The Color of Dust

by Claire Rooney

  The moon slowly arced across a star-studded sky as their soft gasps and groans grew, their motions quickened to an almost frantic pushing and pulling. Lilly cried out against her shoulder, her body convulsing atop her. Her own answering cry came with a shudder that shook her soul.

  Sweat pooled and cooled as they lay with their bodies melded together, their limbs twined and tangled. Carrie’s eyes drooped and closed as she listened to the soft, even sound of Lilly’s breath against her shoulder, the buzz of the cicadas, the rustling night breezes, the soft tap-tapping of footsteps. Carrie opened her eyes. She lifted her head to listen but Lilly stirred, sighing in her sleep, and held her tighter. Carrie kissed her brow, brushing her lips across her skin, tasting the sweet saltiness. She smiled softly to herself, laid her head back down and closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A door slammed in Carrie’s dream with a strange echoing sound, like a thousand doors closing down a mile-long hallway.

  She opened her eyes to bright daylight streaming outside her window. Lilly was gone, but that was not unusual. She usually rose at first light, although, as Carrie recalled with a sleepy smile, they hadn’t gone to sleep until near first light. Carrie wondered if Lilly had slept at all. She brushed her tangled hair back from her face and caught the scent of Lilly on her hands, the deep rich musk, a tang of salt and sweat. It was the smell of the ocean, both bitter and sweet. Carrie touched the dent on Lilly’s pillow and wondered where she was, what she was doing.

  A light tap-tap-tap sounded on the bedroom door. Carrie rose, slipped on her dressing gown and opened the door. Martha, the cook, stood in the hallway looking uncomfortable and out of place in her food-spotted apron, smelling of mint and peaches.

  She dropped a clumsy curtsy.

  “What is it, Martha?”

  “Your father sent me up, miss, to help you with your dressing.”

  Carrie looked at the flour on her hands, the shuffling of her feet, the high color staining her cheeks. “Where’s Lilly?”

  “In her room, miss.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, miss. The Colonel said he would like to see you as soon as you’re dressed.” Her restless feet scraped across the floor.

  Carrie tightened the belt on her dressing gown with an angry jerk and pushed past Martha into the hallway. She headed for the stairs with Martha bobbing and squeaking behind her, something about dresses, decency and the time of day, but Carrie didn’t listen. She was furious, hurt, betrayed. Lilly was going to leave her after all, even after she had promised to stay. It was an underhanded and dishonest trick, to leave her lying there in bed while she made plans behind her back. God only knows what Lilly had said to her father, but she would ask him and he would tell her. She wouldn’t let her leave. She couldn’t.

  She walked quickly down the west wing hallway, losing Martha at the edge of the parlor. She stamped past the billiards room to the heavy oak paneled door of the smoking room. Carrie knocked a sharp rat-a-tat-tat.

  “Come.”

  She opened the door and stepped into the room. The Colonel looked at her from over the top of his newspaper, the smoke from his cigar curling around his head. The image was so familiar, it echoed like the doors slamming in her dream. She could remember seeing him like that, in that same pose, a million times. Now, in his white Sunday suit. A hundred years from now, with a gaunt, clean-shaven face in blue jeans and an old flannel shirt. Carrie’s head swam. She staggered and fell against a high-backed chair. The Colonel dropped his paper and rose to catch her by the arms.

  “Easy, there, Celia. Sit yourself down, girl, before you fall down.” He held her upright and helped her into the chair.

  Carrie sat hard, breathing rapid shallow breaths. The cigar smoke scraped at the back of her throat and made her stomach twist. The Colonel patted her hand awkwardly and then sat back in his own chair. He took his cigar out of his clenched teeth and set it in a dish.

  “Shall I ring for Martha and have her help you back to bed?”

  He ran a hand over his beard, smoothing it against his vest. “Lilly said you were feeling poorly and you do look a little peaked.”

  “Lilly?” The anger flowed back into Carrie, drowning her dizziness under a wave of furious red. “Lilly’s not leaving,” she said in a tone sharper than she had ever dared use before.

  The Colonel picked up his cigar and looked at it closely. “Yes, she is.” His voice was strangely quiet.

