The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red by Ellen Rimbauer Page A

days ago, worth sharing
    here. In studying the plans with John, he was pointing out the
    Breakfast Room, a well-intentioned space left of the Banquet
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    Hall and below the Kitchen on our plans, and one obviously
    thought up by a man. I’m annoyed with its placement, as its only
    windows face west into the garden, and any woman knows that it is
    the morning’s east light that so pleases the morning soul. John
    argues that I may take my breakfast wherever it pleases me,
    including the Parlor, which does, in fact, face east and south, but
    with an uninspired view of the driveway. He reminds me that the
    home will be staffed with over thirty, and that if I wish to have
    breakfast in bed every day of my life, so be it. But he misses the
    point, of course, of the aesthetics of the placement of the
    Breakfast Room and my belief that it shall go virtually unused
    because of it. No matter. What was astonishing was this: in the
    course of our heated discussion, John pointed to a second of the
    room’s windows in the plans. I told him no, that the window had
    been lost, as the architect had only recently discovered a need to
    relocate the pantry from north to south, to provide better access
    to cold storage and the china storage in the basement below,
    access to which was to the north of the Kitchen. He’d heard
    nothing of this, he reminded me, even taking the time to sort
    through his many telegraphs. But you see, I knew, quite clearly,
    that this change had been made. I had “seen” the wall being
    erected already, the bricks laid in place, the trowels tossing the
    mortar. I knew, and no one had ever told me. When John
    received a telegraph late that evening, he came to our rooms
    somewhat ashen. He passed me the telegraph and said, “Explain
    this, Ellen.”
    “A premonition is all, my love.”
    “A premonition?”
    “Exactly so.”
    “Concerning the house,” he said.
    “This particular time, yes.”
    “You’ve had others, then?”
    “The world is opening up to me, dear husband, just as you
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    said it would. This voyage of ours has already proved most . . .
    illuminating. One might even say, enlightening.”
    “And what else do you . . . ‘see,’ if I may ask.”
    “You dare not ask, I would suggest.”
    “Me? Is it ever me?” He looked nervous, visibly upset.
    “And if it was?”
    “I don’t believe in such rubbish.”
    “Then you’ve nothing to worry about, dear soul.”
    “Do not call me that.”
    “I see you with women,” I answered. “Young women, barely
    budding. I see you performing unspeakable acts with these dark
    women with whom we’ve surrounded ourselves since we left
    home.” I was crying now, but trying so hard not to. I’m sure I
    must have looked the fool.
    He blanched. “Ridiculous!” A hoarse, dry whisper that I fear
    even he did not believe. Void of the usual ?are of temper, he left
    our rooms in quietude.
    To my surprise, he returned later, sober and unusually considerate
    and polite. That night he was husband to me as gentle as
    our wedding night. He luxuriated me in my own pleasures as he
    has never done before, and later I heard him crying in his sleep.
    It’s the heir, Dear Diary, the all-important heir. I am now the
    vehicle through which to deliver him his lineage, and any other
    will be bastard. (I fear we have left a string behind us on this trip
    already!) He needs me in this endeavor, my willingness to take to
    bed with him, or this dream of passing along his fortune will
    never take light. It is this need that compels him to treat me with
    respect and dignity, no matter what the truth of our union be. I
    do believe I have struck the fear of God in him. But truth be
    known, it is the Devil, for who else invoked in me such a lie as I
    told him that night, having never had such visions of him with
    others. Suspicions, to be sure. But brought forward as images, I
    do believe that he brie?y saw them as well, reliving his unfaithful-
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    ness, and that perhaps these