BenbowsInTWQ

This short story could be seen as the asymmetrical third installment in a hypothetical 'Benbow trilogy.' Set not long after the events of Sanctuary, it returns to the events of Flags in the Dust to explain how Narcissa recovers the obscene letters she lost on the eve of her marriage to Bayard Sartoris. A widow for the last decade, she and her ten-year-old son Benbow are living at the Sartoris plantation with Miss Jenny Sartoris du Pre, the queen of the title. Her brother Horace is mentioned, but not named. On the other hand, the intensity with which she tries to force her son, whom she calls "Bory," "closer" to her raises the spectre of her ambivalent sibling relationship with "Horry" (742). The story ends with Jenny's death rather than the future of either the Benbow or the Sartoris family.