  “No,” Carrie said. “She can’t. I need her here to help me.” She leaned forward. “I can’t go through with the wedding without her. I don’t care what she told you. I know she doesn’t really want to go live with Aunt May. Please, Father, help me make her stay.” The Colonel put his cigar in his mouth and then took it out again. He tapped a thick circle of ash into the heavy glass bowl and pushed it around with the glowing tip until it broke apart and scattered evenly around the dish.

  “Celia,” he started but then stopped. The tone was soft. His eyes were hard. The cigar trembled slightly in his hands. “I’ve buried two wives and I’ve raised a daughter nearly on my own, but I can’t say that I yet understand the workings of the female mind.”

  Carrie sat back in her chair. “Meaning what, sir?”

  Smoke from the Colonel’s cigar rose slowly into the air in a thin wavering plume. “Lilly seems to have gotten all sorts of odd notions. Not that she didn’t always have odd notions, but she’s really rounded the bend this time.”

  Carrie pulled her dressing gown tighter around her. “What has she been telling you?”

  The Colonel’s cheeks reddened over his white bristle of beard. “She has somehow gotten the idea that you shouldn’t marry Robert and that if you did, you would be miserable for the rest of your life. She thinks your affections lay elsewhere, but that elsewhere doesn’t bear too close a scrutiny.” The Colonel raised the cigar up to his downturned mouth. His eyes were glittering sharp and hard as iron. “That elsewhere doesn’t bear thinking about at all.”

  Carrie’s mouth opened but she didn’t know what to say.

  There wasn’t really anything left to say, as Lilly seemed to have said far too much already. She closed her mouth again.

  The Colonel gave a disdainful sounding sniff. He shook his head and looked at the ash bowl. It seemed to remind him of something and his eyes softened just a shade. He sighed softly.

  “With all my heart, Celia, I want and wish for your happiness, but a little gal of seventeen doesn’t know enough about the world to know what happiness is. That’s why good parents arrange things for their children, so they don’t have to spend the rest of their lives living down a very bad mistake.”

  The Colonel crossed his legs and took a slow puff from his cigar. Smoke streamed from his lips in a thick gray cloud. “I feel that I have been very lenient with you in the past because you are my only surviving child and the hope of my old age. I know that you and Lillian have always been close but, over the years, you have grown too close. She has overstepped her station, and you are in danger of losing your place in yours. I’m going to put a stop to that.”

  Carrie shook her head. “No.” She wanted to put her hands over her ears but she couldn’t lift them. “Please. No.”

  The Colonel ignored her. “I pray that separating you two will be enough to stop this foolishness. Lillian is going to go live in Richmond with Aunt May just as you said, but she’s going to go now. Today. Earnest is hooking up the carriage and Lillian is in her room packing her things. And, Celia,” the Colonel leaned forward in his chair and grabbed Carrie’s chin. He held her head still. “You are not going with her. Is that clear?”

  His fingers pinched her face as the smell of fresh cigar clashed with the memory of lemon-scented furniture polish. Carrie’s mouth opened again, but the arguments in her head wouldn’t roll off her tongue. She heard herself say, “Yes, sir. That’s clear.”

  The Colonel nodded his head slowly. He let go of her chin and sat back i
n his chair. “Very good. After you’re married, of course, you may do as you like and as your husband approves, but while you’re still my daughter, living under my roof, you will obey me in this thing.”

  “Yes, sir.” Carrie wanted to scream. Scream anything.

  Obscenities, insults, her rage and her pain. Her mouth wouldn’t form the words though her throat ached with the effort.

  “You are not to see or to speak to Lilly again before she leaves. You will go back to your room and stay there until the carriage is gone. We will not speak of this ever again and anything that might have been said, for decency’s sake, will never leave this room.” The Colonel nodded his head at her once. “That’s all. You may go.”

  Carrie stood. Her hands twitched with the need to throw something, to break and smash, to rend and destroy. She turned and let her hand hit the glass ash bowl. It fell off the table and bounced onto the floor. It didn’t break. It only spread fine gray ash over the rug, dimming its colors. Her father picked the bowl up off the floor and set it back on the table. He tapped his cigar on its edge, picked up his paper and opened it with a shake. Carrie opened the heavy oak door and walked out of the room. She shut the door gently behind her.

