Bring Me To Your Stars

Millicent and Sybil

Millicent had been missing since morning, having made her excuses to Aunt Cora and her cousins that she was feeling unwell, and didn't want to pass it on. 

It wasn't completely a lie.

Ever since that day in the glasshouse, when she found James there, she hadn't felt quite like herself.

Perhaps it was a natural consequence, after walking in the rain that day without any long coat on.

Or perhaps, it had nothing to do with the rain, and would only be cured with time and plenty of good books to distract her. 

Wrapped up in her night shawl with her copy of Persuasion from her cousin's library, Millie lost track of time and the fact that she was missed by Sybil. 

Taken unexpectedly by the words of the only novel of Jane Austen she ever felt she could relate to.

'I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.

'Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you--'

"Millie?"

It was Sybil looking in on her from the Stanhope guest room door.

Millicent had thought she'd locked it, but there was no time to regret that now.

Using her laced handkerchief to quickly wipe away any evidence that she'd been crying while reading in bed, Millicent hoped her cousin Sybil wouldn't notice the red puffiness of her dollish eyes.

But Sybil already knew, as she always did when it came to these things.

The staff had already informed her.

"Oh, Millie," Sybil breathed into a softhearted sigh.

Millicent gently placed her handkerchief back into Persuasion to mark her place for later.

"I almost made a terrible mistake," Millicent's hushed voice spoke against her pillow, as she didn't have the heart to turn and face Sybil like this.

Sybil was the sweet one, and Millicent, the strong one. That's how it'd always been between them.

But tonight, it was Sybil's turn to give her older cousin a run for her own money, refusing to be pushed out as she crawled onto the bed behind Millicent and wrapped her arm around her.

"It must be a misunderstanding," she softly assured her cousin. "There's no mistaking the way Mr. Moody looked at you this morning in the library."

"It's the only misunderstanding," Millicent said. "He never loved me, Sybil. He can hardly stomach the idea of marrying me. He said so himself."

"But did you tell him that it was you who'd looked after the grave while he was at sea?"

"Of course not," Millie said tearfully. "Can you imagine the look on his face, if I had? I might've surely scared him away then."

Sybil combed her fingers gently through Millicent's soft tresses of melted caramel. "Men can be so unthinkingly consumed by themselves, can't they? Think little of it, Millie."

And though she knew she mustn't, Millicent also knew one more thing.

"I shall never love like this ever again," she whispered.

"Don't say that," Sybil beckoned her. "This means nothing. You are still beautiful and still very much deserving of love. Any man would be honored to have you, Millie. So, even if it isn't Mr. Moody, there will be another who will love you so deeply, you never imagined ever being so happy."

"No, Sybie," Millicent couldn't help but smile, as she turned in bed to face her cousin at last. "I think you're just thinking of Mr. Branson now."

"You little cheek," Sybil playfully batted her cousin with another pillow. Though she was grateful to get a smile out of Millicent at last. "He's the chauffeur. Can you imagine how papa would react to that?"

"I don't think love cares about all of that," Millicent said. "I loved a sailor, after all."

"Well, if falling in love doesn't always follow the rules we make for it, don't you think it's the same when it comes to a broken heart?" Sybil asked her. "Who says we only get one chance at getting it right?"

"How dare you say to me the exact same thing I would've said to me in this situation?" Millie sighed.

"Then will you listen to yourself?"

"I'm still in love with him, Sybil. How can I forget so easily that I have held Mr. Moody in my heart for so long? I'll need time to let him go. Which is why I feel that this whole coming-out business is premature," Millicent said. "I don't think I'll ever quite love anyone the same again."

"But you can't go on like this, Millie," Sybil said. "You are a remarkable woman capable of doing remarkable things, and knowing all the best happenings in life. Why should love be the only thing forbidden to you?"

"It's not," Millicent said. "Because I'm going to keep on loving, starting with myself. If there's one good thing that has come out of meeting Mr. Moody, it's that he made me realize how liberating it is to choose myself. As deeply as I still love him, I don't think I'm ready for marriage either. I do want a loving husband and children someday, but if I begin my life in self-sacrifice rather than self-empowerment, I will never be the wife and mother I aspire to be for them. I don't want to leave home to marry, but to travel, and write books about it, and come up with my own money-making ventures. I can't do that well as a married woman. If I worked in service, aboard a ship someplace, at least I'd see the world more than I could if I stayed here in Yorkshire. And I know, if I want it, I'll have to do it myself. Because I know papa and Patrick would never support me, if I went out and worked for a living."

"I think it's a brilliant idea," Sybil's gentle airy voice encouraged her. "But it won't be easy. The idea of leaving everything behind to be independent...No one will understand it. But if it's what you want in the end, no matter where you are, know that you will always have me, should you need someone to tell about all your exotic travel abroad."

"I'll write every day, I promise," Millicent agreed, charmed into smiling again by the cousin who always found a way to make her.

"And how will you tell your father you plan to travel by working in service?"

"I don't know yet," Millicent said. "It may take me some time to convince him it's what I want, but I'll find a way."

"Won't you put your book down and join us for dinner? I can't stand to see you locked up here so gloomy," Sybil requested of her. "They've been asking for you, you know...Although, I should warn you...Papa has invited the Moodys to dine with us tonight. Will you be alright seeing Mr. Moody again?"

Mr. Moody?

Millicent had thought he'd gone back to the Boa, just as he'd sworn he would.

Why on earth would he still be dawdling around Downton then, when his ship was scheduled to leave port the day after tomorrow?

"I'm not bothered at all by Mr. Moody," Millie answered Sybil quietly. "I know myself better now than I did when I last saw him...And as I always do, I know I'll be alright."

Sybil kissed her cousin tenderly on her hair. 

"You're our Millie. I know you will."