Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [218]
“ ‘It’s already on,’ she told me. ‘And I know you turned it off when you left.’
“ ‘What’s on the screen?’
“ ‘ “QUINN, COME HOME” in big letters,’ she told me.
“ ‘All right, I want you to type in this response: “Goblin, I love you. But I can’t leave Aunt Queen now. You know how I love Aunt Queen.” ’ I heard the keys clicking. Then I spoke some more. ’ ”Please protect those I love from Petronia.” ’ (I had to spell that for Jasmine.) ’ ”Goblin, wait for me. Love me. Love, Quinn.” ’
“I waited a moment as I listened to her type. I thought of something, something that just might work. Now, years later, I wonder if wasn’t a disastrous thought. But all my love of Goblin seems now to have been full of disastrous thoughts.
“ ‘Jasmine, I want you to type another message,’ I said. ’ ”Dear Goblin, I can write to you through the computer. I can send you E-mail. I will send it regularly to you care of my computer name, King Tarquin. I’ll be using a new name to send. And you can send it to me as soon as I send that new name. You know the computer as well as I do, Goblin. Wait for my communication.” ’
“It took a good while for Jasmine to get this message straightened out, but it was typed in and then I instructed her from then on to leave the computer on. She was to put a note on it instructing everybody to keep hands off.
“ ‘Now we’ll see if Goblin isn’t happy,’ I told her. ‘And very soon you’ll be able to reach us at the Hotel Hassler in Rome.’
“I rang off. As Lord of Blackwood Manor I saw no reason to tell the others that almost every window of the house had been broken. I lay back thinking that my new E-mail name should be Noble Abelard, and I should insist Mona use the name Ophelia Immortal, and perhaps Goblin should be Goblin.
“And so these things did come to pass.
“By the time we left the Eternal City, I and Mona and Goblin had established these links for computer correspondence, and it happened that all of my travels fed into my loving letters to my treasure, Ophelia Immortal, and only slightly edited versions of these same epistles went to my beloved Goblin, whilst from Mona I received passionate and highly humorous letters and from Goblin weaker and weaker transmissions largely only confessing his need of me and his love.
“Whenever we hit a hotel which had good computer equipment I printed out all this material, and it became my journal of the journey, and I was self-conscious enough not to write all of my erotic blandishments to Mona, and it was rather fun to try to speak in fractured Shakespearean tones.
“As for Goblin, his slow demise worried me intensely and ate at my soul as if a dark hand were scratching at my very heart, but I didn’t know what to do about it other than what I had done.
“Meantime, there were no more disturbances at Blackwood Manor.
“But the legend of the breaking glass was now known throughout Ruby River Parish, and guests were calling for bookings day and night. My impression over the phone was that Jasmine was having a wonderful time, despite her protests of anxiety, and we again raised her salary and that of everybody on the staff.
“Jasmine, of her own volition, began to accept new bookings, and, as it turned out, the place was filled for the whole time that we were gone. Soon Big Ramona was cut in for a percentage of the profits, and I believe, though I’m not sure, that Clem was too. That took care of Jasmine’s family. I drew the line when it came to Allen and the Shed Men, as they were making twice the wages of anybody similar in Ruby River Parish, with free drinks and lunch thrown in.
“Sugar Devil Island was giving rise to much gossip, as the marble tile for the floors was now being ferried through the swamps by slow motorless pirogue and people were asking over their coffee cups in Ruby River City and Mapleville whether or not Tarquin Blackwood had lost his mind.
“How glad I was to be in an ancient palazzo in Venice while all that was going on.
“It was some consolation to me that Sheriff Jeanfreau and his deputy Ugly Henderson had told everyone