The Color of Dust Read online

  Gillian appeared at her side and took her by the arm. She leaned in close and spoke softly into Carrie’s ear. “That was Anna Beth. She used to be the cook here when your mother was a girl.” Gillian pulled on her arm and steered her across the kitchen toward a tall wizened old woman who was rummaging through the cabinets taking down pots and pans. “This is Maria. She used to be the chambermaid.” Maria nodded and smiled, but before Carrie could say anything, Gillian dragged her in another direction toward a middle-aged man leaning against a wall with his hands in his pockets. “This is Gregory. His father used to be the stableman in charge of the horses, and his uncle Daniel used to be the kennelman, in charge of the hounds.”

  “Hounds?” Carrie managed to ask before Gillian pulled her away again. They whirled around the kitchen and stopped in front of a thin young man.

  “This is Edward.” The young man tipped his ball cap to her.

  “At least one member of his family has been a gardener here from the time this house was first built. It’s such a shame he’s never been on the grounds before.”

  Edward gave her a sad smile, and Gillian started to drag her in another direction. Carrie dug her feet in and stopped her.

  “Slow down a bit, Gillian. I get your point and I won’t remember anyone’s name if you go so fast.”

  “What point is that?” Gillian blinked her eyes innocently.

  Carrie ignored the look and waved her hand around the kitchen. “You’re trying to tell me that this house is an important part of Columbia’s history. Everyone here has had something to do with this house in some way. I get that. This house doesn’t really belong to me but to all the people who worked hard to make it what it is.”

  Gillian gave her a quirky half smile. “I’m not sure I would go so far as that. The house really does belong to you. No one disputes that, but you’re right about everyone having something to do with the house. And you’re also right about it being an important part of Columbia’s history.”

  “Well” —Carrie shrugged— “however you would put it, I don’t disagree with you.”

  “Then you’ll let everyone help you clean it up?”

  “Yes, but not for free.”

  Gillian’s eyes narrowed. “What’s it going to cost them?”

  Carrie shook her head. “No. That’s not what I mean. What I’m saying is that I’m not going to let them work for free. I’m going to pay Zachary for the electrical work and Mr. Masters for the plumbing and anybody else for anything they do here.”

  Gillian looked at her closely, studying her face. “You’re not a typical Covington.”

  “I’m not a Covington at all or a Burgess. I’m just Carrie Bowden and nothing else.” Carrie gently shook Gillian off her arm. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go put some clothes on.” Carrie turned and made her way through the press of people, most of whom stopped her to introduce themselves and shake her hand. She definitely wasn’t going to remember everyone’s name. Maybe not anyone’s. She squeezed out the kitchen door and headed for the stairs. Gillian followed her. It looked to Carrie like she meant to say something else, but Gillian got distracted by the double-sided dental moldings that ran around the ceiling of the dining room and then by the fancy scrollwork on the banister. She followed Carrie absently up the stairs, down the short hallway and into the master suite looking all around her with a dazed expression. She closed the bedroom door and leaned against it as if her knees wouldn’t support her anymore.

  “Wow,” she said in a husky rasp. “I was so right about this place.” She looked around the bedroom and her eyes glazed over again.

  Carrie suspected that she was in the throes of an intense antique lust. It was kind of cute in a disturbing sort of way. “This is the master suite,” she said if only to have something to say while Gillian tried to pull herself back together.

  “Oh, yes. I know. It’s bigger than the mistress suite and it has the door to the front balcony. Do you mind if I take a look?”

  “The door is in the sitting room,” Carrie said but Gillian was already on her way.

  There was only silence from the other room and then Gillian came back into the bedroom. She sat on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands.

  “The furniture out there is real rattan,” Gillian said, as if that was supposed to mean something to Carrie. It didn’t, but Gillian didn’t seem to notice. “This house is the second oldest building in the whole county,” she said from behind her hands. “And everything in here is nearly original. Even the textiles. A little dusty, a little dented, a bit faded and frayed around the edges, but original. I think I’m going to faint.”

