listen to what?” Phryne pressed, smelling smoke in the woman’s fire, despite the babbling, and her eyes flashed a clear blue in utter impatience.

The hesitation turned to fear at the sight of that flash, however, and recognition seemed to blossom on the woman’s face. “… No, I didn’t –” She clapped her hands over her mouth as her fear turned to panic, “I didn’t mean – Oh God, it’s too late. It’s too late.”

“If you know something, and you’re keeping it -“

“Evil! I told you there was evil in that house, and you wouldn’t listen either!”

It was too much.

“Mrs Randall,” Phryne advanced on her, unsettling her agitated stance and forcing her to step back, “unless you have something of substance to add, something which will help us actually uncover what happened to that boy, I suggest you step away immediately, or risk my doing something one of us will sincerely regret.”

It was enough to frighten her into a whimper, and into shielding herself from Phryne’s aggression, and the detective chastised herself for the action almost immediately. She forced her impatience to heel and, after a moment, tried to calm the situation, “I’m sorry, Josephine, it’s been a long night.”

“It’s too late,” she shook her head with a hoarse whisper, “I’m too late.”

“Too late for what?” Phryne tried.

Josephine stared at her with tortured pain etched all across her face, “I can already see her in your eyes.”

***

Jack’s office seemed desolate as darkness compelled him to switch on his desk lamp, and he felt a creeping fear that the administration of Arthur’s return would not allow him to get the sleep he so sorely needed. It was not that he resented the work, but rather the limitations of his own body in light of the multitude of questions that had now exploded through this case. It was a strange phenomenon, to go so quickly from having no leads at all, to having a myriad. He knew, however, that they would be of no use to him if he did not give his mind a chance to rest. He collapsed back into his chair with a heavy sigh and stretched the aching muscles in his neck.

Without fail, the gloom drew him back to the Hall, sinister in his memory now as he recovered the sight and sound of Arthur, cowering from his touch against the bedroom wall.

A steady anger had begun to boil in his gut at the thought, connected to the frustration of having no idea what had done this to him, how he’d found his way there, where he had been for the last few days, and he may well have stewed in it, had it not been for the steadying presence arriving at his door.

“You look quite dashing, exhausted in the lamplight,” she teased.

It washed over him like a balm, and his smile was instantaneous, “You should be at home, in bed.”

“Promises, promises,” she purred.

He eyed her from beneath the fingers that worked at the bridge of his nose, “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t honestly think I’d leave you here to while away the lonely hours by yourself, did you?” she stepped into the room, her gait bearing the laziness of a long day, stopping to rest her fingertips on the edge of his desk. He simply waited. “I ran into an old friend at Aunt Prudence’s,” she confessed, “Josephine Randall.”

“What?” he sat forward, his brow furrowing in query.

“Precisely what I thought,” she answered, “evidently our little adventure has not gone unnoticed; she was full of all kinds of condemnation.”

“Condemnation of what? From my point of view, we found missing child,” he cut, always less charitable towards nonsense when he was tired, and clearly having fielded a little criticism from his superiors.

There was a pause as she considered that for a moment, the gravity of her melancholy side reaching out from her, “Is that what we did?”

Jack met her gaze over the desk, the lamplight casting faint shadows across her features that exaggerated the facts, which neither had yet addressed to anybody. “Is it?” he simply threw back, opening once more the first thing he could remember saying to her after the daze of it all.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

He wasn’t yet ready to confront the plummeting he had felt at the sight of her stepping, almost gliding towards the increasingly lethal window. The sheer determination on her face had frightened him on a viscerally deep level.

Phryne measured him closely, the gauntlet lying between them and waiting to see who would answer first, expose themselves to the scrutiny of the other. It had all been fun and games when the thought of the unexplained had been a tingle in the spine, rather than a night of lost memories. The truth was that to speak first was to risk admitting credulity in the face of what had previously been too ridiculous for words, an odd sort of macabre almost amusement. It would take the kind of courage that none had summoned – not Mac, not Reginald, not Hugh. It was a peculiar test then, for lovers growing in intimacy and a new kind of trust, which went beyond dangerous situations and mysteries of the less… mysterious kind.

Here they risked the most private of reputations: sanity before the world, or more specifically before each other.

“I barely remember a thing,” Jack admitted, and the forthrightness of his risking ridiculousness drew a breath from Phryne, “Just the laughter, the stairs, an attacker, and Arthur.”

Phryne swallowed, and then she hesitated.

For all his bravery, Jack’s story was hardly an exposure; his recollection contained nothing of growling in closets and women at windows. The breath she had drawn halted once more, and she ran from the admission, looking to the floor, “Any idea who he was? Your attacker?”

Jack felt the departure, but was unsure what it meant – for them or for the look he’d seen in her eyes before he had pulled her back from the edge. His exhaustion stopped him from pressing it, “No idea – he was large, strong. I didn’t get a clear look at him, I don’t think.”

