Chapter Text
The gates to Arrow House stood tall and imponent amidst a thick grove in the depths of Warwickshire. The estate’s name had been forged in sturdy steel and perched high above the iron and brick archways, kept in pristine condition despite the long exposure to the elements, with the family’s proud surname hanging just below in equal condition. Charlotte could easily imagine an unfortunate servant sent there on the daily with a ladder and some polisher, his only duty being to keep the family’s name spotless, literally.
The journey towards the manor was brief and silent, the bumps in the road barely noticeable in the luxurious car that had picked her up from the train station, with leather seats and a smoothly purring engine. She knew little about the brands and commodities money could afford, but the vehicle, driven by a smartly dressed man in a crisp suit, surely cost more than all the money she had ever owned or would ever own in her life as a former VAD nurse.
The Great War had taken many opportunities, but in its wake, it had unexpectedly given some. Hordes of girls and women turned to their nearest recruitment offices or hospitals to receive express courses in nursing and home care, to serve their country side by side with the men, restoring to health those who had been wounded in combat and caring for those who had given it all until they had no more left. Field hospitals, Red Cross stations, local hospitals, and convalescence homes; all packed to the gunnels with soldiers who had been wounded, scarred, maimed, and traumatised beyond repair.
But the war had come to an end. The volunteers, the ones who had risen to the task, scattered and went back to their lives. And so did Charlotte. Only to realise the long battle had just begun. The men would not recover only because the conflict had concluded. Many remained who would need lifetime care and attention that not many families were trained or willing to provide. The nurses returned, offering their skills in little advertisements printed in newspapers or glued to shop windows.
She had it easy, in a way. Early in 1919, a man she cared for harnessed her in to be his private nurse, but that lasted until he came forward with less honourable propositions. Then came an elderly colonel, whom she watched over up until his last breath. And most recently, a strapping young sergeant, whose fiance, who didn’t take kindly to having a young woman dress and wash him, nearly chased Charlotte off.
She quickly grew disenchanted with the job, having found mostly trouble and no small amount of tears in it. Perhaps she was not made for this as she originally thought. Maybe she would do better as a cashier or cook; she could seek a post as a secretary or a board girl in the telephone company. She had learned enough to defend herself as a seamstress. Anything to keep her clothed and fed while sparing her the suffering.
But one day, a letter arrived at her door. A letter sent by the treasurer of Shelby Company Limited. The infamous Polly Gray. A shiver ran down her spine when she read the name in elegant calligraphy over expensive paper, and a part of her feared the envelope would burst in her hands like a hand grenade.
Who in Birmingham didn’t know about the Shelbys? In the slums and the rookeries, people didn’t pray to God; they prayed to the Peaky Blinders. They owned the factories, the distilleries, the pubs, and the institutions. They owned the police. They owned the very streets the people walked every day, their houses, their money, and their lives if they so wished.
And now, it seemed they wished to own Charlotte.
Mrs. Gray convened her for an interview at their estate since they requested her services as a nurse to care for a war veteran. The letter provided little more information other that they offered generous pay, accommodations, and a day off of her choosing. A preset date and time had been included, next to a train ticket to get her to the station closest to them.
Charlotte could not tell exactly what drove her to actually assist. Perhaps she wished to know how and why they found her. Maybe the lure of a salary twice the average had lured her in. Or the morbid curiosity of meeting this soldier; as far as she knew, the Shelby brothers didn’t need anything from anyone.
When she arrived at the manor, a stern-faced woman took her coat and bag. She barely had time to admire her surroundings before the maid led her towards a drawing room. Dark wood in panels and furniture, crimson wallpaper, two walls entirely lined with bookshelves filled with books of all sorts, some in pristine condition and others worn and falling apart.
Amidst all, in a settee of black velvet, sat Polly Gray. Pearls hugged her neck, hung from her ears, and adorned the front of her silver frock. Bracelets and rings decorated her fingers. Masses of papers covered the tea table before her, which she methodically separated into neat piles. By her side were a glass of whiskey and a cigarette with crimson stains, the ashtray filled to the brim. The face powder could not conceal entirely the dark circles underneath her eyes, and some fine streaks of grey contrasted against her golden chocolate curls. A woman not quite old in age but worn out tremendously by troubles and tribulations Charlotte didn’t know.
