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Ivy doesn’t really mean to do it, but the temptation was so strong and she justified the bad behavior by reminding herself that she only wants the best for William and Eliza; for both of them, whether they are together or not.
She had come in from the market with a fresh batch of ingredients and noticed the balled-up paper next to the wastebin as she set her treasures on the table. Assuming it was just an errant piece of rubbish, she stooped to sweep it up in her hand. It wasn’t until she went to place it in the bin that she realized it was just one of many balled-up papers in the kitchen basket.
Ivy froze. Her eyes got a little squinty as she recalled the Inspector asking for writing paper earlier that day. Suddenly the stern Head Housemaid who had trained Ivy all those years ago, before she came to work for Inspector Scarlet and his lovey wife, came to Ivy’s mind. With her image, came the absolute reverence given to the idea that the family of the home should have their privacy protected at all costs. That stern warning she’d received as a girl filled Ivy with the resolution that she would not read what was on those papers.
Besides, for all she knew, Inspector Wellington was simply making a list of some sort…that he chose to crumple up instead of just cross off when he made an error, or two, or 9….
Ivy shook her head. She wasn’t counting the papers, and she wasn’t going to investigate them further, either. She dropped the one from the floor to the top of the pile in the bin, straightened her back, and walked briskly towards her fresh ingredients for supper.
BUT, when the vegetables had been chopped and she was waiting for her sauce to thicken and just stirring and stirring and stirring the pot…Ivy’s mind wandered back to the wastebasket.
This was all Eliza’s fault, really. She had taught her to read, and Ivy had fallen into the habit of reading while cooking. She didn’t want to trapse all the way to the sitting room to get her book…. maybe just opening one of the papers to make sure the Inspector really meant for them to be in the bin…after all, the one she picked up wasn’t technically thrown away.
Ivy reached into the basket and pulled out one of many papers. She carefully began to open the sheet, her heart pounding and her ears listening anxiously for any sign of Eliza or the Inspector being home. She placed it on the counter to her right and smoothed it gently. She smiled to herself as she took note of the Inspector’s striking penmanship, the fond sentiment momentarily covering the background thrum of guilt in the pit of her stomach.
This paper was not a list, it seemed to be a letter. She first noted how short the letter was, before she confirmed it was addressed to Eliza. Her heart skipped a beat at the simple scrawl of her name in his handwriting. “Oh, Lord help these two,” she muttered aloud the same prayer she had said many times in the 12 years since she first saw them together.
The letter was unfinished as was each subsequent one she fished from the trash. With every scrap she pulled from the bin, she felt more and more anxious that William wasn’t going to “convey his feelings”. Ivy’s heart ached for the man because she knew how abrupt and pigheaded her girl could be. She knew the Inspector to be a good man…someone who would take good care of Eliza if she let him. That had been the trouble for a long time, Eliza didn’t want to be cared for, she loved the challenge of learning things the hard way, her way.
As hard as it was for Ivy to justify reading Wiliam’s private letters, she was done almost as soon as she had started. She surveyed the short stack of open letters, smoothed out on the counter and began to recrumple them and place them back in the bin. She shook her head as she re-crumpled the papers.
Having recently found how good it felt to be loved and appreciated by someone, Ivy’s heart ached for these two precious people in her life to feel the same joy. Was it a risk to “convey your feelings?’ Most assuredly…and even though none of the notes in the bin had used the word love, Ivy was pretty sure the sheer amount of uncompleted notes was evidence enough of the truth that Wiliam loved Eliza. He would not have cared so much to describe it to her if it wasn’t the real thing. Ivy didn’t know what would happen if he told her, but she was certain that nothing would happen unless he did.
It was frustrating for Eliza to be so in the dark about something that everyone else saw plainly. Ivy was hopeful that after all these attempts, there was, somewhere out there, a letter that had contained the right words. If just one of these letters had been completed, then maybe there was hope for the two of them yet. She returned to her pot of sauce on the stove with a newfound hope in her heart. Hope for a future where Eiza and William knew where they stood with one another and knew how to convey feelings without using up so much of the writing paper.