If your heels be nimble and light, Doyle thought, you may get there by candle-light.
CHAPTER 2
“I am borne darkly, fearfully afar…”
Above the crowded sidewalks the windows of the stately, balconied buildings of Oxford Street were all aglow with lamplight on this young Saturday evening; elegantly dressed men and women were to be seen everywhere, wandering arm in arm, silhouetted by shop windows and open doorways, stepping into or alighting from the hansom cabs that jostled one another for positions at the curb. The air was clamorous with the shouting of the cab drivers, the whirring clatter of hundreds of coach wheels on the cobblestones, and, a little more pleasantly, the rhythmic chanting of street vendors who had strayed west from the weekly fair in Tottenham Court Road. From his perch Doyle could smell horses, cigar smoke, hot sausages and perfume on the chilly night breeze.
When they turned right onto Broad Street Benner pulled one of his pistols—a four-barrelled thing, looking all spidery with its multiple flintcocks and flashpan covers—completely out of the leather sack and leaned his elbow on the coach roof with the gun very evident, pointed at the sky. Looking up front, Doyle saw that all the guards had done the same.
“We’re entering the St. Giles rookery,” Benner explained. “Some very rough types about, but they won’t interfere with a body of armed men.”
Doyle looked around with a wary interest at the narrow alleys and courts that snaked away from the street, most of them dark, but a few lit by reflections of some smoky light around a corner. There was much more street-selling here, on the main street at least, and the coaches passed dozens of coffee stalls, old clothes stands, and crates of vegetables watched over by formidable old women who puffed clay pipes and watched the crowd through narrowed eyes. A number of people shouted things at the two coaches, in so thick an accent that Doyle could catch only an occasional “damn” or “bloody,” but their tone seemed more jocular than threatening.
He looked behind, and then touched Benner’s arm. “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said quickly. “That wagon back there—behind the potato cart—the thing that looks like a Conestoga wagon. It’s been behind us ever since we got onto the Bayswater Road.”
“For God’s sake, Brendan, we’ve only made one turn since then,” Benner hissed impatiently. He did turn around, though. “Hell, that’s just…” Suddenly he looked thoughtful. “I believe it’s a gypsy wagon.”
“Gypsies again,” said Doyle. “They didn’t use to—I mean they don’t usually come into big cities much, do they?”
“I don’t know,” Benner said slowly. “I’m not even sure it is a gypsy wagon, but I’ll mention it to Darrow.”
The street narrowed and darkened as they rattled down St. Martin’s Lane and passed the tall old church, and the groups of men that watched their passage from low, dimly lit doorways made Doyle glad of Benner’s weapons; then it broadened out into light and festivity again when they came to the wide boulevard that was the Strand. Benner worked his complicated gun back into its sack.
“The Crown and Anchor’s just around the corner,” he said. “And I haven’t seen your gypsy wagon for the last several blocks.”
Between two buildings Doyle got a quick view of the river Thames, glittering in the moonlight. It seemed to him that a bridge wasn’t there that he’d seen there on his 1979 visit, but before he had time really to orient himself they’d turned into a little street and squeaked to a halt in front of a two-storied half-timbered building with a sign swinging over the open doorway. The Crown and Anchor, Doyle read.
Drops of rain began pattering down as the guests stepped out of the coaches. Darrow moved to the front, his hands buried in a furry muff. “You,” he said, nodding at the man who’d driven the forward coach, “park the cars. The rest of us’ll be inside. Come on, all.” He led the party of seventeen into the warmth of the tavern.
“Good God, sir,” exclaimed the boy who hurried up to them, “all of you for dinner? Should have let us know in advance, they’d have opened the back banquet room. But see if there’s enough chairs to settle on in the taproom, and—”
“We haven’t come for dinner,” said Darrow impatiently. “We’ve come to hear Mr. Coleridge speak.”
“Have ye?” The boy turned and shouted down a hall, “Mr. Lawrence! Here’s a whole lot more people that thought it was this Saturday that the poet fellow was to speak here!”
Every bit of color left Darrow’s face, and suddenly he was a very old man dressed up in ludicrous clothes. The muff fell off his hands and thumped on the hardwood floor. No one spoke, though Doyle, beneath his shock and disappointment, could feel a fit of hysterical laughter building up to critical mass inside himself.
A harried-looking man, followed by a pudgy old fellow with long gray hair, hurried up to them. “I’m Lawrence, the manager,” he said. “Mr. Montagu set up the lecture for next Saturday, the eighth of October, and I can’t help it that you’ve all come tonight. Mr. Montagu isn’t here, and he’d be upset if—”
Doyle had glanced, and was now staring, at the chubby, ill-seeming man beside Lawrence, who blinked at them all apologetically while the manager was speaking. In his mounting excitement Doyle raised a hand so quickly that the manager halted in mid-sentence, and he leaned forward and said to the man beside Lawrence, “Mr. Coleridge, I believe?”
“Yes,” the man said, “and I do apologize to you all for—”
“Excuse me.” Doyle turned to Lawrence. “The boy indicated that there is a banquet room not in use.”
“Well, yes, that’s true, but it hasn’t been swept and there’s no fire… and besides, Mr. Montagu—”
“Montagu won’t mind.” He turned to Darrow, who was recovering his color. “I’m sure you must have brought suitable cash to cover emergencies, Mr. Darrow,” he said. “And I imagine that if you give this fellow enough of it he’ll have a fire built and provisions brought to us in this banquet room. After all, Mr. Coleridge clearly thought it was to be this evening, and so did we, so why should we listen to him out on the street when there are taverns about with unused rooms? I’m sure,” he said to Lawrence, “even Mr. Montagu can’t fault the logic of that.”
“Well,” said the manager reluctantly, “it will mean taking several of our people away from their proper duties… we will all have to take extra pains… “
“A hundred gold sovereigns!” cried Darrow wildly.
“Done,” choked Lawrence. “But keep your voice down, please.”
Coleridge looked horrified. “Sir, I couldn’t permit—”
“I’m a disgustingly wealthy man,” Darrow said, his poise regained. “Money is nothing to me. Benner, fetch it from the coach while Mr. Lawrence here shows us to the banquet room.” He clapped one arm around Coleridge’s shoulders and the other around Doyle’s and followed the bustling, eager figure of the manager.
“By your accents I surmise you are American?” said Coleridge, a little bewildered. Doyle noted that the man pronounced his r’s; it must be the Devonshire accent, he thought, still present after all these years. Somehow that added to the impression of vulnerability Coleridge projected.