Part 3-9: Julian and Charles Darwin.

PART THREE: Julian and Charles Darwin.

This is a short story that takes Julian, the principal of the vampire council, and a main character in my vampire novel “Fire and Ice”, back to 1828, and the irony of Darwin’s theory of “natural selection”.

Previous Part:
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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One night, he and Charles had sat upon a cliff edge, staring out over the Indian Ocean, with the aluminium-bright face of the moon the only illumination. Mankind had yet to make a mark on the untamed landscape around them and pollute the sky with his dazzling presence. The stars were as sharp as silver pin-tacks in an expanse of black velvet cloth.

Julian glanced across at Charles’ moon-bleached profile. His eyes glinted in the coal black shadows, and he dared to ask the question. “Charles?” Julian paused, waiting for the sandy-haired young man to look at him. “If you could choose, which would you have? To live forever, but a life of mediocrity where no one heard what you had to say, or...to die before you could fulfil your dreams, but set the world alight with your knowledge?”

Charles smiled gently, “Live forever, but as an empty shell? That is not for me, Julian.” He shot a glance up into the glittering sky. “But see that? Mother Nature is the only star on our stage. I could not possibly compete with that, I just want to tell her tale.”

The muscle in Julian’s clenched jaw ticked, and he swallowed down the bitter cocktail of relief and sorrow. “I think you will be amazed, Charles. I, for one, am confident that you are destined for great things.”

Julian rested a careful hand on Charles’ shoulder, and calculated how many years he could stay before the questions of his eternal youth soured their friendship.

Julian stayed on board the HMS Beagle as long as he dared, however, although Charles accepted Julian’s perpetually youthful blond good looks without question, Julian heard the heartbeats of others cantering with unease whenever he stepped out on deck. It was inevitable that his personal association with Charles would end before he wanted it to, and he was drowning in regret as the looks from the deck hands became more searching, and some began touching the talisman that hung on a leather thong around their throats. I have to go.

The Captain offered him the perfect opportunity of escape, even though the stone cold tissue of Julian’s heart doubled in weight at the thought of it, and he vowed that he would never lose sight of Charles.

Captain Fitzroy considered himself a philanthropist, and, in his magnitude, he rescued three native Fujians. In truth, they were first and foremost a social experiment in taming the savage beast, which Julian whole heartedly embraced with a great degree of ironic enjoyment...after all, what am I, if not a savage beast? Julian allowed himself to be pressed into Fitroy’s service, and to act as their chaperone. He was to accompany them back to England and document their integration into English society.

Saying goodbye to Charles barely five years after he had first met him marked the end of their face to face encounters, and Charles would never knowingly see Julian again.

“When you see my father, Julian, tell him I suffer.” Charles had grinned, before placing a hand heavily on Julian’s shoulder and frowning. “Why is it the rest of us grow flabby with sedimentation settling in our bones, and you, have a honed physique of a field labourer?”

Julian’s smile lit his eyes with revelation, wanting Charles to put it together, but in the same moment, dreading the horror and betrayal he may see written there.

“You spend too many hours closeted away on the poop deck, Charles. Let’s face it, you have a hammock in there, and you barely venture out until we hit dry land.” Julian poked at his friend’s soft muscled shoulder, mindful to just nudge it gently. “No wonder your muscles are slack. Your father? Tell him you suffer, you say... from lack of exercise, and scurvy?” Julian laughed.

“Good God, no. He will expect something far more angst ridden than that.” Charles looked thoughtful.

“Tell him, ‘I hate every wave of the ocean, with a fervour, which you, who have only seen the green waters of the shore, can never understand... I will take good care no one shall ever persuade me again to volunteer as philosopher even to a line of Battle Ship.’ That should satisfy his need to put me through purgatory, hmmm?”

During the intervening years, Julian followed Charles’ progress closely. He used his imagination, and befriended Charles’ Professor Henslow at Cambridge, to whom Charles shipped the samples that he collected, and commended his diary entries for safe keeping.

“After all, Professor Wouldham,” Henslow said solemnly, "if the Beagle went down, Charles life’s work would be lost to us.”

The man’s eyesight was reassuringly dim, and candlelight worked well for Julian, who claimed to mentor students during the daylight hours.

Julian devoured these tasters of Charles’ intellect. Even knowing Charles so well, he was amazed and in awe as he devoured the seven hundred pages of fine script that justified his conviction that the young man was destined for great things.

When Charles finally made it home to England, meeting, and marrying his beloved Emma, and settling in Down house, where he would ultimately father ten children, Julian made London his home, and passed the decades a bare fifteen miles from Charles. Julian observed the growing family walking in the village, and lamented his own lost opportunity of a lineage.

To be continued...