She cleared her throat, since she appeared so immersed in her paperwork she didn’t notice her.
“Mrs Gray”
“Sit” The harshness of the command contrasted with the undeniable softness of her voice, edged with barely contained nervousness, as if she stood ready to collapse. Hurriedly, she collected the scattered papers and dropped them in a pile at her side, just in time for the stern maid to place before them a tea tray, all polished silverware and hand-painted porcelain. Mrs. Gray spent several minutes in fraught silence, stirring a cup of fragrant tea with two sugars, while Mrs. Gray added the last of her whiskey glass into her cup. Charlotte waited for her to speak first, but the woman seemed to be in no rush, which only added to her own anxiousness.
“Mrs. Gray. You called me here. You sent me a train ticket and a driver to pick me up. Why?”
She stirred her beverage methodically, making five perfect clockwise rounds with the spoon and gently tapping it on the rim twice. Staring into the steaming liquid while she pondered her words.
“You are a nurse, aren’t you? You have field experience, and have also have cared for disabled soldiers." Not an interrogation, merely a statement. She didn’t question her about how she knew that. If she so desired, she could track down her school teacher and ask her how well she did in maths when she was nine. But that still didn’t provide her with answers.
“I am. I have worked with several patients, and if you wish, I can provide referen-”
She cut Charlotte off with a wave of her hand. “I already have your references. I spoke with your previous employers myself.”
A cold shiver spread down her legs. What could she possibly require from her that she take such an effort to map out her past? If she had that information, it meant they had checked her background and that of her family and close friends. And she assumed she had passed whatever unspoken test they carried on her; otherwise, they wouldn’t have brought her straight into their den.
But again, why?
Mrs. Gray put down the teacup and finally looked at the other woman’s face for the first time since her arrival. Her eyes were large, deep in colour, and full of wisdom and caution.
“Do you have any experience with men with reduced mobility? That is, men who are wheelchair-bound?”
That treaded closer to her area of expertise. For a brief moment, she feared she would be taken to a dimly lit basement where she’d be asked to save the life of a grievously wounded man with a gun pressed to her temple. Or maybe she just read far too many crime novels.
“I do. I worked with many men who had lost their ability to walk, either by spinal injury or loss of limb." Before the following pause prolonged for too long, Charlotte pressed the matter further. “Is that why you called me? You have a veteran who can’t walk." She spoke the words carefully, since she had learned through trial and error that not all people reacted well when she spoke too harshly about the state of the patient, so she tiptoed around the subject with carefully chosen words.
Suddenly she stood, setting the cup aside with such carelessness that the tea splattered everywhere, staining the lace covering the side table.
“Come with me." She headed towards the hallway, not even looking to see if Charlotte followed. She barely had time to steal one more sip before rushing behind her, straining her legs to keep up with her pace. She led her through a back door and out of the house, towards a stone and gravel backyard, smelling of horses and petrol. Other than a few hounds and a lone gardener trimming some bushes, no one else was around. No one listening but Lottie.
“My three nephews enlisted around the same time in 1914. And I will forever be grateful that the three of them made it home alive." She walked with her hands behind her back like a man. With that ramrod straight posture and her puffed chest, she could put a general to shame. It certainly worked to intimidate her, and she walked a step behind her, feeling unworthy of keeping up her pace.
“John and Arthur came back okay. Or as okay as men could after the things they saw and did” John and Arthur. Both names rang a bell, but she hadn’t seen them personally. They acted as henchmen more than businessmen, terrorising the factories and the foremen in their factories. Legend has it that a foreman in a Sparkbrook steelworks bought a house with bribes for tossing bodies in the furnace.
“But Tommy” She continued, bringing her attention back to the present. “He was a tunneller. There was a collapse near the end of everything. I don’t know the entire story, but the tunnel caved in on them. Out of fifteen boys, only five were dug out." She fell silent for a moment and made the sign of the cross. Pain wrung Charlotte’s heart, but she didn’t allow it to settle. She had quickly learned to push pain into the back of her mind during the war. If she allowed herself to feel it, she’d collapse like wet clay.
