The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red (23 page)

when I felt quite well.

Particularly vexing is that had any of those under our employ

encountered Mr. Posey, he or she is not in the position to report

it. John has long had installed in this house a strict rule of con?-

dentiality, as he carries on secret business meetings (or at least

that’s the reason he gives!) and can’t have word getting out. (He

is, in fact, said to be investing in an aero company with his good

friend Bill Boeing. I think it’s a waste of money, personally, but

John says aeroplanes will be important to the military.) So had

any of the servants seen or encountered Douglas Posey, they

would not have mentioned it anyway. They would be loath to do

so. Whether anyone did see Douglas as he entered remains

unclear. We all saw him leave.

It is no easy feat to reach the Parlor undetected, especially from

where Douglas Posey began his surreptitious entrance into our

grand home. He understood the house well enough, and its

internal politics, to increase his chances. The Parlor’s window

looks out on the U-shaped pebble driveway, the Fountain

Garden, which offers a welcoming splash of color year-round,

thanks to our busy staff. He has been to the second ?oor plenty of

times himself, to partake in one or another of John’s many secret

business meetings, and even knows several of the staff by name.

One can only imagine why a person would go to such lengths as

did Douglas Posey, but if there is one thing I have learned from

my time in the company of John Rimbauer, it is that there is no

predicting the human condition. The man Freud can make all

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the claims he wants (he is said to attribute nearly every phobia and

fear to the physical intimacies between man and woman—sex!—

disregarding in the process the drive for sustenance, survival and

power). I trust someday his ?ndings will be disproved, despite

their apparent accuracy where my husband is concerned. What I

will never understand, since I once imagined Douglas took a keen

liking to the children, is why and how he chose the Parlor, knowing

how fond Adam is of playing there. Perhaps his decision

stemmed from the presence there of an oil portrait of John that

hangs over the ?replace. My portrait hangs in the Entry Hall,

along with John’s game trophies—the similarity of our situations

has not escaped me. These portraits were commissioned while we

were in London at the end of our honeymoon, and I must say

they seem lifelike, the work skillful though unimaginative.

Indeed, John’s portrait—looking so digni?ed—hangs with a view

across the Parlor and out an opposing window toward the drive,

as if surveying his domain and contemplating his dominion over

same.

I can scarcely write the words, and without the high spirits that

?ll my glass would feel helpless to do so, but the story must be

told, and so, what I have been told of it follows.

Adam was the ?rst to enter the Parlor, on one of his “safaris”

where he encourages his sister, April, to forage ahead of him in

the great hallways and make like game, as Adam attempts to track

her. (Little does poor Adam see or understand the signi?cance of

this practice to Sukeena and me—like his father, the game he

stalks is a young girl! He must wonder why we discourage it so.)

He had missed a cue and lost April as she dodged into the

Smoking Room—a room she is forbidden to enter, but girls will

be girls. Adam swung open the door, his popgun held at shoulder

height and ready to “?re,” and apparently looked down that ri?e

barrel at Douglas Posey, who was himself halfway up a small

wooden stepladder that is kept in a closet off the gallery to assist

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in the positioning and hanging of the artwork. Around the man’s

neck was a length of hemp rope fashioned as a noose. He stared at

young Adam, the boy’s physical similarity to his father impossible

to miss.

A moment later, dear April with her withered arm clutched

tightly to her spare frame ran in behind her brother, in anticipation

of surprising him and winning their little game. She too was

confronted with the sight of John’s former partner up that ladder.

Douglas Posey tossed his hat to the boy (for he had come to

our house dressed head-to-toe as a cowboy!). Then he saw the

girl and made a gesture toward her as well. Through the air

?oated a long-stemmed red rose. (Douglas is very much aware of

the nickname of our grand house.) April’s one good hand swiped

the air and stole the rose from its descent, the thorns tearing her

?esh and eliciting from her a sharp cry of pain.

Douglas Posey stepped off the ladder and bounced in the air,

his eyes never leaving my little girl until they bulged from his ?orid

head, a blue pallor overcoming him. Adam claims he heard a loud

snap, like a limb succumbing to the wind of a northwesterly blow.

He pulled the trigger of his popgun and its cork ?ew through the

air and struck Douglas square in the chest, for Adam is a crack

shot like his father before him. Adam said Douglas “danced,” his

legs “jumping like when the Negros do the tap at their parties.”

His tongue sprang from his mouth, a swollen stiff mass, which

was when both children screamed at the top of their lungs.

April was found with her hand bleeding slightly, the rose still

clutched ?rmly in her grip. Her eyes had never left the body.

Adam was called back from his hands and knees where he tried

unsuccessfully to retrieve his cork from just beneath the body,

fearing he had somehow killed Douglas himself and not wanting

anyone to ?nd the evidence.

Across the Parlor from where Douglas swung from the hemp,

his distorted eyeballs nearly bursting from their sockets, he stared

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(if the word is appropriate here) at the life-sized portrait of his

former partner, my husband, who, it just so happens (and some

say that Douglas surely knew this), was at that very moment

pulling into the driveway and up to the house returning home.

From his vantage point in his motorcar, John saw Douglas

Posey, his stated enemy, swinging from his neck in the large

expanse of window that ?lls the center of the Parlor. Douglas

offered him only his backside, stained as it was with life’s ?nal

excretion.

I think every servant on the property heard April’s scream.

She hasn’t spoken a word since.

