The Trouble

The trouble began over Sunday dinner.

The Shelby family was never really what one would call 'domestic.' For various reasons, cherished familial standbys like evening meals, walks in the park, or charabanc trips to the shore were never given an opportunity to take root in the house on Watery Lane, leaving all five Shelby children firmly beyond the reach of Victorian respectability. Not, of course, that five children from Small Heath with a n'er do well for a father had much of a chance with Respectability anyway.

But Aunt Polly was determined that her brother's children would have some small semblance of family life. And thus, the institution of Sunday Dinner. Almost as sacred as the almighty Family Meeting, it was a standing appointment none of them would break.

John, now married and with a family and wife of his own to do the cooking, was, naturally, excused from compulsory attendance, but his brothers, bound by their present bachelorhood, still trooped out of their rooms on Sunday nights for dinner at Aunt Polly's large, plain table. Nothing extravagant - a single woman raising five children has no room in her housekeeping money for extravagance - but good, plain food, and plenty of it for five growing children, or now, two grown (and one growing) men.

There was usually little talk at Sunday Dinner, those bits of news deemed important saved for Family Meeting or for the office, the next day. If a piece of information was thought to be of immediate use or entertainment, it might be brought out around dessert, or when the plates had been cleared for the after-dinner smoke. But tonight, quite in the middle of his bowl of stew and before anyone had even thought of pudding, Finn set his spoon down and cleared his throat in anticipation. "Wecklin's got a new tenant," he offered. "In that big old wreck on King Street."

His eldest brother, torn between the traditional silence of Sunday dinner and the desire for more data, was the first to speak. "D'we know who it is?" He asked, sounding outraged at the prospect of some outsider making inroads into Small Heath. Wecklin, a large local landowner, held the lease on more than several lodging houses and buildings in the area. The 'big old wreck,' as Finn had called it, was one of his less desirable properties, a storefront that had not been able to keep a tenant owing, perhaps, to the neighborhood's general tendency not to pay tradesmen in a timely fashion.

"No-one from 'round here," Finn offered. "Bunch of women. Cleaning everything out this afternoon."

Arthur, not sure what to do with this information in the present moment, returned fuming to his stew, while Aunt Pol and Tommy considered the intelligence. "Did they say what they wanted it for?" Pol asked, laying her own spoon aside.

"Sounded like a school," Finn offered. "Brought in a load of books off a motorcar while I was watching."

"Prayer books?" Polly's voice was sharp with disdain. Religious though she was, she didn't hold at all with missionary sentiment, especially of what she called the 'paper-thin Protestant' variety.

"Didn't see," the youngest Shelby offered with a helpless shrug. His aunt glared at him, but said nothing, and turned her piercing, thoughtful look on her middle nephew, who had, as was his habit, said nothing during the whole exchange.

"We'll see the place tomorrow," Thomas offered thoughtfully from his end of the table, leaning laconically back in his chair; Finn's news had not interrupted his dinner as it had his brother's. Unlike his aunt, Thomas liked to consider his facts before jumping to conclusions, and unlike Arthur, he did not live in fear of anyone, up to and including pale-faced parsons, encroaching on his territory. "Maybe the young ladies need protection. They may not know it's a bad neighborhood."

He said this mainly to soothe Arthur, who seemed calmed at the thought of making a profit out of their new neighbors, but behind his calm gaze and the steady hands reaching for his matches and cigarettes, Thomas Shelby was still thinking. New tenants in Wecklin's wreck, when the storefront had been empty for ages. Mr. Wecklin didn't lease to just anyone, least of all local people - didn't trust anyone. They must have shown themselves trustworthy, somehow. And they weren't running a shop - there wasn't a market for books in Small Heath. A school, perhaps, as Finn suggested, but the wreck wasn't large enough for that. And he doubted the good, god-fearing people who started missions would have anything to do with Small Heath.

No use speculating now. As he'd said, they'd see the place tomorrow, and make a decision after a little more intelligence was gathered.