  Carrie couldn’t help smiling. “Do you need a glass of water?”

  “Yes.” Gillian nodded her head vigorously. “Two glasses.

  Poured straight over my head, but not while I’m sitting on this bed.”

  “Those sheets are new. The ones that were on it fell apart in the wash.”

  Gillian gave her a pained look through her parted fingers.

  “Yes, of course they did. They were sixty years old or more. Promise me you won’t wash any more of them?”

  “I washed the canopy curtains by hand. They turned out nice.”

  Gillian looked up and touched the gauzy curtains. “You did a nice job with these.”

  “The pillows fell apart.”

  “Feather?” Gillian’s mouth twisted.

  “Stinky feather.” Carrie wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never smelled anything so awful in all my life.”

  Gillian groaned and put her head back in her hands. “No more, please.”

  “Okay.” Carrie turned around and dug in a drawer for a T-shirt. She stripped off her pajama top and slipped on a clean bra.

  She turned back around in time to see Gillian look away. Women could be so funny about other women sometimes, she thought, curious but too scared to just look. Carrie didn’t mind other women looking as long as they didn’t mind her looking back. She slipped off her pajama bottoms and reached for her jeans.

  Gillian stared hard at the clothes press. “This bedroom suite is a matching set. Do you have any idea how rare that is?”

  “Not especially.” Carrie slipped one leg into her jeans. “I only know that the bed’s up awfully high off the floor. I practically have to dive into it.”

  “Yes, well, back in the day when this bed was built floors tended to be really cold and drafty.”

  Carrie looked at the floor. “They’re not so drafty now.” The wood was polished to a high shine, but there were thick carpets covering most of it. Heavy carpets, she knew from hauling them outside to shake the dust off them. Carrie slipped her other leg into her jeans and looked at Gillian who was still staring hard at everything in the room but her. “Gillian, I want you to know how much I appreciate everyone’s willingness to help me clean the house today.”

  “It’s not about you.”

  “Well, damn.” Carrie pulled her jeans up, zipped and buttoned them. “I thought everything was about me.” That brought a smile to Gillian’s lips and a little color into her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry to say that it’s not this time.”

  “What do think it’s about?”

  “Tradition and history. It’s about feeling in touch with your place in the world.” Gillian ran her hand over the new sheets.

  “Having some tie to the past makes people feel a little better about their own futures. If they remember something that happened long ago, maybe when they’re dead and gone, someone will remember them, too, even if it’s only for a small thing, like cleaning spider webs off the chandeliers.” Gillian glanced over at Carrie. “Zachary said he wasn’t even going to charge you for the electric work if it’s not too bad. He said his father helped his grandfather hang the chandelier in the foyer.”

  Carrie turned to the mirror and twisted her hair up behind her head. “The electric stuff is pretty bad. I took one outlet apart, and the wires looked chewed on. The fuse box in the kitchen h
as those little glass thingies in it, the kind you have to take out with tongs and thick leather gloves, and there’s no main cutoff switch that I could find.” Carrie searched across the top of the dresser for an extra hairclip. “It’ll be so much work that he’ll have to charge me. Besides, I’d like to pay him. I’d like to pay everyone.”

  “I have an idea of how you can.”

  Carrie leaned to one side and looked at Gillian in the mirror.

  “How’s that?”

  “When everything is all shipshape, you can have a big fancy dress ball. Let everyone dress up in tux and tails or gown and gloves and pretend for just one night that they’re different people from a different time.”

  “I like that. People tell me that I’m very good at pretending.”

  Carrie turned around to look at Gillian. She grinned, even though she knew she shouldn’t, but she just couldn’t help it. “I bet you’d look really good in a tux and tails.”

  Gillian looked at her slacks and ran her hands over her knees.

  “Yes, I think I probably would.”

  “No. That’s not the right answer,” Carrie said shaking her head. “You’re supposed to tell me that I would look good in a tux and tails, too.”

