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Clockwork Heart Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

When Millie awoke two days later, it was with frustration thrumming through every part of her body. She had barely left the confines of her rooms, only being allowed to attend dinner with Emma three times a day as her father had been even more absent than her usually was.

Due to her continued confinement, Millicent was racked with guilt as she was actually feeling excited to attend the funerals. Not so much for who she was going to honour though as her heart ached at the thought of watching her dear friend be returned to the earth and the woman who often pretended like she was her friend but in reality could be further from it. She felt guilt, the boiling kind that hit her at unexpected times, usually when a small smile would make it on to her lips. But she couldn’t stop it, today was the only way that she would get out of the house, even if it was to stand there in the rain and be forced to listen to mournful tributes for over two hours.

Dressed head to toe in dark colours, their party climbed into the awaiting coach in a sombre procession. Like a true show of their wealth and her father’s abilities, there was barely a pop or a click as the clockworks that enveloped them, ticked into gear and rolled the coach forwards at a steady pace.

Millie took great care with the bouquet of white roses that she held within her grasp. Emma was politely holding the white lilies within her hands. They contrasted greatly with the black of their clothing and the sombre mood that had fallen over them all but it felt right to them to honour them with white. For, while they would mourn their passing, the coach’s occupants had to believe that they were now in a better place, one with no pain and no fear only love and peace.

Portside cemetery sat behind a little church on the outskirts of town. Although the church itself, which was crumbling in on itself as it edged closer to five hundred years old, was no longer used, the graveyard was the resting place for half of the townsfolk. The rest instead choose to be buried in the rolling hills of the next town over.

Millie, as she glanced up at the falling structure that spoke of neglect, knew that she would prefer to be buried somewhere else. Anywhere that didn’t send shivers crawling down her spine even on the warmest and hottest day.

Assisted down from the carriage by her father and Emma, they supported her along the winding path until they came to a stop in the middle of the green. Statues of white marble stood up on all sides as sombre markers of those who had passed. From where she was stood, Millie could see the white marble and greened copper that marked a grave close to her heart, the one that belonged to her mother.

The beautiful construction, commissioned by Mr Clancy himself, reached up to the sky with outstretched fingers. When she was young, Millie had always thought the angel, who had been etched with the features of her mother, looked as if she was trying to reach that promised place - the peace beyond but by putting her into stone she had been trapped here, forever reaching, forever longing.

Millie forced her head away and was more than pleased when the path ensured she had to turn her back on the sculpture and follow the guiding hands to the other side of the cemetery which had been transformed to accommodate the crème de la crème of high society.

It was while the priest started blessing the two women, their attributes that sounded like caricatures of the people Millie knew them to be, that she shook off the arms around her body and stepped away. It was an urging deep inside that had her moving away from the pair and the general falsities that people were painting onto these dead women. And deep down the blonde knew that neither women deserved it. They did not need to be depicted as saints for they were amazing people in their own right.

She didn’t like that Ermintrude Valance often tried to hang onto her skirts to share in the popularity that came with her sizeable wealth and connections but she was strong and bold – completely unafraid of doing things that other people would shy away from. She was always the one who got invited to balls and galas because despite her slightly abrasive personality, she was often the life of the parties making people laugh.