Mail Call part 1

While Lady Elizabeth's team left earlier to meet the Baron, Lily Lavigne had been dealing with the large pile of invitations Lady Elizabeth asked her to respond to. She sighed as she sat in the library since the tables were large and she had room to work as well as less interruptions. She pulled out the journal, which was a glorified address book really and looked at the well placed bookmarks in three sections. Lily read her notes to see that anyone in the gold bookmark section are members of the Paris Royal family so she needed to respond yes to those. She looked at the names marked with this silver bookmark are part of the British or Russian Royal family so she needed to respond yes unless the party is outside of Paris, then she would respond no. For anyone listed under the blue bookmark she would respond yes only of there is a star by their name. After that she would respond no to those with one exception and that would be the invitation to the annual Paris Guilde de Magie Gala.

To make life easier she collected baskets and had them color coded to separate them easier. She also labeled the event dates on the envelopes and put them in order of sooner to later. This would make it easier to respond to since she would start with the Gold and work her way down to the "No" batch". The last basket had a question mark and was reserved to double booking events. Lily knew this did happen and one had to choose who's event to attend since it could cause issues down the road. Lily also had Harold get he a Calendar notebook so she could note which event took place on which day since she knew they all would forget later on. This way they merely had to look at the calendar to know the schedule.

After remembering seeing the good doctor off she giggled a bit since she did enjoy the look on his face as he left. It was the same look a young boy would have when he got a yes to asking a girl on a date. She would often see this happen to other girls while at social gatherings. It irked her back then but now seemed a bit different. It made her giggle to see him looking so innocent. It was the first time she ever flirted with a guy since she was afraid to reveal her being a werewolf, and he was a rather older man compared to herself, but she figured she could do much worse if her father tried to match make her with some upper crust money hungry sham. She knew the good doctor had his own circumstances since he also had a monster inside himself. Though it was scandalous if she said it out loud, but if made her heart race a bit.

After seeing the time Lily had to stop and give the completed letters to Harold to mail before they missed the cut off time. Seeing the time she had a quick lunch with soup and a sandwich with her tea. She wondered if she shouldn't take a longer lunch but didn't want to upset Lady Elizabeth for a poor performance, even if it was mindless drone work. She was hoping she could eventually earn a better position and get accepted into the Order. Since she was not sure the situation with her father she had to become independent as soon as possible. At least in the Order she could be accepted as her true self. She then went back to work afterwards and would send the next batch the next day. She continued to write as time went by since she streamlined her work to make it easier for herself. She made sample letters for the proper responses and merely copied them with some small changes to make them official. She was impressed by her progress and amazed by the popularity of Lady Elizabeth.

The team finished lunch and headed back to the bus, which took them back to Lady Elizabeth's house. Tristan joined them on the way back and announced to the rest of the team that he would be temporarily working at headquarters, and staying there. Sung and Liz, of course, already knew this but the rest of the team hadn't been told.

Once back at the house, Tristan quickly got his bag, gave a quick goodbye, thanking Elizabeth her hospitality and climbed back on the bus to go back to headquarters.

Elizabeth really did hope Tristan would be able to rejoin the team soon.

She found Lily fairly easily in the library. The other woman looked incredibly organized. "Greetings, Miss Lavigne. I hope you have a fairly decent day despite the task assigned to you." Elizabeth said in a friendly voice.

Lily knew the others had arrived since her hearing was better than average and she could smell them after they came in the house. She got a bit giddy as she was finishing a letter and adding the date to the calendar. So it appeared she was caught by surprise. Lily put her quill down and turned with a smile and a much smaller pile of letters in the basket than when she started. Lily replied, "Good afternoon Lady Elizabeth. I hope my progress was adequate enough. I did have some practice back in school but you seem to be far more popular that I ever was back in school." Lily stood up and pointed at her set up as she told Lady Elizabeth that she had to organize the process to make it easier to work with or it would get to confusing for anyone who had to do it later on. She was hoping for some praise but was not sure what to expect since Lady Elizabeth always came off as very lady like and refined. Lily asked, "I hope this is acceptable Lady Elizabeth."

Elizabeth moved closer to the table and looked over the set up. "Actually, it is quite ingenious. I would not have thought to do that."

Elizabeth was used to have people to do this kind of work for her. She rarely had told do herself, though she was trained to do all sorts of correspondence.

"Well, the royal invitations are a lot of family members. We are required to invite all family when hosting a party." She was perhaps trying to down play her popularity, she had no intention of making Lily feel bad.

Lily was glad she was complimented by Lady Elizabeth. This meant she managed to earn her keep for now. Of course it was going to be an up hill battle from here, but her foot was in the door for now. She replied with a smile, "Oh heavens I couldn't handle this much popularity, since I was trying to avoid it like bad weather. You know due to my "condition". Lily made the quotation marks hand gesture as she spoke. Then she spoke up as she said, "So I can't see this task taking more than two more days at the most, unless you are expecting a lot more mail." Lily looked a bit nervous as she fidgeted with her fingers and asked, "So after this are their any other tasks you would have me do?"

"I certainly will have more for you to do, there is always things that need to be done, it seems. And I have little time to attend to such matters myself. I will have to let you later about it however. As I need to go out shortly." Elizabeth paused. "Miss Ipsum, Mr. Aster and Dr. Jackal will be here but the rest of us have things we need to attend to."

Elizabeth looked again, at the organization on the table. "You could take care of opening and sorting the mail for today. Harold can show you how. It will mostly be letters or correspondences from various charities looking for donations. Hopefully, no more invitations. There also might be a few letters of credit, Harold will take care of those." Elizabeth explained.

