Remembering Our Second Meeting
1102 Words
Our second encounter was a great deal more pleasant than the first. He and I had written back and forth for many months, as I was quite interested in his studies as I had wished to study myself. I lived almost vicariously through him, and I soaked in his knowledge like a sponge. He wrote me one day around Christmastime, inviting me to a friend's Christmas ball. This was many months after Jane had told me to give up my pining over her brother, as he was already married to his work.
Immediately I wrote him back, as formally as I could manage, agreeing to accompany him to the gala. I had never anticipated anything so much in my whole life.
The weeks seemed to drag on from one class to the next, dismally slow. After seventeen days, mercifully we were dismissed for Christmas break. A whole week away from the academy, a small sigh of relief amidst the mundane chaos of our formal education. I spent the first two days with my aunt in Manchester. The whole time I was anxious to leave. She ushered me about the city, showing me thing after thing after thing until my head started to spin, but finally the third day came. A carriage came at dawn that morning to whisk me away to the train station, bound for London.
Finally, I arrived at the door of Doctor Cranch, and there to greet me was William Elford Leach. Anticipation thrummed in my chest as he bowed slightly, muttered a cursory greeting, and grabbed my arm with a freshly bloomed smile. He motioned for a steward to grab my possessions--just a small suitcase and a hatbox.
William escorted me through the foyer and to the foot of a grand marble staircase before an excited shriek erupted from the doorway to my right. Of course, it was Jane.
"Oh Caroline! I have missed you so. How was Manchester? Is it positively lovely? Oh, you must tell me everything! I am so very glad to see you.”
With that, William left me with an aching smile, and Jane led me to my room.
Dinner that night was a bit of an awkward affair. Doctor Cranch was a kind man of about thirty or thirty-five, and his wife was a rather plump and homely woman, with a knack for dramatization. Jane had invited an old childhood friend of hers to accompany her to the gala, and he arrived midway through. His name was Jack, and he was a short and scrawny boy with an untameable mop of red curls on his head. He sat down next to Jane, muttering apologies all the way, before introducing himself as Jackson T. Bishop. He was very meek, and ate very little. I don't know how such a vivacious and colorful person like Jane could ever get along with a boy like him.
All night, Mrs. Cranch told exotic tales that she claimed to be true. She said she was attacked by a band of gypsies late one night as she rode in her carriage to her house. She said that she had hunted a cheetah on the back of an elephant in Calcutta. She said she sailed on a ship with pirates for two weeks before it was found that she was a woman and she had to flee or risk being killed. At one point, she pulled out a glass orb that she claimed once showed her the future, but she could not say what that future was or else the opposite would be true. She claimed she was an opera singer, and made a fool of herself trying to sing “La Boheme.”
There was nothing to do but stifle a laugh until dinner was finally over, and Doctor Cranch and his wife retired to their room.
It was nine twenty-seven on December twenty-third. Jane and Jack had just gone to bed. William asked a servant to bring out some coffee for us as we sat by the fire in the den. We discussed many interesting topics, but none were as interesting as the crustaceans William had discovered. He said that he and Cranch had been in the Mediterranean, and had originally planned on studying the native birds, but a dry spell had killed off many animals, including birds, for the season. So instead, the men turned to the sea where they discovered over twelve previously unknown species of crustaceans. He described them all in great detail--this one had tiny spikes on its body, that one could slightly alter its color, that one was very small and very brightly colored--but he did not have a name for them.
He said, “I just haven't found a name quite marvelous enough to describe the way these new creatures look, the accomplishment I felt. Nothing has ever made me feel like that except meeting you--” I know he finished that sentence, but I didn't hear what he said. Had he said what I thought he said? Did he even know he said that?
"Wait, William, what did you just say?”
"I said I felt very accomplished in the moment.”
"No, after that, what did you say?”
"That I was never as excited as when I first met you.” He had meant to say it. And there it was, right out in the open.
"What does that mean, William?”
"You excite me as much as my work does. That's why I invited you here. There's no one else I'd rather spend my Christmas with than you.”
Jane had been wrong. There was enough room in his life for more than just his work.
He took a long sip from his coffee cup. He looked at me and said, nonchalant, “you'd better drink up, before it gets cold.”
I drank every last drop in my cup, then I moved closer to William, almost touching him.
"You know, William, these past months writing back and forth, they have been the most exciting months of my life,”
"I never thought I'd say it, but nothing makes me more excited than you. Not medicine, not zoology, not new species of crustaceans, but you.”
He grabbed my hand, very gently, between both of his and I stifled an excited gasp.
"Caroline, I have found a name for my new crustaceans.”
"What shall you name them, dear William?”
"Caroline. Anagrams of Caroline. Different languages of Caroline. They are all going to be Caroline.”
In that moment, my heart soared higher than the stars.
- Writer
