The Fallen Queen

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My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

—Matthew 27:46

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“Good-bye, Miss Glum and Serious!” Kate crowed and turned to plant a smacking kiss on our sister’s laughter-flushed cheek.

It was thus we lay, wet, red-faced, and giggling uncontrollably in the snow, feeling high as the sky from the syllabub, when Mrs. Ellen came out to tell us that our father required our presence in the library; we must come in at once and change out of our wet clothes and make ourselves presentable for him “like proper young ladies, a duke’s daughters, which is what you are, not silly peasant girls frolicking in the snow.” As she walked away, I was tempted to hurl a snowball at her back, but Jane already had her arm raised, a ball of snow cupped in her gloved hand, poised to let it fly when Kate and I sprang on her and wrestled her back down into the snow. Sometimes Jane made it devilishly hard to like her with her constant frowns and moody and preachy Protestant airs, but she was our sister, and we always loved her and did not want to see her bring another punishment upon herself. No one ever knew what our lady-mother might do in her efforts to discipline and mould and shape Jane into her idea of a perfect young lady. It was easy for her to frighten Kate and me into good behaviour—our lady-mother was more fearsome than any ogre or witch out of a fairy story—but with Jane it was a different story.

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