Part 2-9: Julian and Charles Darwin.

PART TWO: Julian and Charles Darwin.
London 1828: Cambridge University. Vampire Julian Wouldham's encounter with Charles Darwin spawns a 55 year friendship:

Previous Part:
Erasmus had said, “Julian, I know you are barely two years older than Charles, but I feel I can trust you. I feel you have understanding beyond your years.”

Julian grinned. Eighteen years beyond my mortal age of twenty two, to be precise.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mindful that, for now, he was trying to act human, he abandoned preternatural silence, and his footsteps reverberated on the stone floors. Once inside the cloisters, he arrived at a heavy oak door, rapped his knuckles upon it and waited. Whiling away the interminable human response time, he wondered at the age of the scarred black wood, the surface of which was decorated with inch-wide square, iron nail-heads that would not look out of place hammered into the shoes of a giant’s horse. The pitted iron handle could be a large link from that same giant’s necklace...or maybe his nose ring. Julian had yet to decide.

“Come in,” a voice called, tamping down youthful excitement and, to Julian’s sensitive ears, failing miserably.

Closing his fist around the rough corroded surface of the iron ring, it turned easily in his casual grip, and remembering to ease the heavy door with convincing difficulty, Julian stepped into the room and scanned the eight faces that turned to look him over.

“You must be Julian Wouldham?” said Charles.

Julian had reverted to his human name. But, I remember it still, and I guess it will resonate with the memory of home, and family for a few more decades.

“Welcome, to the gastronomic delights of gluttony.” Charles smiled, and his deprecating demeanor had an edge of exhilaration that ionised the air in the room. New blood causing a stir maybe?

“I dare you to join me on my journey, who knows where it will end?” was the subtext Julian intercepted, letting it sing through his fibers as the chambers of Charles’ heart cantered. And, Julian fell in love, not the type of love his mother would frown upon, but love for a young man who, he understood in a heartbeat, would enrich his life and needed his protection.

And so began Julian’s lifelong friendship with Charles Darwin. He learned the young man’s secrets, and smoothed the path with his father. Erasmus was a doctor, an inventor, a poet and a scientific thinker, and not inclined towards tolerance where young Charles was concerned. Easing the tension between the son and the father was something that Julian could do by telling Erasmus that Charles, being a gentle giant...because giant he was, at well over six feet tall, had given up medicine because seeing operations performed without anesthetic disturbed him.

Faced with Erasmus’ apoplectic exclamation, which did nothing more than shower the front of his shirt in spluttered saliva, Julian had leveled a calm green gaze at the man’s flushed features.

Julian compelled Erasmus’ attention by standing motionless, and when the outburst had faded, Julian said quietly, “The boy has more to offer Erasmus. Trust me in this. He will make you proud, I know it.”

Joining the HMS BEAGLE.
Three years on, in 1831, Julian, having suffered many mysterious gastric disturbances, had finally been allowed to become a spectator in the delights sampled by the Gluttons’ Club. With their friendship looking to be set in stone, he had joined Charles as a fellow philosopher onboard the sea faring vessel, HMS Beagle.

Circumnavigating the globe was a five year endeavor that offered Charles the world on a plate, literally. He spent as much time as possible on dry land, claiming that his sea legs were just too long.

He and Julian were both over six feet tall, and found sharing Captain Fitzroy’s poop deck cabin, with its clutter of the ship’s charts, an interesting challenge of banged heads and trips over the pulleys and ropes that held fast the ship’s anchor. In solidarity, Julian faked seasickness now and again to make Charles feel better.

They were happy to leave the ship as soon as the anchor was weighed. Charles rushing forth, laden with sample jars, notebooks and pencils, and Julian, carrying twice Charles’ burden and feigning the need to rest, darting into the undergrowth on pursuits of his own. And as his hunger burned and he ripped into flesh, he hoped that he was not slaughtering some new specimen that Charles would have delighted in.

Feeding onboard ship was a challenge for Julian, but he was nothing if not creative. His own time in Cambridge studying the clergy gave him the opportunity to offer solace to dying seamen. Sadly, they were not in plentiful supply. Being a small ship of around eighty five crew, deaths were not frequent enough to satisfy. Sickness, however, was a constant battle for the ship’s surgeon, and Julian was always on hand to apply leeches, and when they had swelled to four times their size, remove them again. And so, it was the leeches that died mysteriously when Julian sucked them dry.

He fed voraciously whenever they were in dock, of course, like a bear preparing for hibernation. A few natives of the islands in the Indian Ocean died in hunting accidents, or more commonly, drowned. Julian had long ago discovered that having victims just disappear roused suspicion and superstition. It was better to hide in plain sight. His bite did not have to be to the jugular for that, and the carotid artery, were just the main highways. The groin and underarm also had large arteries for rapid feeding, but otherwise smaller veins were good. Variety is the key, never bite in the same place.

Though, he had found the restraint to resist feeding when on Christmas Island. He had been a good Christian when alive, and killing there would seem to elevate the horror of his existence to an unbearable peak. His vampire years were now equal to his twenty two years of human experience, and at times he wondered how it would feel when all the humans he loved had died.

He also dreamed, at times, of keeping company with Charles forever.

To be continued...