The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red (12 page)

and I for one am considering bringing charges against the woman

when they catch her. And mark my word, they will catch her.”

“No, they won’t catch her, John. They won’t even ?nd her.

And if they do, it shall be in this house, and by now I fear they

shall ?nd her dead.”

“Good God, woman! Whatever’s gotten into you?”

“Rose Red, dear husband. It’s gotten into us all.”

“The house? You don’t subscribe to that garbage, do you?

Dear soul, do not fret over this, do not risk your condition in any

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way. I am so angry at this Fauxmanteur woman, I cannot tell you!

You are doing so well of late. Please, my dear Ellen, do not spend

another minute thinking about it.”

“I want this child most of all.”

“Of course. As do I. Most of all.”

“But I promise you, she never left this house.” I added, “Do

you remember the guests at the inaugural? The ones who said

how quickly they’d become lost in Rose Red? What of that? What

do you make of that?”

“You mean as it relates to Mrs. Fauxmanteur?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“I see positively no connection between the two. Besides, dear

woman, let us not forget all of our guests at the inaugural are

accounted for.”

“You’re making light of it.”

“I’m not.”

“At my expense.”

“Never. I assure you, it was not my intention.”

“Guests complain of getting lost and then two months later,

one does get lost. She disappears. Coincidence?”

“I hear it in your voice, dear. Do not trouble yourself over

this. I tell you, it is simply that we’ve been made to look bad by a

woman who chose us and our home for her ill-conceived plans.

The child . . . please . . . do not trouble yourself.”

“The child is ?ne.”

“Yes . . . but before . . .”

“Before I was made seriously ill either by our social calendar

or by exposure to an unfortunate malady.” I left it at that. I might

as well have taken out my bread knife and thrust it through him. I

know not why I raised this issue again, so long after we’d both laid

it to rest.

John cleaned his chin with his napkin and stood at his end of

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the long table. He dismissed the servants. I felt the heat of dread

and regret. I had awakened the sleeping monster in him. His eyes

burned with disfavor for me. We had never discussed this directly.

“At the age of eighteen I joined the Army and remained

enlisted for six years. I took certain liberties that many young

men of that age take, and I bear the punishment for those liberties

even to-day. It is rarely with me, this curse, and I regret terribly

my misspent youth. I can only hope that you can ?nd it in

your heart to forgive me my past sins, my dear. But I will not have

my wife speaking to me in this manner. Not ever. And until you

are prepared to apologize, you shall not see me. Not for meals,

nor social engagements.”

Though I believed little of his explanation, I apologized to

him forthwith, before he could leave the room and make even

more of this by requiring me to chase him down. I explained that

my visitor’s disappearance had greatly upset me and that I had

misspoken just now. The police wandering the house did nothing

to make me feel at ease.

“Then I shall drive them out,” John said.

“No, dear.”

“Of course I shall. Whatever is necessary to your continued

good health!”

As I had ascertained back in Africa: the heir meant more to

John than anything in this life.

He stormed out of the Banquet Hall shouting commands at

servants, police and anyone who happened to be in his way. (The

house is busy with workers day in and day out as the construction

continues unabated. No one of society can quite believe that the

Rimbauer Mansion, as it’s also known outside these walls, is in a

constant and continuing state of construction.) Within ten minutes

or so, John had used his considerable presence, as well as his

keen sense of negotiation, to arrange for all but two police to

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leave Rose Red. These two remained in the hunt for Mrs.

Fauxmanteur, though I must confess I had already given up hope.

(Not that I believed John’s explanation for even a minute! The

problem being that neither John nor I would likely understand

the other’s position—thus is the scourge of marriage, there are

those points that will never be resolved because opposite opinions

cannot resolve themselves; they can either be overlooked entirely

or tolerated, occasionally respected, though if true opposites,

even this middle ground is unlikely.)

I telephoned Tina Coleman to consult her on the disappearance

and embarrassed myself by breaking into tears in the middle

of our brief discussion. Tina advised me to consult a “seer” in

hopes of locating Mrs. Fauxmanteur in places that the police were

unlikely to ?nd her. This only served to further upset me, and I

ended the call as quickly as possible, somewhat concerned the

woman at the exchange may have been listening in, a practice that

is rampant these days. Our family was always well off, but John

Rimbauer can only be said to be wealthy, and as his bride I have

experienced ?rsthand the loss of privacy that accompanies the life

of the rich. It seems someone is always watching, always listening,

whether a servant, a maid, a driver or the public. People point at

John and me as we leave the motorcar for a dinner or to attend a

performance. They whisper, not bothering to even disguise their

alarm at having seen us. We live under a magnifying glass, day in

and day out, and I ?nd the overall effect of this close inspection

exhausting. John, who has lived with it for so many years now,

seems either not to notice it or not to care. He conducts himself

the same way, in public or not—a bit brash yet charming, smooth

yet easily agitated, a man who takes control of any situation the

moment he enters it, even parties thrown by our closest friends!

It is the consistency in him that I believe makes him such a formidable

businessman. This sense of power he bestows that both men

and women ?nd attractive, even seductive, though for different

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reasons. John Rimbauer entertains as he frightens. None would

dare cross him; few dare challenge him.

And so it is that he must ?nd marriage to me a considerably

vexing proposition.

Tina suggested I consult a medium.

As I hung up from that call, the police collecting outside and

?nally dispersing some of the press, I came to consider her suggestion

more thoughtfully. If a medium was what was required,

then what was holding me back?

