There Was a Queen Summary

The last dying gasps of the proud Sartoris family provide dramatic tension that is largely retrospective. The last survivors of the family still live in the spacious quiet house with century-old heritage; the matriarch of the family is Virginia Sartoris ("Miss Jenny"), 90, sister of John Sartoris who built the house. Virginia lives out her last days in a wheelchair beside a window that looks out on the deliciously-scented flower garden. She is attended by Narcissa, her great-great nephew's wife and her son, Benbow ("Bory"), as well the half-white servant Elnora, the cook, her son Isom who tended the grounds, and her daughter Saddie, who cared for Virginia around the clock, even sleeping in cot beside her bed, "and tended her as though she were a baby." The entire population is effectively sealed off from the outside world...