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“Just watch, Ellis!” He took her chin in his hand. Emily gasped at his touch, at the presumption of it! But he only turned her head so that she was looking directly at the blanket belonging to the Marquis of Douro, Mary Percy, and Dr. Home. “Watch.”
Young Soult released a lovely embroidered and painted backdrop across the rear of the puppet theater. It showed a rather standard Eden: pleasant fields, innocent streams, fawns and rabbits playing among wild carrots and berries and ancient stones. Several marionettes descended onto the stage dressed in rich medieval robes. Young Soult the Rhymer did not like other performers interfering with his vision. He worked his creations with both hands and feet, fingers and toes, perched uncomfortably on a high couch above the whole affair. Soult’s voice cracked in nervous terror as he spoke the first lines of his great work:
Behold these lands! Rich in both grain and geese
Where all Glass Towners lived in gentle peace
“Eeeeeugh,” Crashey giggled. Miss Jane shushed him with a murderous glance. “Those is some tortured wordage right there. What’d those poor geese ever do to him?”
Six noble Lords stand here before you!
All things they see do they command
Zamorna, Wellesley, Calabar,
Bon-a-parte, and Northangerland!
But one true soul surpassed them all
In honor, faith, and honesty—
The brave Marquis of Douro,
Whose grandson pays my fee.
Some nervous laughter bubbled up from the audience. They were all far too rich to be entirely comfortable discussing money, even in verse. The puppeteer cleared his throat and pressed on.
Explorers all and pioneers,
They conquered jungle, plain, and sea
So that Young Soult could tell his tale
Of how our nation came to be.
Jeers and whistles and boos greeted the Bonaparte puppet, who had tiny tin swords for arms and a jumble of rat and sparrow bones for a body. Yet the other lordly puppets greeted him as a brother, bowing their little wooden heads and embracing him fondly. That’s not right at all, Emily thought. Boney has rifles for arms! I saw it myself! But she did not want to seem foolish or ignorant. Emily of Haworth might not know the history of Glass Town and Gondal and ask a hundred questions freely, but it would all be old news to Ellis Bell of Thrushcross.
“Oh, don’t give him the satisfaction!” Lord Byron snorted resentfully. “It’s not even the same number of syllables as the first bit! Will you listen to him mangle Old Boney’s name just to fit the meter? And he shoved himself in there for no good reason. Someone have that boy arrested at once. Crimes against the noun!”
“Be nice,” Emily said, though secretly she rather liked him being awful.
Equally amongst these giants
All the earth divided was
And all devised together
Certain just and gracious laws!
Young Douro led them all in honor,
In industry and cleverness.
Then he smote the ground
Whereat the borders of their nations kissed,
And by his will (and by his wallet)