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16 march 1909—seattle

Dare I confess this? (I think I shall order Sukeena to destroy you,

Dear Diary, if I should pass at childbirth, or in any way for that

matter, for the secrets I con?de here should never reach another’s

eyes.) I lied to my husband to-day—for what was, I believe, the

very ?rst time. (There have been little white lies, of course—

telling him I don’t mind his coming home late; pretending to

enjoy a bedroom encounter when in fact it repulsed me; defending

some action of his to his face when behind his back I believe

he handled it incorrectly—but never a lie of this magnitude!)

This afternoon I told him that Tina Coleman was taking me

shopping for the nursery. Sukeena was to accompany me and we

were to return home well after tea, as we planned to take tea at the

hotel, or possibly even at the bank with my father. John bid me

farewell barely taking notice of my mention, consumed as he was

with problems concerning the construction. I have begged to add

a central tower onto Rose Red. John has denied me. I will get my

way someday. (It is to hold an exquisite stained-glass window I

ordered from an artisan while in London. We received a cable

earlier this week that the window was put on a ship bound for New

York and is therefore on its way. Now, to convince John!)

There was no shopping planned, of course. No nursery in my

mind. The truth was that my dearest Tina had arranged for me to

meet Madame Lu—a Chinese woman who is said to possess

extraordinary conjuring powers. And oh, what a day!

Tina sent her carriage at half past one, insisting we accept this

offer as her driver knew the way into the underbelly of the city

where we might ?nd Madame Lu. Just the thought of this journey

gave me goose?esh! One hears stories about the China district—

the use of opium is said to be rampant, the young women available

for pennies, disease and poverty everywhere for those the

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railroads left behind once the laying of railroad track reached the

ocean. The Chinese ended up here in Seattle, tens of thousands

of them, without work and desperate. I am well aware that some

of our husbands “gambled” here—that perhaps part of that gambling

was with their pants down—and that still others took opium,

or young boys. But I was completely unaware of any Caucasian

women venturing into the China district, much less the likes of

Tina Coleman, one of the most respected women in the community.

Sure enough, the carriage picked up Sukeena and me,

returned to the Coleman residence where we refreshed ourselves,

and then the four of us (Tina brought along her maid, Gwen, a

Swedish girl of astonishing beauty) returned to the carriage and

set out south of the city.

The dirt road went quickly to a thick mud as we left the familiar

part of town, the stone buildings of center city giving way to

wooden shacks crowded together, mud, crates and trash in evidence.

Narrow, dark lanes of mud ran between these shacks,

small children, half naked even in the cold rain, running side by

side engaged in games with balls and sticks, their small yellow

bodies so thin from hunger. Plumes of wood smoke rose from

metal stovepipes and cooking ?res open to the air, sheltered from

the rain by tarpaulins or woven bamboo. It is a world only minutes

from my own and yet one I have never known existed except

in places like Egypt and the Indias where John and I have traveled.

My heart was in my throat by the time the carriage arrived at a

two-story wooden building deep in the heart of the China district.

I expected at any moment for a Chinaman to leap out of the

shadows wielding a double-edged knife with a sinister curved

blade. (I’ve read of such people in Kipling.) I expected our

purses to be robbed, or worse, the one crime any woman dreads

above all others: violation. But to my surprise, no such deed pre-

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sented itself. Instead, the driver helped us down to a boardwalk,

which we crossed, and we entered the building in question.

The air smelled of sandalwood incense, a fragrance I recognized

immediately from our year abroad. This ?rst room was

dark, lit by candle, not gas, as the gas lines do not run this far

south. It was not a particularly sturdy structure; the wind found

its way through cracks, moving the small candle ?ames and

throwing shifting shadows across the walls. An eerie and disconcerting

environment. Sukeena pulled lightly on my elbow and

shook her blue-black face back and forth indicating her disapproval.

I trust Sukeena so much in these matters—she has a prescience

for anticipating the unexpected. She sensed something

wrong here—terribly wrong—and even I could feel this along with

her: a dark, foreboding presence. Sinister and unforgiving.

“Are you sure?” I asked Tina.

“A bit dramatic, isn’t it?” she said. “I tell you, Ellen, Madame

Lu is nothing like this room, this building. I think it to be a matter

of commerce. The Chinese, who make up a majority of her

clientele, expect ambience, and she gives them what they pay for.

They expect something other-worldly, and Madame Lu is only

too happy to oblige. I tell you, friend, she is nothing like this.

You will ?nd her to be noble, in?nitely patient and accommodating.

Gwen was most troubled, the ?rst time I brought her.”

The pale young beauty nodded her agreement. I considered the

stark contrast between her and my Sukeena—one so pale and

translucent, one so dark and opaque. And I wondered, had this

lovely girl’s hiring been Tina’s idea, or that of her husband?

Many a housemaid in this city had bastard children to show for

their service. “But now she is as comfortable as I, for she too has

met the incomparable madame and knows there is nothing to

worry about. Remember, dear soul, that these seers are often as

much show as they are reality. Madame Lu is no phony, I’m

happy to report. But she must compete with those who are, and

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that competition requires her to invest in the show along with the

best of them.”

I heard her words but was not entirely convinced. (Sukeena, I

knew, doubted this woman’s powers from the start.) This room

emanated a heaviness, like danger, whether the result of incense

clouding my breath or the shifting shadows accounting for a certain

sense of dizziness. Whatever the case, I moved my feet forward