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26 february 1915—rose red

For the last week I have devoted every waking hour to my children,

dividing my energies between Adam and April, though

spending far more of my time with my daughter. I do not know

how the male mind works, but suf?ce it to say Adam’s recovery

seemed almost immediate. Whether there will be longer-lasting

effects of his witnessing the suicide I do not know, and I do confess

to these pages that I am fearful Douglas Posey’s death will

linger within him and surface for some time to come. Little April

is another matter altogether. Neither John nor I, nor the governesses,

nor Sukeena, can get her to utter a single word. She sits,

for endless hours at a time, staring at the architect’s model of

Rose Red. She dragged it in front of the ?replace in the Parlor

and there she sits. She screams wildly if anyone attempts to move

it, or her, for that matter. The staff has been directed to work

around her, to leave her alone, and not to address her unless

instructed, for her outbursts are paralyzing. I am apparently the

only one she will tolerate even near her. So, mother and child

occupy the Parlor, the hissing of the logs, the sharp popping of

the pine sap combusting the only sounds. I have taken to knitting,

for I ?nd reading impossible in this state. In truth, I stare at my

daughter’s back, awaiting some sign of a return to normal. Twice

I have lost my temper, though not for several days now, ?nding

her silence insolent and enormously frustrating. I also, for a

time, felt her prisoner, as if she had concocted this state of hers,

taking advantage of the poor man’s suicide as a means of capturing

me into her web. I have spent more time with her in this week

than in the previous six months combined. (I fear this re?ects on

me poorly when viewed in the written word, but one must be

reminded of my own in?rmity.)

I have secretly ordered Abigail, one of the children’s understudy

nannies, to photograph the Rose Red model each night

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before retiring to bed. This, on account of my troubling impression

that it is subtly changing in appearance. I could swear that

wings appear and disappear from one day to the next, and that

the degree of these changes directly re?ects the amount of time

April sits staring. (I fear, Dear Diary, that she is, in fact, not

“staring” so much as “sharing” herself with the model, with Rose

Red. As absurd as this sounds, I tell you it is true: she enters a

kind of trance in the company of that model and does not come

out until the ?re dies and the room goes cold.)

This leads me to another entry here in your pages that I have

resisted putting to ink for several nights now. It is time, for I fear

the results if I keep such things locked inside me:

My dear Sukeena came to me the other night with a look of

pure fright on her deep blue face. I inquired immediately what

was ever the matter, and she would not speak to me until we

found ourselves sequestered in my chambers, with the door fully

bolted. Our conversation went something like this:

“Sukeena! What is it?”

“It’s her, Miss Ellen.”

“April?”

“The house. Her! Rose Red.”

I awaited her, expecting to hear more. When she was not

forthcoming, I prodded her, compelling her to speak. She

appeared spooked—there is no other word for it. “Please,” I

?nally obliged her.

“Maybe not the Indians,” she said.

“What is not the Indians?” I asked.

“Me thinking, miss. Me listening. Listening to April, miss.”

“But April has not spoken for nearly a week.”

“Not to us, miss.”

“Sukeena?”

“It like a wind, miss. A wind all ’round that child. A wind like

a voice . . . like many voices. Whenever she ’round that toy . . .

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that Rose Red dollhouse. It why she no want me near. She knows I

hear.”

“What are you saying?” I felt exasperated. “My daughter is . . .

is, what? . . . speaking to this house?”

“The house speaks to her, miss. Me think maybe not the

Indians.”

“You’re speaking of the disappearances.”

She nodded, still afraid. It is not often I have seen her afraid.

Not Sukeena.

“What if . . . miss. If you think of it as ?re. Fire, miss. Fire

on our insides, Miss Ellen. Like that.”

“Life?” I gasped.

“The power of life, miss. Yes. The ?re. And what if . . . what

if the house needs this ?re for itself ? The way you and me need

our food. Like that. Fire, like that.”

“Not Indians.”

“No, miss.”

“Not the burial ground.”

“Not saying the Indians aren’t here as well, miss. This place

feels crowded at times.”

She was right about that. We’d all felt it. Even the servants. We

weren’t alone in this house. The occasional, unexplained Indian

artifact surfacing in our collection seemed to support this spectral

presence.

“Are you saying . . . ?” I found myself grinning nervously. I

felt terribly uncomfortable. I did not want to express what I was

thinking, but we had come too far for such reservations. No walls

exist between Sukeena and me. “Are you saying the disappearances

. . . ?” She nodded, knowing exactly where I was taking us.

“That Rose Red is feeding on these disappearances?”

“Sucking the ?re out of them, miss.” She nodded solemnly.

I sputtered a little laugh, not at all comfortable now.

She said ominously, “I think it has to do with you, miss. No

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question about that. This house loves you. But I think it takes

them others for the ?re that’s inside them. It living off that ?re,

Miss Ellen.” She added, “And the bigger she gets, the more she

need to eat.”

I shuddered. “But we’re building her bigger,” I reminded her,

willful of Madame Stravinski’s decree.

“Maybe that woman,” Sukeena said, meaning Madame

Stravinski, “she working for the house. Maybe that was the house

talking, not her.”

“I don’t believe that,” I whispered. Construction on the house

is scheduled years ahead. “As long as I keep building . . .” I did

not say it, but I was thinking: then I’m immortal! What I did say was,

“I trust Madame Stravinski and what she told us about Rose Red.”

I added, “My fevers are gone.”

Sukeena knows me well enough to leave it at that. I suppose I

should not have been so heavy-handed as I was, for I fear I put to

an end any further discussion on the subject. Sukeena rarely

glares at me, but on this occasion she did just that: a wide-eyed

leer of contained anger. I attempted to begin again.

I asked, “It’s living off the life of the girls that have disappeared?”