Chapter 3

It was a few days later and I was waiting for my sister, Beatrice, to finish dealing out the cards. We were playing my favorite game. Piquet.

"Blank," I said when I got my twelve cards, "Eight cards please. Why do you want to be married so bad?"

"Your points," She said as she added points to my score, "Because I want a man to take care of me."

"Father already is a man who takes care of you," I started counting up my cards, "51."

"I know but I'm a burden to him so I should marry so that I am not a burden. 21," She added more points.

"But shouldn't you marry for love and not just because some one tells you to. Don't you want a happily ever after with the man you love? Run of five,"

"Run of three. But I'm happy doing things this way. I do want to love my husband but I feel that whomever father picks for me is suitable for me. I trust father has betrothed me with some on who will make me happy and love me," she added my points, " Wouldn't he do that for his own daughter and judge the man I marry correctly and not leave me with some man all wrong for me? I trust father and I'm glad it is this way."

I looked at her for a second. She was truly sincere. She was that kind of woman who would easily subdue to a man's will and would make a great wife. I have no doubt that she will be happy that way. So why am I trying to encourage her to find her true love? Just call me the Fairy Tale Princess.

" So now that you are getting married how would you get rid of men who are trying to become close to you who are not your betrothed. Set of 4 in Aces. That makes a repique."

"I would tell them that I am going to marry this man and to go away because they are not him."

"So what if they tried to say that you should marry them instead of your chosen husband."

"I'd tell them that the king has chosen my husband for me and that they would have to change my father's mind. Can you play down your first card?"

I slammed down an ace, "Well that doesn't help me."

She played down a number and I took the cards. She then looked at me and said, "Why are you so against betrothals?"

I played down another ace, "Because to be betrothed is to not have the chance to find your true love as all the fairy tales go."

She played down another number, "Why do you cling so much to fairy tales? They are just silly stories for children to teach them how to behave. They are not meant to be a lesson on how to live your life but a lesson on manners and how you should treat one another."

I placed all my cards on the table and said, "Excuse me but you mean to say that the way Mother lived her life was wrong? That she lived in a child's world. She stayed with fairy tales all of her life. She was able to recite them to me and she . . . she . . ." I started sobbing at this moment, "She shared these with me as precious treasures on the night she died."

Beatrice took my cards and hers and said, "Do you like me at all? Am I a criminal? Do you think I'm a villain?"

"No, I love you. I just . . . I just . . . don't agree with the way you handle your life. I believe in fairy tales. I believe in finding love. I believe in living happily ever after but I don't believe that letting myself marry some one I don't love to please my father is right. I've received permission with Father to attempt to break off my engagement so that I can marry the man I love."

"And who would that be? The milk man. No no the town tailor. No even better. You love the town beggar. No wait . . ."

I slapped my sister across the face and said, "It is David and you will never talk to me like that again." I ran up to my room. I opened my book of fairy tales. I couldn't read it though. I kept crying about how my sister treated me. I knew that I would get in trouble but I didn't care. Why did she have to say such things about fairy tales and myself?