"No, she hasn't!" Matthew insisted, abnormally loud -- at least compared to the benign hoarseness of his normal tone of voice. "I mean, I still have other news to break to her! Diana, please, sit down!" He meant it as an order, not merely a request, and his tone made that crystal clear; he didn't normally raise his voice, and certainly never at his baby sister! She obediently sat down on the floor beside him, as he sat up from where he had fallen. Her eyes were wide with shock, and her pallor still worried him, so he gently took her hand with one hand, and laid his arm about her shoulders, intending to catch her from falling back if she were to faint.
"All right, first let me say that I am so deeply sorry that Uncle Nicholas had to be the one to tell me how Father used you so ill!" He gulped hard, as various images came to mind: a little girl who clung to Matthew incessantly, as if he, at the age of eleven, was more fatherly than their real father; a scared little girl who wanted to go to church with him -- to vespers, especially -- when it was already so dark outside, come the winter! And then the images got even darker -- as dark as Diana's room must have been, in the middle of the night -- save for a couple of candles that their father always carried around in the night-time... He shook his head roughly to clear away those pictures in his mind's eye!
"Anyhow, the other bit of news I brought with me is... that..." Matthew hesitated to tell her. He squeezed her hand reflexively, trying to work up the courage to speak again. "I mean... Mother's... dead. She was... so grief-stricken by your ostensible death, that she just... curled up and she... died, last month...!" He looked carefully into Diana's face, gauging her reaction...