Like all the others on the street, the King Street storefront had a strong shine of coke-dust on its front windows where there was still glass, and a grimy sign that had at one time announced the name of some long-gone proprietor. Today, however, it distinguished itself from its peers by having not one, but two large lorries out front, from which a strange assortment of domestic equipment (several ranges, brooms, crates marked 'COOKING POTS') and school supplies (desks, chairs, blackboards) was being unloaded.

There were a few teamsters doing most of the heavy lifting, but the real leadership seemed to be coming from a small, determined knot of women, some carrying the smaller boxes inside, one reading from a list of packing cases, and another group directing the hanging of a freshly painted sign on the facade of the building, the words "Small Heath Settlement House" jumping off the facade in electric white.

"What's a settlement house, when it's at home?" Finn, who had come along for the walk, asked expectantly.

Tommy remembered reading about some such place in the newspaper, a large house in London where middle class women with no better occupation taught classes people didn't need and gave lectures on subjects no one had ever heard of. Not directly religious - at least that would make Pol happy. "A lot of women where they don't belong," he said shortly, and slightly under his breath.

Loitering in the street watching the parade of supplies, it was quite a while before anyone took any notice of them. One of the women stepped outside to converse with the tall brunette directing the teamster traffic, and, looking across the street, noticed the two young men observing their front door.

"Can we help you?" she called, somewhat harshly, across the cobblestones.

Tommy disengaged himself from the wall and crossed the street, as if to say, At least my mother taught me it's impolite to shout across streets. "Good morning," he said, in what Arthur called his dangerous business voice, "I'd like to speak to the rent-holder, if that's possible?"

"And who's asking for her?' the shorter newcomer, who from the state of her apron had just been scrubbing floors, asked dismissively, hands on her hips. Her taller companion said nothing, content, it seemed, to observe her friend from behind the shelter of her clipboard.

"Thomas Shelby. I'm a businessman in the neighborhood."

"No relation to the bookmaker, are you?" the small, opinionated one asked peevishly. The taller one looked on with the air of an owner still deciding whether to call off her dog, her gaze sliding watchfully between her companion and Thomas.

Thomas smiled. "Actually, I am the bookmaker."

"She's not here at the moment," the taller one spoke, finally, laying a hand on the other woman's arm. "Shall I have her call, when she's back?"

Thomas marveled at the sort of women who would ask 'to call', noting that both women spoke with what he would have labeled a posh accent. She was looking at him as though she expected him to refuse the invitation, and in earlier days he might have, but Thomas Shelby was legitimate now, and he liked to observe niceties. He also liked to surprise self-righteous, interfering spinsters who assumed the worst of him. "My card," he said pleasantly, pulling the thin slip of heavy, cream-colored card out of a special wallet he kept for the purpose. Thomas Shelby, Managing Director, No. 6 Watery Lane, Small Heath. He loved the look of surprise on the small woman's face for a moment and then said, with an air of superiority, "We are in the office most days until five," and then, collecting Finn from his position across the street, walked home.

"Well?" Finn asked, studying his older brother's eternally inscrutable face as they walked back to Watery Lane.

"We'll get plenty of noise from them," Tommy said sagely, once they were a safe distance away from the women at the front door. "But we'll give them a little bit of time to get settled before we give them any back," he added with a grin. "Only neighborly, isn't it?"

Finn grinned, and, dreaming up all manner of demonic tricks to be played on settlement house spinsters, followed his brother back to the office with a new spring in his step.

For a week, the storefront on King Street was quiet with preparations, and Thomas Shelby sent more eyes and ears to pick up whatever bits and pieces of information dropped off the lorries along with medical supplies, colored chalks, and cans of paint. He knew, now, that Wecklin had rented the storefront because the head of the group was an aristocrat with a fancy name, that they were interested mainly in providing art classes and reading groups and some kind of free clinic, which sounded like a bunch of nonsense for a neighborhood like this one, and that they were, as Finn's intelligence had first suggested, all women, most of them living in a sort of dormitory on the third floor, although some of them were also said to rent rooms nearby.

