“All hours are holy, Mr Templebane,” smiled the pastor, his English scarcely accented at all. “And any hour that contains such a welcome donation is all the more blessed.”
“Please!” said the voice, whose owner remained hidden except for the appearance in the carriage window of a fleshy hand carefully holding an open oyster with the smallest finger extended politely away from all the others. The shell was full of plump grey oyster meat that bobbled and spilled a little of the shellfish’s liquor as the hand airily waved the thanks away.
“You will embarrass me, sir, so you will. To be honest, the bit of business that resulted in me taking over the unwanted deadstock from the unfortunate, not to say imprudent, candle-maker left me with enough dips to gift all the churches in the parish.”
The fleshy hand retreated into the shadows and a distinct slurping noise was heard.
“But a lesser spirit might still have sold them,” said the pastor, working hard to make his thanks stick to their rightful target.
The fleshy hand reappeared as the carriage’s occupant leant further forward to drop the now-empty oyster shell daintily on to the pavement, revealing for just an instant the face of Issachar Templebane.
It was a paradox of a face, a face both gaunt and yet pillowy, the skin hanging slack over the bones of the skull with the unhealthy toad’s-belly pallor of a fat man who has lost weight too late in life for his skin to have retained the elasticity to shrink to fit the new, smaller version of himself.
He wiped a trickle of oyster juice from the edge of his mouth with the back of his thumb before reaching forward to grip the pastor’s hand in a brisk, hearty farewell.
“I could, I could, but my brother and I are lawyers not tradesmen, and I assure you our fees in the matter were more than adequate. Besides, money isn’t everything. Now, goodnight to you, sir, and safe home. Come, Coram, we must be going.”
And with that he released the hand and retreated back into the carriage as the wiry young man sprang up to the driver’s seat, gathered the reins and snapped the horses into motion with a farewell nod to the pastor, who was left standing among the debris of Templebane’s oyster supper feeling strangely dismissed, rather than actually wished well.
As the carriage turned the corner a panel slid back in the front of the vehicle, next to Coram, and Templebane’s face appeared.
“Did you draw the reverend gentleman’s attention to the man Ketch and his suspicious bundle?” he asked, all the cheeriness in his voice now replaced by a business-like flatness.
“Yes, Father. I done it just as ’ow you said, casual-like.”
If the fog had ears as well as eyes, it might by this time have noted a further paradox regarding Issachar Templebane, which was that the boy who called him Father did not have anything like the same deep, fluid – and above all cultured – voice as he. Coram’s voice had been shaped by the rough dockside alleys of the East End: it dropped “h’s” and played fast and loose with what had, with Victoria’s recent accession to the throne, only just become the Queen’s English. Issachar spoke with the smooth polished edges of the courtroom; Coram’s voice was sharp as a docker’s hook. If there seemed to be no familiar resemblance between them, this was because although Issachar Templebane had many children, he had no blood kin beyond his twin brother Zebulon, who was the other half of the house of Templebane & Templebane.
Issachar and Zebulon were prodigious adopters of unclaimed boys, all of whom grew up to work for them in the chambers and counting room that adjoined their house on Bishopsgate. It was their habit to name the boys for the London parishes from whose workhouses (or in Coram’s case, the foundling hospital) they had been procured. This led to unwieldy but undoubtedly unusual names: there was an Undershaft, a Vintry, a Sherehog, a Bassetshaw and a Garlickhythe Templebane. The only exception was the youngest, who had been taken from the parish of St Katherine Cree, and he, it being too outlandish to call the boy Katherine, was called Amos, a name chosen at random by letting the Bible fall open and choosing the title of the book it opened at. If Amos had anything to say about the matter he might well have remarked that he had as well been called Job since, as the youngest member of the artificially assembled family, with brothers who shared no love between them, he got more than his share of grief and toil. He didn’t remark on this because he spoke not at all, his particular affliction being that he was mute. Coram, by contrast, was garrulous and questioning, a characteristic that his adopted fathers encouraged and punished in equal measure depending on their whim and humour.
Coram cleared his throat by spitting onto the crupper of the horse in front of him and went on.
“And ’e remarked, the pastor did, that the ’ouse Ketch gone in was the Jew’s ’ouse, and that she was a good woman, though not of his faith.”