“They brought him back on a stretcher. I never thought a person could be more blue than white and have more broken bones than whole ones. He spent the rest of the war in a hospital room and remained there for a good part of the next year. Every doctor expected him to just die in his sleep, but he refused to give up. He made a full recovery and came home as if nothing happened.”
The tone of her words and Lottie’s very presence there indicated that not all had gone well.
“He took over his duties in the business and married a girl he fancied. They even had a son. No indicator that something could be wrong". Her pace had slowed, allowing her to catch up, now walking by her side, not wanting to miss a word. She had left the backyard behind and now moved into bare grass; from the entrance, she hadn’t quite grasped how far the estate stretched. It could easily and comfortably house two manors equal in size with their own stables and gardens.
“He suddenly started complaining of pain in his legs. Stiffness, soreness, especially in the mornings” She recognised the symptoms immediately but chose to remain silent while she spoke. “Soon he had trouble walking; sometimes his knees gave out and he just fell. He resisted the cane as much as he could, but in time he could not remain upright without it for long.
“We sought a doctor in London. He said a disc in his back had cracked in the accident. The fracture had been stable, but as time passed, it worsened and began to collapse and compress his spine." She waved her hand dismissively. “I didn’t understand any of the technical words, but the doctor said the injury would progress. The spine would be compressed more and more until he lost all use of his legs.
Even though Charlotte didn’t see her expression, she noticed in her words the sorrow she felt for her nephew. And she didn’t blame her. To have him delivered home in pieces, seeing him go through a miraculous recovery only for this to happen. His life robbed from him, one sliver at a time, seeing his own body fail him day by day.
Mrs. Gray exhaled slowly, as if regaining her composure. “Ever since he got the diagnosis, he changed. He became irritable and wrathful. He refused to be seen with the cane; whenever he met people in the office, he leant into something or sat down. Then he refused to be seen altogether and handled business locked in his office." She pulled out a cigar case from her dress pocket and offered her one, which Lottie kindly refused.
“When he no longer could manage stairs easily, he started working from home. He seldom saw people; only his brothers and I could visit him” The smoke left her mouth with each word, since she consumed the cigarette so desperately she barely had time to breathe out. She thought that she didn’t need all that information to do her job, but she didn’t interrupt her. She sounded like she needed someone to listen to her at least once.
She finished the first cigarette and quickly lit a second with the leftover stub. Her crimson coated lips parted, as if she wanted to say something else but chose not to at the last second. Instead her features contorted in a snarl briefly, lips pursed like she tasted something bitter, and then shook her head and regained her composure.
“He bought this manor to be away from everyone. He wanted to live alone, with only the staff to help him, but I couldn’t leave him alone in that state, even if he refused to be helped. He may be an arse, but he is still my nephew” Lottie snickered at her last statement, disguising the inappropriate sound as a cough.
“I realise I could not handle it alone. There is just so much to be done, and many things he would never let me do for him” Another lit cigarette, consumed as frantically as the first two. “I tried to hire him a personal maid but she had the talent of a doornail”
“That’s why you sought me?” It made sense now. A common maid couldn’t handle his injuries and his needs like she could.
A bitter laugh fell from her lips “I sought a nurse, yes. And another one. And another one” She didn’t pay heed to her concerned expression “He never got along with any of them. Despised them, I dare say. Tommy cannot stomach being stared at or treated with pity” She made a mental note of that for her future work, that is, if she survived the day “Not all the pay raises and benefits in the world convinced them to stay long. I offered to pay the last one’s bank loans if she reconsidered her resignation, but that only held her in for another three weeks”
Charlotte’s resolution to take the job faltered by the minute. Why would she want to care for a man who seemed hellbent in making his caretakers miserable? Sure, his situation was nothing short of horrible, but did that really give him the right to spread his venom to those who tried to do good by him? And most importantly, did she really want to put herself through that? The pay was the best she had ever been offered, but would the money be worth it?
Suddenly Mrs. Gray gripped the younger woman’s hand, so tightly her fingers ached. She should have shaken her off, but the desperation in her eyes deterred her from it. She looked like a woman standing on the edge of the abyss, hanging only from her grasp.
