Big Boney may be in ze ground,
But Leetle Boney’s on ze attack!
Little squibs and tiny rockets fired off as the younger Bonaparte rampaged through the countryside once more, laughing maniacally and shooting holes in the silken backdrop. Red ribbons tumbled out of the puppets’ bodies like real gouts of blood.
Oh, Bran would have gone mad for that, Charlotte thought. Maybe we can act it out for him when we get home. I’ve got red ribbons and so has Em.
Home. She shut her eyes. It did not seem possible that Haworth or Keighley or even Yorkshire still existed somewhere far behind her on the railroad line. If we ever get back. And then an awful, alien thought crept up through the stairs of her mind like a black cat. What if we do get back, all of us, with grog in hand? What will happen if it works? What will happen if it doesn’t?
Young Soult tossed woolen pink intestines stuffed with barley out of the puppet-battle and into the front row. Miss Jane fainted into Gravey’s irritated arms.
“Oh, come off it, you poodle,” the Leftenant groaned. “I lost my innards three times in a week once. The least you can do is stay awake for it.”
Miss Jane opened one eye and glared up at the Leftenant, who steadfastly refused to behave as a suitor should. “You just ruin everything,” she whined. “You’re meant to make a fuss over me!”
“That’s preposterous,” said Charlotte evenly. “What do they teach you in the city?”
Young Soult’s next tortured verse sang out over Gravey’s roars of laughter.
How bitterly the widows wept
As Glass Town bent and broke!
Because we would not kneel and place
Our necks beneath his yoke!
A pale little puppet all of white silk stepped hesitantly into the scene. She wore a silver crown. A marionette covered in paper roses strode confidently from the other side of the curtains.
They took Victoria by night,
We stole their Josephine,
But all for naught as hills turned red
That once were rich and green.
Young Soult’s hands and feet twitched and shuddered so quickly Charlotte could hardly see them move. The puppets waged war with every jerk and pull of a finger or a toe. Old Douro marched back across the ribbon-soaked battlefields. Now he sported a gray beard made out of old batting. A firecracker burst. The torches flickered. The oboe blew a long, low note. The marionette collapsed, clutching his heart.
Our sons and daughters bled and died
To save us from his chains!
And on the fields of gray Weghlon
Even old Douro was slain.
Soft whimpering sounds rose up as even a few of the older men wept. Lord Byron rolled his eyes impatiently.
“He’s not gotten any better. Chain and slain? I wonder if he sprained himself coming up with that? Just because it’s historical doesn’t mean it’s good.”
Emily looked at him sidelong. She wondered how Lord Byron would take a bit of teasing. Branwell usually kicked something or upended something on her head. Anne cried sometimes, and sometimes called her a badger or a nixie or an owl’s breakfast. But she couldn’t stop herself now any more than she could back home.
“I think you just don’t like anyone else’s poems getting a good reaction.”
She awaited the kick or the upending or the badger or the breakfast.
Byron raised a furry eyebrow at her. His wolfy eyes smoldered petulantly.