And then, nearly two weeks after Tommy and Finn had made their initial introduction, their call was returned.

It was a busy day at Shelby Brothers limited, the air buzzing with the anticipated results of two weeks of work talking up the latest offerings for Cheltenham and the other tracks.

Busy enough that a gap of strong silence would not go unnoticed in Thomas Shelby's office. Yet go silent it did, when a person of unknown origin walked in the front door. Tommy, engrossed in his morning paper, did not immediately see the source of the silence, but it was enough to make him stop reading, even if he did not put down his paper, and hear his name invoked out in the front office.

"Is Mr. Thomas Shelby in the office?" It was a lady's voice, upper class and polished.

"And who's asking?" Scudboat asked suspiciously.

"You may tell him that the Honorable Theodora Carteret is here to see him," the woman announced. If it was quiet before, the room stopped dead at that. An Honorable, in the offices of Shelby Brothers Limited? It beggared belief. And – what, no motor outside? And she'd walked here, too. "You will find I have an appointment," she added imperiously into the silence.

Thomas rose from his chair and walked over to the doorframe, leaving his jacket on the hook by the door. Let her take his shirtsleeves as she would. He was a Shelby, and he did as he pleased. The woman was in the middle of the room, her back turned towards him. A tall, beautiful back, Thomas was interested to see, in a long, expensive jacket, leading down to expensively silk-clad legs and beautiful, unscuffed shoes. Esme, over by the chalkboard, was almost radiant with envy. Everything about this woman screamed money - Tommy was even willing to bet that her hat hadn't come from anywhere in England. "I'm Thomas Shelby," he announced into the still room, and, almost as one, the gazes in the office turned towards him, every pair of eyes wondering what he'd do next.

But the Honorable Theodora Carteret turned a little more slowly than the rest, and, seeing her face, Tommy had to blink away a bit of surprise - it was the taller brunette with the clipboard. Hair immaculate, without the apron and away from the grimy shop front, she looked like a completely different person, more at home in the royal enclosure at Ascot than the backlanes of Birmingham. Her smile curled a little. He hadn't hidden his surprise that well.

"Mr. Shelby," she said, offering him her hand as though meeting the heads of large gambling firms were as natural to her as breathing. "Theodora Carteret. You left your card for me the other day. My apologies for the lateness of the call. We've been very busy over at the House." She said 'house' like it implied an Adam mansion, not a begrimed three-floor storefront off King Street.

"No apology needed," Tommy said, equally at home in his role as the implacable head of a respectable firm. She shook his hand like a man would, with a firm grip. An iron fist in a velvet glove sprang to Tommy's mind, though her gloves were ivory-tanned kidskin. "My office is just this way." He held out an arm to escort her back to his little glass-walled cell, and, leaving the staff of Shelby Brothers Limited staring slackly at the vision that had just sat down across from their leader's desk, closed the door behind him, smiled briefly at the rest of the room and pulled the shades.

"You might have introduced yourself the other day," Tommy said, sitting down at his own desk and shuffling aside the morning's paper along with any other pleasantries. She didn't seem the type to need them.

"I wouldn't have wanted to put you out," Theodora said pleasantly. "I understand you're a man who doesn't like surprises, Mr. Shelby. It wouldn't do, to be introduced to a peer in the street." Her smile curled a little devilishly.

"Have you heard a lot about me, then?" Tommy asked, studying this woman and wondering in which of her posh schools she'd learned the art of doing business as he was accustomed to doing it.

"I make it a point to know all my neighbors, Mr. Shelby. My landlord, Mr. Wecklin, was most informative. And when so many of our clients at the House make a point of mentioning you, it was only fair that I return the compliment of a call from such a ...respected name."

Damn the woman. She had heard a lot about him, to make that comment about surprises, when she'd been trying to surprise him since she walked in the door.

"I am glad I am found so," Tommy said, neither confirming nor denying the exact nature of the'respect' given him by the rest of the neighborhood.

"Though, I must confess, I was amazed to hear from our residents that a man of your stature has such interest in our little organization."