“I personally collected your reference letters. All of your previous employers spoke of your patience and your affection. Of how your softness and cheerfulness helped them. I think you are what Tommy needs. I think you are the one who can help my nephew” Her grip tightened and an involuntary mewl of pain came from her throat. She released Lottie’s hand, and instead placed a pleading touch on her bicep.
“Please give it a try. At least for a month. I know he won’t live to be an old man. And whatever life he has left, whether it is 4 years or 4 decades, I want him to find peace. Happiness, even. I want him to have a reason to wake up in the morning” She could tell she wished to say more, but had cut off her words.
With all she laid out before her, Charlotte barely resisted the temptation to grab her purse and run for her life. But something in her words, in the story she narrated for her, it pulled at her heartstrings. She had a thing for lost causes and broken things. In the worst scenario, she would walk out depressed but with enough money to start anew.
She only had one request
“Can I meet your nephew before I make my decision?”
Mrs Gray dropped her arm and pressed her lips into a thin line, eyebrows knit together in a scowl. She wanted to say no, that much she could tell. Maybe she thought she shouldn’t see Thomas until she had her signed up so she couldn’t back out. But Charlotte wouldn’t agree on anything until she spoke to him
“Of course”
Back into the house, she took her to the second floor. Lottie quickly noticed the house had been retrofitted in ways most couldn’t afford to offer Thomas a semblance of comfort. Large paintings hung in the stairway, most of them displaying a man with blue eyes and a dominant posture, always standing with his hands behind his back.
A set of double doors stood ajar towards the back of the floor. The room behind stretched almost all the length of the house, and Lottie noticed in the wall the dents where walls had been taken down to create such a large space. The furniture stood well spaced between each other to allow wide passages, enough to comfortably fit a wheelchair. Sunlight filled the alcove, coming from the many windows with the drapes drawn back. A set of glass doors led to a magnificent veranda that overlooked the estate.
Just outside, close to the balustrade, sat a black-haired man, his back turned to them. The wheelchair he sat upon was far more complex and luxurious than the ones she had in the ward. He wore a robe and slippers, as if he had just risen from bed despite being well into the afternoon.
Mrs. Gray walked out first, while she waited just under the lintel. She stood next to the man, one hand on his shoulder.
“Tommy, there is someone I want you to meet”
“No” His voice cut through the air, deep and curt. It sounded manly, and would have been pleasing to hear in other situation
“Tommy, please give her a chance, I promise-” He cut her pleading short with a smack of his fist on the wooden armrest.
“I said no! I don’t want her here. Put her in a cab and send her away” Mrs. Gray seemed to be at her wits’ end. She crouched next to him, like when one speaks to a child. She couldn’t make out the words she hissed at him through clenched teeth, but whatever she said, he didn’t like. With surprising skill he turned the wheelchair around and nearly ran Charlotte over, having barely managed to stop the chair with a heel on the floor.
The paintings did little justice to the blueness in his eyes. A vibrant blue not often seen, but filled with ice the moment they laid on her. The smart haircut had been replaced by an overgrown mane, jet black strands curling behind the ears and waving around the top. A five o clock shadow obscured the clenched jaw down to the neck. But even unkempt like that she felt the aura of haughtiness and pride bordering on arrogance emanating from him. He held her gaze for endless seconds, and not once she shied away from his cold eyes.
“Whatever it is you think you can do for me, save it for someone else. And now, get out of my home”
He wheeled past her, moving towards the main double doors. He couldn’t really go anywhere, but she figured he planned to hide somewhere until she left.
Lottie stood there, a bit dumbfounded, while Mrs. Gray returned to her side, despair plastered in her features, mixed with barely contained anger
“He is like that sometimes, but I promise you, some days are better. I will talk to him and get him to behave, and if you-”
“I can start tomorrow” She cut her off. Her jaw hung open, eyes widened as she struggled to wrap her mind around her words. Words that shocked Charlotte as much as Mrs. Gray, for she hadn’t actually allowed them out of her mouth. They just left in a blurt. But she meant them, even if she couldn’t quite tell herself why. It went beyond the money; she wanted this job. As if something invisible pushed her to stay there; as if there she’d truly find a purpose. It made no sense, but hunches and feelings rarely did
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Gray. I think I can help your nephew.”