Lily nodded at Elizabeth as she replied, "Yes lady Elizabeth." Then she pondered a bit as he wanted to ask and work up her courage to speak her thoughts. Lily asked, "And am I allowed to speak speak to the others that will be residing here Lady Elizabeth?" Lily wanted an excuse to talk to the good doctor again.

"Of course, I might hold off telling most of them about your condition for the moment but you can certainly speak with them. Also, feel free to check on them. All three tend to get absorbed into their work and likely will forget to take breaks and such things." Elizabeth explained. "Don't be obtrusive though. I will let them each know you might check in on them."

Lily nodded to Liz as she tried to suppress her smile a bit. She replied, "Oh of course I'll wait till a proper time for such things. So other than dinner are there any other events going on?"

"Nothing today. I am headed out with Mr. Cronk to survey the damage at the Expo. The rest of the teams has various jobs they need to attend to. However, we do need to get you some new clothes. We will arrange something when I return." Elizabeth responded.

Lily smiled as she nodded at Liz. It would be nice to get some new clothes since her clothes were still at the hotel and back home. She had no idea how long it would be before they could recover them. So it would be nice to get something she could wear for bed as well as in public when she was allowed to leave the house that is. There was still a concern about kidnappers. She wondered what clothing would get the good doctor's attention. Then she blushed at her indecent thought and replied with a smile as she nodded, "Thank you ever so much Lady Elizabeth. Your kindness is more than I deserve. I just hope I can repay you one day for all that you have done for me." Lily smiled as best as she could at Lady Elizabeth.

"Not necessarily, but thank you." Elizabeth never even entertained the idea of Lily paying her back. As far as Elizabeth was concerned it was just the right thing to do. Besides she had a feeling Lily was far more capable than perhaps even Lily herself realized.

Elizabeth stood up. "Well, I must be going. I will send Harold in. Have a pleasant rest of your afternoon." With that Elizabeth exited the room.

Lily nodded and gave a slight bow to Lady Elizabeth out of respect. She was feeling very blessed to have her support. The Good Doctor saved her and it was Ms. Lagrave who aided her shortly afterwards. Then they brought her to Lady Elizabeth for help. Granted she could have easily been turned away but Lady Elizabeth accepted her openly without reservations. She didn't even judge her when she confessed her dirty secret and this made Lily feel like she could be be accepted for the very first time in her life. By working for Lady Elizabeth she could gain her independence from her father in case he was still alive with plans of marrying her off. Sadly this was a common practice among the elites and poor Lady Elizabeth would one day have face the same problem. Marriage for politics was always hard for the female and Lily hoped to avoid that if possible. As she saw lady Elizabeth leave she went back to her letter response process to make a batch ready for tomorrow.

Harold had worked for Elizabeth's family for a long time, though not quite as long as long as Sung. He knew though how everything worked.

He walked into the library carrying a stack of mail. "Miss Lavigne, Lady Elizabeth said I was supposed to show how to handle the mail. Is now a good time?"

Lily nodded at Harold as she replied, "Of course. Shall we set this up away from this area? I don't want to get the letters mixed up." Lily then stood up as she moved to where she was talking about.

"Certainly," Harold followed Lily to the new area. He pulled out a chair for Lily but stayed standing, it was obvious he was very used to being a servant and wouldn't sit Unless invited to do so.

Lily felt a bit awkward seeing Harold standing there after he pulled out her seat. She then asked, "Could you please sit as well. I would like to hurt my neck looking up and down a lot." Lily was hoping this excuse would work on Harold who took his job very seriously.

"Of course," Harold took a seat next to Lily. "First thing is this. He pulled out an envelope that obviously contained a letter. Do not open any letters from Lady Elizabeth's father, mother or her cousin Maureen. Just leave them in separate pile unopened, Lady Elizabeth will take care of them. Mr. Sung might also get mail from Lady Elizabeth's father, do not open that either." He put two letters unopened in a separate pile.

"Now we can separate the others. Any bills just give to me and I will take care of them." He separated out a few more pieces of mail into a different pile.

"You already know what to do with the invitations." Checking through the pile. "Perhaps fortunately there are none in today's mail."

"Now, the rest of this." He pointed to the stack of mail left of which there was at least ten pieces. "These are all for donations. This is a little complicated but the first rule is Lady Elizabeth can not see these requests."

Lily nodded as she listened carefully and took notes in her journal. She considered getting more baskets to separate the mail more into the other categories that she just learned about. She could label them as well to make it easier to identify. She replied, "Understood. So am I privy to know the reason Lady Elizabeth is not allowed to see these letters?"

"I doubt it would constitute a secret so yes, I will tell you." Harold said. "As you are likely aware, Lady Elizabeth is a kind person. She can be very generous. It is a great strength of her's but also can be her Achilles' heel. She would give to all who asked. Do not get me wrong, it is a wonderful quality to be giving to those who actually need it but some just see deep pockets. Not everyone that asks for it actually needs help. She cannot see the request for charity because of that." Harold paused. "Do not misunderstand me. Lady Elizabeth is very bright and capable, it is just in that one area that her heart seems to take over her mind. Her father, the Duke, had put her in charge of donations, at one point, and she just gave to anyone. So, the Duke enacted this rule. If there are any questions that I can not answer, regarding this, Mr. Sung would be the person to ask." Harold looked at Lily with a serious expression. "Also, if anyone takes advantage of Lady Elizabeth, Mr. Sung is who they will answer to. "

TBC