"No more than anyone else on the street, I would think."

"But no one else on the street has had a man sitting across the street every day watching our residents and asking questions," Theodora said, her voice sweet and meaning anything but sweetness. Tommy was suddenly strongly and unpleasantly reminded of Aunt Pol. "You insinuated you had something to talk over with me."

All business, then. Well, if that was the way she wanted to play. "I'm interested in making a donation to your work."

She smiled. "Really? Do tell. What sort of donation? Mischief? Mayhem? Rocks through windows? The harassment of our residents?"

So she does know us. He had joked with Finn about getting trouble from the Settlement House, but Tommy was beginning to get the idea he may have underestimated the spinsters, or at least, this one. Well, if she could play dirty, then so could he. "Fifty pounds," he said promptly. That, at least, stopped her, though she was equally good at hiding her surprise.

"Most generous of you. I should not have thought philanthropy was in your line."

"Oh, we always like to give back to the neighborhood, Miss Carteret, as it's been so good to us and our business. Though usually, with a donation of that size, we look for...goods and services in kind. A mention of our name here and there." His gaze seized hers and the two of them sat for a moment in silent conversation. If we give you this money, you will dance to the tune we give you.

"For such a generous offering, we would be glad to give you a tour of the House, Mr. Shelby." I know what you want, and I will give you the endorsement of respectability if you are seen to endorse us.

"Most kind. We like to see where our money goes. Shall we come by on Friday?"

I'm afraid Friday would be terribly inconvenient, with the free clinic meeting then. Saturday, perhaps, but no sooner." She rose from the chair without more comment, and gathered up her handbag. "Well, this has been a most wonderful first meeting, Mr. Shelby, but I really must be getting back to the House. Lots to do."

Tommy rose and opened the door, clearing his throat at the rather poor imitation of work everyone had sprang back to. The gaze of everyone in the office was pointedly focused on the task at hand, even if money was not moving and pens did not dispense ink, every person oddly silent and straining to hear their lord and master.

"My staff and I shall look forward to seeing you on Saturday, then," Miss Carteret said with a smile, holding out a hand again.

"We will be very pleased to see the place," Tommy said, for the benefit of the rest of the room.

Business concluded, Theodora turned to the rest of the room, smiled politely and nodded to everyone's silent study of her, and stepped back out into the street, begging the pardon of Aunt Polly, who was just coming in.

Tommy, however, had not really seen any of the business at the door. He was too busy considering Theodora's last words, the way that she had nimbly stepped around his own invitation and replaced it with one of her own. She'd be ready by Thursday, if he said he'd be there Friday, and she'd stay ready if he decided to be late and hold out until Sunday. That last look of hers had been in deadly earnest, the eyes and smile that coldly and ever so seriously said If you think you can run me, Thomas Shelby, you're wrong.

"That woman," Aunt Pol observed knowledgeably, watching Miss Carteret stroll calmly down the lane, "will be trouble."

And don't I know it, Tommy observed to himself.

Let me begin by saying that I'm not really sure what I'm doing here. (But do any of us really know what we're doing, honestly?) I can't find a history of Birmingham at six different libraries, ditto a good book on organized crime in England, ditto information on urban dwellings in the 20th century West Midlands, ditto a dozen other topics I will need to make this a well-informed story. And I've never been to Birmingham, so Mea culpa to the good citizens of that city.

But after watching season one of Peaky Blinders, I had this sudden image of this upper-class woman who wanted to try and figure Tommy out, who was just as determined and just as stubborn and who knew a thing or two about having feelings and experiences that you don't talk about, and then I had to find a way to get her into Small Heath, where she clearly didn't belong and suddenly, Jane Addams and Hull House surfaced, and Small Heath Settlement House, the perfect way to put a strange fish in stranger water, appeared.

So here we are, testing the waters on a story I'm not even sure will work. There's a two year gap between season one and season two. Say that this happens then.

If you enjoyed Theo and Tommy's little tete-a-tete, feel free to say so in the comments and we'll see what we can do.