Southern Ghost

Miss Dora looked at each of her invited guests in turn. In a doomsday voice, she pronounced their names, clearly a roll call. 'Milam. Julia. Whitney. Charlotte. Sybil.'

Sybil's intelligent eyes appraised her. 'You're on the war­path, aren't you? Who's in trouble? Is it Milam for attacking icons? Or maybe it's poor dear Julia who starts the day with a glass of vodka neat. Or is it Whitney for grabbing a little ass when poor Charlotte's not looking? Or Charlotte for that god-awful pretentious piece of crap she wrote about the Tarrants? She oh-so-conveniently left out all the drunks and the black sheep and especially the Tarrant who was playing both sides against the middle during the Revolution, а la the revered and very clever Ben Franklin. Or am I the one on the spot?' She flashed a wicked grin. 'But you know what I like, Miss Dora. I could have brought him tonight, but this crowd's a little old for Bobby. He's a sweet young man.'

'How can you be so disgusting,' Charlotte hissed. 'To consort with mere boys.' Her pale-green eyes glistened with dislike.

'The usual term is 'have sex,' Charlotte. Although I don't suppose it's an activity you enjoy. Not high-class enough. And Bobby's nineteen.' Sybil's smile would have embarrassed a satyr. 'That's old enough. Believe me.'

Miss Dora's eyes, dark as pitch, turned to Sybil. They were for an instant filled with pity.

Sybil saw that, too. She sat very still in the gilt Louis Quinze armchair, every trace of mocking amusement erased. Slowly she lifted the glass to her lips and drank, focusing on that physical act.

Miss Dora's eyes lingered on Sybil yet an instant longer; then the old woman spoke in measured tones. 'I have called all of you here because I intend to institute a court of inquiry, prosecuted by me, into the events of May ninth, 1970.'

It should have been ludicrous, the old, hunched figure, the thin, age-roughened voice, the grandiloquent pronouncement. It was, to the contrary, majestic. Tiny and indomitable, the moment belonged to Miss Dora.

The silence was absolute.

Anger.

Shock.

And fear.

Annie could feel raw emotion in that elegant room. But from whom?

Milam's heavy face twisted into a scowl, every trace of sardonic lightness gone.

The fragile coffee cup in Julia's hand began to shake. Clumsily, she put it down on the Queen Anne table.

Whitney's thin face had the look of a fox hearing the hounds.

Charlotte's social smile congealed into a blank, empty mask.

Sybil's face crumpled. She turned away and came up blindly against the mantelpiece. Both hands gripped it. She stood with her back to them, her smooth, ivory shoulders hunched, then whirled to face Miss Dora.

'Ross,' she cried brokenly. 'You know how it happened, you old bitch. It shouldn't have happened, but it did. An accident. Ross and I . . .' She looked about with glazed, uncomprehending eyes. 'That's when everything went wrong, and it never came right again. Never. I still don't know why he went out to the lodge. He was supposed to meet me at the bottom of the drive. I was there,' she said forlornly, years of grief weighting the words. 'I waited and waited—and then Daddy found me and . . .' She broke off. Sybil's bejeweled hands clenched. There was more than grief, there was anger that could never be answered, the fury at fate that had robbed her of the man she loved. Annie thought she'd never seen Sybil look more lovely . . . or more dangerous.

'I saw you and Ross in the garden that afternoon,' Miss Dora said gently.

For an instant, the years fell away and Sybil looked like a girl again, young and in love and breathtakingly beautiful. 'One last kiss—it was so light, just the barest touch. We thought there would be time for all the kisses in the world.' The brief illusion of youth fled, replaced by the sorrow-rav­aged yet still gorgeous face. Sybil's bitter eyes raked the room. 'Why couldn't it have been one of you? Why couldn't it have been Milam? Or Whitney? They aren't a quarter the man Ross was. Ross was—' She swallowed convulsively. 'Oh, God, he was wonderful. Young and strong. And a man. He knew how to live—and none of you has ever lived, not the way Ross did. He could laugh and make love and ride a horse and be brave and gentle and kind and rough. Oh, dear God, what irony, what sick and puking irony that he should die and any one of you live.' Years of anger corroded her husky voice.

Annie reached out and took Max's hand and held it hard. Max watched Sybil, his dark-blue eyes somber.

'How dare you talk like that!' Charlotte, her voice high with anger, her plain face livid, turned to Miss Dora. 'You make her hush up right this minute. We don't have to sit here and be insulted. Why, Whitney and I—'

'You and Whitney will do as I say,' Miss Dora snapped.

Charlotte looked as though she'd been slapped. Her head jerked up, her mouth opened, but no words came. Then, her shoulders slumped and her eyes fell before Miss Dora's un­ bending gaze.

'Of course we will, Miss Dora.' Whitney's voice was pla­cating. 'But the past is past. Dad and Ross—that's been over and done with for more than twenty years. There's nothing to be gained by discussing it.'

Charlotte lifted her chin. 'A tragic day,' she said loudly. But there was no sympathy in her voice. Annie heard instead the oily complacency of a chorus in a Greek tragedy. 'A double loss for poor Amanda.'

Julia buried her face in her hands for a long moment, then struggled up from her chair and moved heavily toward the sideboard, one hand outstretched for the cut-glass decanter.

Milam bowed toward his great-aunt. 'What an exquisite sense of drama you possess,' he drawled. His green eyes glit­tered with malice; his plump face was once again amused. 'But the difficulty is, you face a dead end. No one will ever