  Her eyes filled with a fog of hurt and pain as she moved down the hallway, through the parlor, into the foyer. She stood in front of the grand staircase, her hand on the railing, her foot resting on the first tread. He father was a man who expected to be obeyed, and she always had. In everything. There had never been a reason not to. He was a good man, a wise man, just and reasonable. But he was wrong about this. He didn’t understand. How could he?

  Her foot slipped off the tread. She turned slowly and walked through the dining room, through the breakfast nook, into the kitchen past large bubbling pots with their great wreaths of steam.

  Martha sat at the kitchen table, humming a happy tune while she peeled a mound of peaches. Carrie stepped quietly through the kitchen behind her, through to the butler’s pantry and into the east servant’s wing.

  Lilly’s room was the last one at the end of the hallway, larger than the others with a washroom of its own. The door was closed, but Carrie opened it and went inside.

  Lilly sat on the narrow cot, a tightly twisted chemise stretched between her hands. A small crudely painted trunk sat open at her feet. It was only half full.

  “Lilly?”

  She looked at Carrie with unfocused eyes. “A woman shouldn’t have to be afraid to speak her mind.” Her voice was soft and small.

  “Oh, Lilly.” Carrie sat next to her on the cot. She slid the chemise out of Lilly’s hands and laid it across her knees, pressing the creases out with the palms of her hands. She folded it carefully and put it in the trunk. “You pick the strangest times to be brave.”

  Lilly bowed her head and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “You don’t belong with Robert, Celia. You don’t love him. I thought that I could explain it to your father.” Lilly dropped her hands into her lap. “I thought I could make him understand.”

  Carrie touched her cheek. “Thank you for trying.”

  “He didn’t listen.”

  “No. He couldn’t. He doesn’t know how.”

  Lilly took Carrie’s hand. She held it tightly in her own.

  “He sent for Earnest to hook up the carriage. I’m to leave this afternoon. He said I mustn’t wait until Monday.”

  “Yes, he told me that, too.” Carrie shifted closer so that they touched at the shoulder, hip and thigh. She laid their hands in her lap. “I wish I could go with you.”

  Lilly shook her head miserably. “The Colonel’s not going to allow that.”

  “He expressly forbade it.”

  Lilly shifted suddenly, turning to face her. “Come with me anyway. Celia, come with me to Richmond.” She squeezed her hand tight. “We’ll rent that little house with the garden. I’ll cook and clean for Aunt May, and we’ll find something for you to do.”

  Carrie smiled sadly. “That’s such a wonderful dream, Lilly, but you know we can’t. We wouldn’t make it halfway before someone would track us down. I’d just get dragged back here and you would be bundled off to Aunt May’s in disgrace.”

  Lilly’s hand loosened in hers. “You said you would choose me over Robert.”

  “If that was my choice to make, I would.”

  “There’s always a choice.” Lilly’s hand went limp.

  “What would you have me do, Lilly? I would change the world for you if I could. Make it flat if you wanted it flat. Turn the sky green and the grass blue. Make cows fly and sing sweet songs.” Carrie’s own words stung her heart. “Tell me, Lilly, what would you have me do?”

  Lilly frowned and let go of Carrie’s hand. She turned away from her. Carrie looked at her empty palm. Those words weren’t the ones she wanted to say. They were the wrong words, but she couldn’t stop them from coming out of her mouth. The right words were in her head, but she couldn’t make her tongue work the way she wanted it to. Carrie looked into the open mouth of the trunk, at the small pile of simple homespun dresses and plain underthings. The one pair of shoes. Lilly had only packed her own things and none of the things Carrie had given her.

  Carrie’s mind was screaming, pounding on the walls of her brain. She felt trapped and bound as she listened to herself say words she didn’t want to say. “Lilly, I’m not as brave as you are. I don’t think women will ever be free to speak their minds or make their own choices. If you could stay—”

  “If I could stay, you would choose me over Robert, but only in secret.” Lilly’s shoulders sagged as she nodded her head slowly.

