an article about the sisters
Lady Sarah Mccorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes
Keeping a sister's legacy alive and her boys in their hearts
Growing up, the Spencer girls were a study in contrasts: Sarah, the oldest, was the wildest of the bunch. Jane was considered quiet and dependable. Then came Diana, shy, pretty and eager to please the outgoing Sarah, whom she idolized from the start. "When Sarah returned home from West Heath School, Diana was a willing servant," Andrew Morton wrote in Diana: Her True Story, "unpacking her suitcases, running her bath, tidying her room."
Ironically, by the end of Diana's marriage, McCorquodale, now 43, had become her unofficial lady-in-waiting. "I think Sarah knew about Diana's affairs," says royals author Judy Wade. "In a way she even encouraged Diana to be wild and to have lovers." Meanwhile, Jane, 41, grew more distant from Di because of her own marriage -- and loyalty -- to Sir Robert Fellowes, who became the Queen's private secretary in 1990. Now, a year after Diana's death, the two sisters find themselves again in contrasting states: one thrust reluctantly into the public domain and the other constricted by her own grief.
Diana may have called her "the only person I know I can trust," but McCorquodale has had less success in winning the confidence of the British public. As president of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, she has borne the brunt of criticism that the fund has been slow to hand out its $132.8 million to charities and has accepted endorsement deals of questionable taste, associating Diana's memory with lottery tickets and margarine. (In March the fund dispensed its first $12.8 million to eight of Diana's favorite causes, and an additional $8 million is currently being distributed.) But a warmer reception may greet McCorquodale across the Atlantic. In the fall the fund will open an office in New York City. A town that saw a 300 percent jump in the number of newborns named Diana last fall is unlikely to balk at Princess of Wales keepsakes.
Yet the strain is beginning to show. "Sarah looks more tired, more drawn," says a royal watcher. "She has aged." Her three-hour commute twice a week from Lincolnshire -- where she lives with her husband, Neil, a farmer, and their three children -- to the fund's London office can't help. As for Fellowes, also the mother of three, her emotional state prevents her from pitching in. Still mourning deeply for Diana, who died before they could resolve the strain between them, Fellowes has kept a low profile.
The sisters are like-minded on one subject: making time for Di's boys. They've attended Harry's Ludgrove soccer games and visited William at Eton. And though the boys' summer schedule has left little time for their aunts (they turned down an invitation to vacation with them and their cousins in Cornwall in August), the sisters are there for their nephews, says the British Press Association's Archer, "at a time when they need friendship and support."
