At Your Service [Tommy Shelby]

Surprise

The next day Vivian was contemplating whether or not to contact Ada about the conversation she had with mister Shelby. She still doesn't really know where it went wrong, though she could guess her threat didn't really de-escalate the situation. She also doesn't know where they stand now. Did she ruin the bit of relationship that they had? Vivian pretty much knows for sure he didn't take her seriously, which made her fuming. His comment about those workers deserving a day off for their hard work, only made her realize how little he knows about her work. This man is living in such a massive mansion, it's 24/7 working. While cleaning may not be as dangerous as working in a factory, it is very demanding, not only on your body, but also on your mind. It's a constant placement of others above yourself. Hmm perhaps she sounds like an entitled brat now.. she doesn't know. All she knows is that she wants a damn day off. She might take on Ada's offer when mister Shelby decides she is too much trouble for him.

It's about 5 days later and Vivian still hasn't reached out to Ada, and she isn't going to anytime soon. She hasn't heard back from mister Shelby and she just counts herself lucky to still have a job. There's been a couple of instances where she had to serve mister Shelby and now they downgraded to a nod again, though she did have the feeling he was looking at her when her back was turned. Although part of this downgrade is probably because Vivian hasn't exactly been following conversation etiquette with him anymore. She wants to say as little as she has to to this man. She has to admit that it has been occupying her mind quite a bit though. It's even a bit stresfull. And now after ruminating for almost 10 minutes, she has to get out of bed to start the working day.

After her morning routine, trying to get her hair the way Francis wants it to, she heads downstairs to have the usual breakfast. She walks into the room, but instead of being greeted by tired nods, she hears a lot of excited chitchatting all around. What is going on? When she reached the bottom of the stairs Francis walks towards her with a clipboard. "Goodmorning Vivian, you're a bit late again." Vivian bats her eyes as she apologizes. "Today it doesn't matter darling." Francis says with a wink. Today? What is going on? Vivian was about to walk away to grab herself some grub and trying to figure out what she has been forgetting today, but Francis steps in front of her as she looks down at the clipboard. "Right, Vivian, are you religious?" Vivian frowns, what a bold question. "Uhm, no not really, why-" Francis checks something off on the paper, "Okay, so you won't need the sunday then.. What day would you prefer?" She looks at Francis with a confused look, what in the hell is she talking about? It takes a couple of seconds for Francis to notice that she doesn't even know what she's on about. "Oh! right.." she facepalms, "I'm sorry I haven't even told you yet. Mister Shelby has given us the right for a day off every week!" Vivian scoffs, that son of a bitch.. he did listen.. "Are you not excited?" Francis asks with concern. "No, yeah! I am, definitely!" she says as she rubs the back of her neck. "Good! if you pass on your preferences to me, I will get a new schedule ever two weeks. It's going to be a little bit of puzzling, but I'll make it work." Vivian tells her she'd like tuesdays or wednesdays as options and after she wrote it down Francis dissapears to another group of maids.

She had already thought about it a lot, which days she would prefer. She chose those days because on those days Lizzie is usually gone with the kids, so that there would be less of a chance to run into eachother. Vivian, however, did not know if she would be permitted to walk around the house. Most of the maids live closeby and will probably return home for a day or go into the city they know so well. Vivian doesn't really have anywhere to go to, so she is bound to the house. Perhaps she can go explore Birmingham a bit, that would be fun? She's also glad she didn't contact Ada about the whole ordeal. Perhaps she could have blown it by doing that, this is the best way it could go! Why was mister Shelby being such a nag back in his office, if he did it anyway? Lots of questions with very few answers.

The answers wouldn't come in the next two weeks either, since mister Shelby was on a business trip again. Lizzie was actually gone quite some time as well, leaving the children in the care of the maids. Vivian asked Francis if she could take on some nanny roles this week since they had to be kept busy most of the time, now that both their parents were gone. Francis approved and Vivian actually had a lot of fun with the kids. She got to know them a little better as well. She could already see Charlie was a son of mister Shelby. He was pretty fierce sometimes, and also a very very smart boy. There was however some heart in there, perhaps he got that from Grace. Ruby was just a sweet kid all around. She even tried to get Vivian something to drink, since she 'was always giving her drinks as well'. Vivian saw however, how the behaviour of their parents really did something to them. Not only Thomas was a bad influence on them, Lizzie as well. They saw too much stuff they shouldn't have seen.

One day Vivian had a conversation with Ruby about her father and what she thought of him. Ruby admitted to being afraid of him and she even said she didn't know if he loved her. Not with those exact words, but she did insuate it. It broke Vivian's heart and she made a mental note to try to fix it, for as far as she could. Lizzie however quickly returned and Vivian was back to fixing beds and wiping floors.

Now that the maids had a day off every week she did see an increase in work pressure. Which is of course an obvious result and she didn't really mind it if it meant having a day for herself. The regulation started on sunday. Vivian's day off will be on wednesday and now that it's tuesday it is all Vivian can think about. It really gets her through the day. She doesn't know when mister Shelby will come back, nor does anyone. But she hopes it will be a couple of days more, cause then the house will be empty. Except of course for all the staff. She talked to Francis about it and she told her it's fine to stay in the house, but to not get in the way of the Shelby's. Or else it will look like they are renting out their house to strangers. The thought of that made her roll her eyes, as if that is such a bad thing. Having money makes you mad about the weirdest things..