The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers Page B

thought, if not an air of rakish handsomeness, at least one of dignity. The clothes had none of the stiffness of brand new garments; though clean, they had clearly been worn before, and this had the effect of making Doyle feel relaxed and comfortable in them, and not as though he’d been shoehorned into some costume for a party.
    When he stepped back into the main room the guests were ambling toward the table, on which a colorful profusion of plates and platters and bottles had appeared. Doyle filled a plate and, remembering that he was “staff,” forced himself not to look at the selection of wines and beers but to grab a cup of coffee instead.
    “Here you go, Doyle,” spoke up Darrow, indicating an empty chair next to himself. “Doyle,” he explained to the nearest several people, “is our Coleridge expert.”
    They nodded and smiled as Doyle sat down, and one white-haired man with humorous eyes said, “I enjoyed The Nigh-Related Guest, Mr. Doyle.”
    “Thank you.” Doyle smiled, pleased for the few seconds it took him to realize that the man was Jim Thibodeau, whose massive, multi-volume History of Mankind—written with his wife, who Doyle now noticed sitting on the other side of him—had reflected even just in the chapter on the English Romantic poets a depth of research and a relaxed style Doyle could only admire and envy. But their presence here reinforced the hopeful excitement he’d been feeling ever since hearing Benner describe jumping to 1805. If the Thibodeaus are taking it seriously, he thought, there’s got to be a good chance of it working.
    The table and food had been cleared away and the ten chairs were now arranged in a semicircle before a podium. Doyle embarrassedly told Benner to take the podium away, and he replaced it with the chair Treff would have got.
    Doyle sat down in it and met the gaze of each guest in turn. Of the nine of them, he recognized five: three, including the Thibodeaus, were prominent historians, one was a distinguished British stage actor, and one, he was fairly sure, was a famous spiritualist and medium. She’d better watch her tricks here in the gap, he thought uneasily, remembering Darrow’s story about the seance on Auto Graveyard Street in 1954.
    He took a deep breath and began. “You are probably familiar with the life and works of the man who was the father of the Romantic movement in English poetry, but our outing this evening certainly calls for a review. Born in Devonshire on October 21, 1772, Coleridge early on exhibited the precocity and wide range of reading that he maintained all his life and that made him, among so many other things, the most fascinating conversationalist of an age that included such people as Byron and Sheridan…”
    As he went on, touching on the poet’s scholastic career, his addiction to opium in the form of laudanum, his unfortunate marriage, his friendship with William and Dorothy Wordsworth, and the extended trips abroad occasioned by his horror of his wife, Doyle carefully watched his audience’s response. They seemed satisfied on the whole, frowning doubtfully or nodding from time to time, and he realized that his presence here was a gracious detail, like the fine china dishes on which the food had been served when paper plates would have done just as well. Darrow could probably have delivered a talk on Coleridge at least as effectively, but the old man had wanted a sure enough Coleridge authority to do it.
    After about fifteen minutes he drew it to a close. Questions followed, all of which Doyle managed to answer confidently, and at last Darrow stood up and walked over to stand beside Doyle’s chair, effortlessly replacing him as the focus of attention. He was carrying a lantern, and he waved it in the direction of the door. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “it is now five minutes to eight, and our coaches await us outside.”
    In a tense silence everyone got to their feet and put on hats and bonnets and greatcoats. A