When Phryne looked back at him, it was with both relief and the uncomfortable sticking feeling that she had misled him. After so many months of freedom from any hiddenness between them, it felt awful, wrong. She wanted at once to touch him and eradicate the barrier, but she could not bring herself to do it. “There’s clearly someone else who has access to the property, in honesty I’ve been finding myself rather curious about the Baron’s remaining family.”

“Yes,” Jack agreed, standing up and coming around to her. “After last night, though, I’m not sure they’ll be very enthusiastic about helping us.”

“I’m sure they’ll have no choice,” Phryne argued back with a slight edge, clearly growing defensive against the suggestion that their operation had been anything other than fruitful, “you are the police after all.”

Jack smiled, brushing her hair behind one ear, “Go home, Phryne. Get some sleep.”

“And what about you?” she tilted into the touch.

“I’ll be close behind, I promise.”

It was impossible to hide anything from those eyes, Phryne knew – the same ones that had worn away at her with gentle pleading for a year before she had been utterly undone by them. The fact that he didn’t take her into his arms now, didn’t kiss her the way they seemed compelled to every moment they were near made her feel the growing distance, and her heart clawed at it and begged her to tell him what had happened, to confide in him the truth – at least what she knew of it. Her lips drifted open as though they might do it without her permission, but the memory of curls and silver skin shut them at once, the straining memory of her own desperate curiosity sounding more absurd by the second.

Again she ran from the exposure, this time with humour.

“I’ll be sure to get Mr Butler to leave out your slippers,” she quipped, and then she moved to walk passed him, each touch becoming abrasive with the secret and the thought of closeness feeling more like betrayal.

She placed a hand on his chest as she made for the door. She did not get far.

Without a further word, Jack set aside all functionality, took a hold of her wrist, and pulled her back around and into him, wrapping her into a hug which mirrored the one that had saved her so fiercely from that morning’s fall. Where previously his arms had been all fear, however, they were now full of a desperate appreciation, and Phryne felt his intent through her very centre as he buried his face in her hair and pressed an urgent kiss to her temple to reassure her that he was there regardless. It forced all anxiety from her with a huff of breath she had seemingly been holding until that moment, and she gripped at him in an admission of need she would never expose to anyone else. His kiss found her out in acknowledgment of even that vulnerability, tender and searching at once as the tension of the day’s coping buckled under his need to have her close and safe, and covered. The very warmth of his mouth seemed to question if she was all right. After a moment, they simply stood, their foreheads pressed together and Phryne holding tightly to his shirtfront as their breaths came in short rushes, colliding erratically.

“Take me home,” she finally murmured to him.

Paperwork be damned.

#fanfiction #phryne fisher #jack robinson.#phrack #mfmm #miss fisher's murder mysteries #mystery at mountbatten #my work #fic

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briefnytw · 7 years ago

Text

Partition: The Creation of Two States

Before Partition: Muslim and Hindu Relations

Long before British rule, India was ruled by the Mughal Empire from 1526 to 1857. The Mughals were founded and ruled by a Muslim dynasty, taking governmental control away from the Hindus native to the land. Similar to other conquests of one nation by another, the Mughals used violence to gain control of India. During the time of ruler Akbar, from 1556 to 1605, there was much intermixing within the two cultures. Akbar built relations with Hindus through marriage, listening to the teachings of Hindu saints and philosophers, building Hindu and Muslim temples as well as allowing Hindu’s to play a big part in court. Other rulers, such as Aurangzeb who ruled from 1658 to 1707, were not so open to Hindu influences. Aurangzeb imposed harsher taxes on Hindus, had authorities mistreat them, and showed considerable favoritism, overall, to Muslims.

However, the last written ruler of the Mughal emperor, and most rulers of the empire, mirrored Akbar’s tolerance more than Aurangzeb’s favoritism. By the 19th century, a Sunni Muslim living in Bengal still had more in common with his Hindu neighbor than another Sunni or Sufi Muslim from another part of India and vice versa. Historian Sukbir Singh sums it up by writing that, “the social relationships between these two communities were co-operative without any severe constraint or conflict despite religious distinctions.”

By 1858, India found itself caught in the crosswire of British imperialism. The East India Trading Company, a British company, had gone to and won a war with the Mughal Empire, which soon set the British up not only as an economic power but also as the as governing power in India. Many historians view this as the turning point in Hindu and Muslim relationships. Alex von Tunzelmann writes in her book India Summer that when “the British started to define ‘communities’ based on religious identity and attach political representation to them, many Indians stopped accepting the diversity of their own thoughts and began to ask themselves in which of the boxes they belonged.” British legislation helped create the Congress Party, a secular party with a Hindu majority, and the Muslim-dominated Muslim League. These two parties played a huge role in Muslim-Hindu relations as India hurdled towards Independence.

To Independence: The Creation of India and Pakistan

Calls for India’s Independence from British rule began to gain steam at the end of the First World War.