  Gillian looked at her critically. “I think I’d rather see you in a ball gown. A light pink satin maybe with lace trim and lots of ribbons.”

  “Then we’d have to go to the ball together. You in your tux and me in my gown.” Carrie was flirting and she shouldn’t be, but she couldn’t shut herself up.

  Gillian turned away from Carrie’s smile with a slight frown of her own. She nodded her head toward the clothes press. “That’s an amazing piece of furniture, you know. Very well made and well preserved. Do you know what’s in it?”

  And that was why. She had just made Gillian uncomfortable.

  “Sweaters.”

  Gillian nodded again. “Have you been through all the closets?”

  “I’ve been through most of them. This one has old suits with really wide lapels and some of the ugliest ties I’ve ever seen.”

  Gillian was still staring at the clothes press. “Did you know that the original floor plan didn’t include closets? Back when this house was built, a closet was considered a room and you got charged extra for it on your taxes, so people didn’t build them in unless they had to.” She waved a hand at the closet doors but still managed to avoid Carrie’s eyes. “These closets were added in much later when the bathrooms were installed.”

  Carrie turned back around to the mirror. She didn’t like the way her hair looked. “That seems like a shame to me. I’ve never been a big fan of closets. Things tend to get lost inside them.”

  She took the hairclips out and shook her hair down. “One day you’re looking for a pair of shoes and you pull out some doodad that your best friend gave you for Christmas when you were kids and you say, ‘Hey, look at this. I forgot this was in there.’ And then you put it right back and forget it again.” Her back was to Gillian, but she could still see her in the mirror. “I think it’s better to just have things lying around, out in the open where you can see them.”

  Gillian’s frown deepened. “Then everyone else can see them too.”

  “Exactly. That’s the point.”

  Gillian stood, walked over to the closet door and opened it.

  She looked inside and then reached out a hand to touch the tie rack. “I don’t know if I agree with you about closets, but these really are some ugly ties. What are you going to do with all this?”

  Carrie twisted her hair back up again and held it against the back of her head. “I’d like to keep the ties. I’m guessing they were my grandfather’s, and I’d like to keep something of him. The suits we can give away if anybody wants them.”

  “My partner, Jo, is interested in vintage clothing. I’m sure she’d be happy to take them off your hands and give you something for your trouble.”

  Carrie’s fingers slipped and her hair fell again. “Jo? The lady with the deep voice from your antique shop?”

  “Yes. She really looks for things from the nineteen-twenties and earlier, but I’m sure she can do something with these.” Gillian pointed to the bottom of the closet. “She’d just love those wing tips.”

  “She can have them if she wants them.” Carrie tucked her hair behind her ears. She was both elated and bitterly disappointed and hoped that neither showed on her face. “So, how long have you and Jo been together?”

  Gillian closed the closet door. Her cheeks were a burning red. “Jo is my business partner. We own the business together, and that’s all. I’m not like that.”

  Carrie felt her own cheeks flame. “Oh. I’m sorry. I misunderstood. I hope I didn’t offend you.”

  Gillian’s blush deepened, but she shook her head. “No, you didn’t offend me. I just get tired of being guilty by association. Jo’s pretty obvious about her preferences and people tend to assume things that they shouldn’t.” A muffled thud and loud laughter drifted up through the bedroom floor. Gillian crossed the room and opened the door. The laughter came through clearly. “It sounds like the natives are getting restless. We should probably go give them something to do before they start breaking things.”

  She stepped out into the hallway. “What would you like us to do?”

  “I’m not sure.” Carrie hesitated as she followed her out into the hall. She was not used to having people do things for her. “I was really just planning to clean the dust off of everything, but I haven’t gotten much past the library, the foyer and this suite of rooms. I don’t know what to do beyond dusting and polishing. I still don’t feel comfortable throwing things away.”

  Gillian stopped at the head of the stairs. “What about the outside?”