  “I understand, Celia. Really, I do.” She reached down and closed the lid of the trunk. She tapped the small wooden peg into the clasp. “When we’re allowed to vote then the men will have to listen if they expect us to vote for them. It’s something all women should strive for.”

  Carrie’s laugh was hollow and dry. “I don’t think they’ll listen much even then.”

  Lilly said nothing for a long while. As she sat, her frown deepened. She looked up suddenly and nodded her head again.

  “If you can get away, it would be nice for you to visit.”

  Carrie’s mouth moved even as her mind railed against her. “If you still want me to, I’ll visit you as often as I can. Every chance I get.”

  “I have something for you.” Lilly unclasped the small silver chain that hung around her neck. A gold locket hung from the end of it.

  “Your mother gave that to you.”

  “Yes, I kept the pictures that were inside. I didn’t have a picture of me to replace it, so I put something else in there for you to remember me by.” Lilly turned and reached around her neck. She hung the locket so that it lay on the fabric stretched across the hollow of Carrie’s breasts. “Think of me when things get too hard for you.” She laid her hand over the locket pressing it against Carrie’s chest.

  Carrie pressed harder into her push, feeling the locket press into her skin. She pulled her face close and kissed her. Lilly made a small sound of protest and tried to pull away, but Carrie held her close. “Lilly, please, just a kiss until I can see you again.”

  Lilly started to shake her head, but she didn’t finish the motion.

  Carrie kissed her again and Lilly let her. “Oh.” Her hands came up to touch Carrie’s shoulders and slid slowly down to cover her breasts. Carrie leaned into her hands and pushed her flat onto the cot. She ate at her mouth, stealing every taste she could while Lilly squeezed and kneaded. Their touches grew desperate as they pushed into and pulled each other closer. Carrie’s dressing gown twisted and tangled between her legs.

  With a sudden heave, Lilly rolled them both over, smashing Carrie up against the wall. Her kiss was hard and deep and bruising. Carrie felt her hands on her face, her breast, tugging at her gown, reaching underneath, yanking her drawers down around her thighs. She clutched at Lilly as a warm solid hand cupped between her legs, holding all of her heat in the palm of her hand.
Small groans trickled from her throat as she thrust herself hard up into her.

  Lilly screamed as hands tore her away. Carrie saw Earnest the coachman throw Lilly to the ground. The Colonel was standing red-faced by the door. Lilly tried to scramble away, but the toe of Earnest’s boot caught her on the chin. Her head snapped back and slammed into the wall. She sank back to the floor with a moan. Carrie rolled off the cot and stumbled toward her. Robert rushed into the room, caught her by the arm and yanked her back. His arms closed around her and he held her tight against his chest. Too tight. He was hurting her and she fought against him, but he just held her tighter, whispering soft absurd coos into her hair as she struggled and scratched and punched. She could hear Lilly screaming and her father’s voice booming.

  She fought Robert harder as he wrestled her onto the cot. It creaked and groaned under their weight. His body crushed her into the thin mattress, squeezing all the breath from her lungs.

  It was all wrong. His body was too hot, too heavy, too broad, too scratchy, too hard, swelling in all the wrong places and not in the right ones. Her mouth opened as she gasped for air and Robert shoved something between her teeth. A foul, bitter fluid filled her mouth. She choked and coughed as it burned her tongue and slid down her throat. Robert held her pinned down as she struggled, coughing and crying. Her lips started to burn as her tongue swelled and thickened. A dull gray fog crept into the corners of her eyes. She punched at him and kicked her feet, but her limbs felt wrapped in wool. Her fingers and toes itched and tingled.

  He was a crushing weight on her chest, but maybe breathing wasn’t so important. Her gasps faded into soft mews as her struggles grew weaker. The weight on her chest lessened as the room grew dimmer. It ceased altogether as the gray fog rolled in to cover her eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  She woke in her own bed to the faint light of an early morning sunrise. The cheerful twittering of birds pierced her ears and made her head pound. Her tongue felt heavy and her lips numb.