The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red Read Online Free PDF

from the sudden cold, longing for a shawl or a throw
    over my shoulders. “One does not approach this lightly.” She
    leaned back.
    The curtain stopped moving, as did the chandelier. The color
    returned to her cheeks and the temperature of the parlor was
    restored. I am certain I must have looked the idiot, my mouth
    sagging open in abject horror. For a minute, I swear to you, Dear
    Diary, Tina Coleman was not in that room. It was someone—
    something—else entirely. And I will also tell you this: I am a
    believer. Nothing in that room was of the world I know. Nor can
    I perceive that place from which it came. But I am fascinated and
    intrigued, as curious as a person can be about something so
    unknown.
    I wanted to ask her for the name of her medium right there
    and then, but something prevented me from doing so. Fear?
    Guilt? Was it John looking over my shoulder and cautioning me
    that “no wife of John Rimbauer will be found to be engaged in
    such sinful activities.”
    For I have no doubt as to its sinful nature. None whatsoever.
    God, whoever and however He may be, was nowhere to be found
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    in that room this afternoon. And I would be lying if I did not
    admit to a certain amount of enthrallment, dare I say attraction,
    to whatever occupied my new friend for those brief few seconds.
    A power greater than any I have known. A power that both ?lled
    me with a numbing cold and an unspeakable heat that penetrated
    the depths of my soul. This is a friend I long to visit with once
    again. A power I yearn to feel again. To glimpse such a formidable
    presence is one thing. To taste it, to drink of it, yet another.
    To be owned by it—what must that be like? And how soon until I
    can ?nd out?
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    12 november 1907—seattle
    I am sitting in my mother’s dressing room and parlor, a room in
    which I doubt my father has ever set foot. I am here, in front of
    the mirror where for years I have watched her brush her red hair
    before bed. I am perplexed, and nearly in a state, some moments
    giddy, some pensive, some nearly in tears, clothed in my wedding
    gown, a garment at once both splendid and lush, yet fetching (or
    so I hope). My maid of honor, dear Penelope Strait, has gone off
    to inspect the route of my descent to the front door and the team
    of two black geldings who shall deliver me to the church in royal
    fashion. She said she would arrange tea to be delivered, and given
    this small break, this moment alone, it is to you, Dear Diary, that
    I now turn.
    I feel a bit like the young girlish child who once picked at
    daisies reciting, “I love him, I love him not.” Petal by petal my
    poor heart labors over my decision to marry John Rimbauer. I
    feel both passion for John and reservation, cloaked as I am under
    the uncertainties that rise to the lips of my friends. The caution
    in their eyes that greets me whenever John’s name is mentioned. I
    fear that in a very short time, I am to marry a ladies’ man, I am to
    be both pitied and scorned by my peers. And I shiver with the
    thought. “Deliver me from evil and leadeth me not into temptation.”
    Why do I ?nd it so dif?cult to move on from these
    thoughts? Why do I weep now at my mother’s mirror, knowing I
    shall never live in this home again?
    Following the reception, John and I are to take the
    Presidential Suite at the Grand, where we shall stay but a single
    night prior to our departure on the Ocean Star, bound for the
    Paci?c Atolls. I am told the native women go bare-breasted there,
    and the men wear loincloths and the water is as clear as an old
    man’s eyes. Much has been made in Europe about the changing
    face of ?ne art, and the in?uence these islands have had, and
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    John would like to experience this part of the world ?rsthand.
    Oil is not used on the islands, and he claims he might consider
    starting a small business there, but these islands are said to be
    rustic and quite taken to debauchery and even open fornication,
    and I don’t know whether to