Photo from an article by Shoaib Daniyal

The Congress Party was led by Hindu’s Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, while the Muslim League was led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. All three were lawyers who received part of their education in England. Much of the politics in the situation, like today, was lead primarily by relationships and personality. In the beginning, Jinnah was a huge advocate of Muslim-Hindu cooperation in gaining independence. He was famously dubbed “the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity” after saying that he thought the British were implying Hindu-domination over the Muslim public as a way to “frighten you, to scare you away from cooperation and unity, which are essential for the establishment of self-government.”

However, after the First World War the relationship between Jinnah and Gandhi grew sour. Congress Party launched a boycott of non-cooperation to all aspects of British rule. Jinnah did not agree with this policy, which grew the divide between Congress and the Muslim League. After local elections in 1937, Congress refused to form coalition administrations with the Muslim League in mixed areas.

During World War Two, Congress began a “Quit India” movement and refused to fight for Britain in the war. Gandhi, Nehru, and many others were arrested and jailed. Jinnah, however, used this moment as a way to grow favor with Britain, urging Muslim Indians to fight for the British in the war and meeting with British leaders to discuss Muslim interest in India. Jinnah began advocating for partition and the creation of a Muslim state of Pakistan. Historians are still undecided on whether Jinnah used this as a bargaining chip for equal Muslim-Hindu control over Independent India, or if he seriously wanted another state.

Overall, this did not bode well with Congress and Gandhi, who thought Indians should be fighting for independence instead of currying up to and helping Britain win their wars. By the end of World War Two, the disagreements between the two men intensified. The disorder brought on by the World War Two fueled the discontent between Hindus and Muslims even more. Local and regional political leaders deepened the idea of separation with their words and calls to violent action. People began moving from mixed neighborhoods to areas with only Muslims or only Hindus. Soon there were widespread religious massacres; one in Calcutta in 1946 took the lives of five thousand people.

At the end of World War Two, the British Empire was heavily wounded and no longer had the resources to continue ruling India. In March 1947, Lord Louis Mountbatten came to Delhi to give India its independence and set up a central government. Prime Minister of Britain, Clement Attlee, at the time told Lord Mountbatten to “Keep India united if you can. If not, save something from the wreck. In any case, get Britain out.”

Mountbatten found Congress and the Muslim League unable to agree on many terms on independence and rule. Communal violence between Muslim and Hindu communities continued. Thus instead of one central government, Mountbatten, Congress, and the Muslim League agreed to two independent states. Mountbatten acted very hasty in trying to get Britain out of India. He announced August 15, 1947 as the day of the transfer of powers. This date was ten months earlier than Congress and the Muslim League had expected. Cyril Radcliffe, a British judge, was given less than forty days to draw the boarders of the two new states. On August 14, 1947 when the remaining British officials set off towards the railway station to leave, they saw Punjab burning.

The Aftermath:

Photo Credit: Margaret Bourke-White/The Life Picture Collection/Getty

When August 15, 1947 finally came, millions of Muslims migrated across the newly drawn border to Pakistan, while millions of Hindus migrated in the opposite direction to India. Guerillas, from both sides, clubbed travelers they met on the roads, while packed trains often suffered ambushes that left hundreds dead. Leaders in the Muslim League and the Congress Party tried but could not stop the violence. In a couple of months the Hindu population in what is now Pakistan went from 15% to 1.5%. Muslims in India, especially Punjab, according to India’s census, went from 52.4% to 1.56%. Partition result in 15 million people displaced and more than a million killed.

Tensions remain between Pakistan and India to this day. Though the generation of citizens in both countries that lived through Partition have begun to talk about the violence they witnessed and endured, a collective healing, from both sides, seems distant.

http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/128996/11/08_chapter%204.pdf

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/29/the-great-divide-books-dalrymple

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-cant-hindus-and-muslims-get-along-together-its-a-long-story-1162319.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/how-the-partition-of-india-happened-and-why-its-effects-are-still-felt-today-a7888131.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/15/indian-independence-day-everything-need-know-partition-india/

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-was-the-partition-of-india-195478

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/the-british-pm-who-oversaw-indias-independence/295156

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/viceroys-house/lord-mountbatten-india-partition/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/70-years-later-survivors-recall-the-horrors-of-india-pakistan-partition/2017/08/14/3b8c58e4-7de9-11e7-9026-4a0a64977c92_story.html?utm_term=.1db85f9b84c0

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/how-the-partition-of-india-happened-and-why-its-effects-are-still-felt-today-a7888131.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/31/break-silence-partition-british-colonial-history-south-asian

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/05/partition-70-years-on-india-pakistan-denial

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/14/everything-changed-readers-stories-of-india-partition

http://theconversation.com/how-the-partition-of-india-happened-and-why-its-effects-are-still-felt-today-81766

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/indian-partition-a-brief-history-of-india-and-pakistan-on-the-70th-anniversary-of-independence-a3612126.html

#anordinarymuslim

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