  Carrie stood behind Gillian. She could smell the pungent sweetness of baking peaches rising from below. It suited, somehow, to stand behind Gillian and smell peaches. “I guess a good place to start would be trimming the driveway back so it doesn’t scratch the paint off everyone’s car, and maybe raking the gravel near the road a little more even. I don’t know if the grass is too high to be mowed without a tractor.”

  “What about the stables?” she asked looking at Carrie over her shoulder with an impudent smile.

  Carrie smiled back. “I still don’t know where they are.”

  “I do. Would you like me tell you?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “There are two paths leading out from the garden between the wings that lead away from the river. One goes to the stables and the other goes to what I think used to be a formal garden. It’s distinct from the garden on the east side of the house, which was only a kitchen garden, meant for small vegetables and herbs.”

  “I guess I’ll have to do the stables myself. How hard do you think it would be to divert the river?”

  “Probably more trouble than it’s worth.” Gillian ran a hand over the scrollwork on the banister. Her eyes went a little bit glassy as her slim fingers slid over the rich patina. “How about if I direct the inside dusting and polishing and you direct the outside mowing and pruning?”

  “That sounds like it will work.” Carrie watched Gillian’s hand caress the banister. “Only, there’s one room I don’t want you clean.”

  Gillian’s hand stilled. “Which one?”

  “The one at the very end of the west wing hallway used to be my mother’s room.” Carrie looked away from Gillian’s hand.

  “I’ve been in it, but I haven’t been brave enough to go through it yet.”

  Gillian looked at Carrie and tilted her head a little to one side. “Why not?”

  Carrie felt her mouth go dry. She didn’t know how to put it into words because she never had before. People who knew her already knew why, and she didn’t have to explain, but nobody here knew anything about her life. She touched her mouth and tried to think of some way to put it that would be brief and painless but honest.

  “My mother died when I was only two.” Carrie lowered her hand and slid
it into the front pocket of her jeans. “My father missed her so much that he had a hard time talking about her when I was young. Later, he wasn’t often sober enough to talk about anything.” As Carrie spoke, she tried not to picture her father in his final years, his loose skin and his staggering walk. He had been a good man, once. “My mother’s death destroyed him. I want to know what it was about her that he couldn’t let go of, and I guess I wonder what it would have been like for me to grow up knowing her. I thought maybe her room would give me a hint, but it takes a certain kind of courage to walk into a room like that and I haven’t been able to gather enough of it yet.” Carrie’s hand clenched inside her pocket. That wasn’t so brief after all, and not at all painless.

  Gillian touched Carrie lightly on the arm. Her eyes were soft and sad. “I’m so sorry, Carrie. I can’t imagine what that was like for you. My mother died just a few years ago, but she had always been there for me.”

  Gillian’s touch was light but it weighed heavily on Carrie’s heart. No one had ever said that they were sorry before. Carrie didn’t know how to respond to that. She shrugged. “I didn’t know anything different.”

  “Well” —Gillian rubbed her arm briskly and let her hand drop— “if you’re looking for clues to the past, don’t forget the attic.”

  “There’s an attic?”

  “Yes, and I heard from a reliable, if gossipy, source that it was crammed full of stuff.”

  “Oh.” Carrie looked at the smooth unbroken ceiling. “I wonder how I get up there.”

  “There’s probably a door somewhere. Most houses this old have a set of stairs to the attic. I imagine it looks like a closet door. I’ll have the cleaning crew keep an eye out.”

  “Thank you.” Carrie meant her thanks sincerely and she wished she could say more than that, but she knew she wouldn’t say it right. Whatever “it” was. Gillian was stirring things inside her. It wasn’t lust. Well, not entirely, anyway. And it wasn’t longing. Not exactly. It was confusing. There was a kindness to Gillian that she hadn’t seen a whole lot of in her life, but there was distance there, too. It made her feel…she didn’t know how it made her feel. Weird. Nostalgic. Unsettled. Strangely hopeful.