The Werewolves of Morgrave Manor

By Jacob Coates

The year is 1849. Jonathan Felldarking is enjoying his study of medicine at Oxford University, until he encounters something science hasn't prepared him for. Something happening at full moon. Only Ram, a former werewolf hunter in London's east end, and Rose, a bereaved shepherdess in the beautiful and remote village of Morgrave, can help Jonathan unravel the mystery threatening their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jacob Coates
• Release date: Nov 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301967766

Book preview

Chapter One

‘Many creatures undergo metamorphosis. Toads, for example, take up to a year to change their physical shape. A caterpillar, once it begins to morph, is much quicker, needing just five days to transform into a butterfly.

But it takes a werewolf far less time to change from a human.

As the light of a full moon winds its way over the land, the man who is a lycanthrope will almost surely turn. He has but two ways of preventing this. The preferable way is a darkroom, allowing not a beam of moonlight, not a lumen to reach his skin. The second, less preferable action is death. For when moonbeams touch the skin of a man exposed to the lycanthropic infection, they set off a running reaction in his cells like a saltpetre fuse touched with a lit match.’

The pen held in aged, gnarled fingers lifted from its paper and moved to an inkwell. The red velvet sleeve lapping the writer’s thin wrist glowed in the yellow light of a wax-glaciered candle, the velvet shaking slightly before the pen was propped on a stand. The hand backed away to stroke wispy strands of an unkempt white beard. A long straight nose led up to a pair of canny grey eyes, which flicked up to a painting hung at the end of the narrow, windowless stone tunnel in which the old man sat alone at his writing desk.

Above the painting a wick lamp had been nailed to the wall with a tin reflector angled in front of it, so that the thick colza fuel burning in the lamp cast its light down onto the canvas, where it was reflected again from a full, oily moon, painted rising above dark hills, silvering the bare boughs of wintering trees in the fields spread out before it.

The man picked the pen up again, then wrote in even, unhurried strokes: ‘My name is Jonathan Felldarking, and I have been a werewolf for fifty-three years.’

He looked older than that.

‘I was nineteen when it began,’ he wrote, ‘but I remember that year as though it were last. It was 1849, the year that cholera broke from the river Thames through south-east London, where my parents lived, where I had grown up in the poor district of Lambeth. My parents worked until their deaths in a match-stick factory, my father as a manager and my mother a machine operator, which provided the rent for a modest house in one of the new terraces at about £10 a year. We holidayed in rural Wales, the Lakes’ less fashionable relative, but a place that I loved.

It was my parents’ ambition that I should have a healthy upbringing and a fine education allowing me to advance to a professional qualification, and in this direction the remainder of their energies and salaries were directed. I was able to read and write before age ten, having the benefit of a tutor who had received a university education, then become a theatre actor of much local renown but little fortune - he took my parents’ tuition fees most graciously. He was a travelled character and told me stories of marvellous goings-on in the East of the world, stories which infuriated my parents when I relayed them, not forming any part of the entrance test to the London Schools. Nevertheless, I remember the tutor receiving a bottle of French brandy when I gained entrance to St Paul’s school, and he went away happy.

I did not disappoint my parents at that school; in fact I delighted them when I received one of a dozen exhibitions to the University of Oxford funded by the Mercers’ company of the City of London. I was the only person in our family’s family to attend any university, let alone Oxford, and I even made an appearance in the Lambeth paper as a local boy ‘done good.’

If only I had known the sorrow and torment that would soon follow my arrival in Oxford I would never have accepted the praise my parents poured on me; I would never have signed to the small bank account that they made for me, at their own debt I later found; for ‘a gentleman must have means as well as education.’

I do not suspect that my new peers at Oxford guessed at my relative poverty. They had no reason to. My suit was as new as theirs, albeit cut by a tailor four miles south of Savile Row, and for a year’s supply of matches. I was the son of industrialists, in an age of industry.

So too was Adam van Cufton. Except that my parents worked in a factory and his parents owned one. A large one, in Massachusetts. His entrance to Oxford was softly paved in cotton, for his family had been in the milling trade for generations. They began in Holland, then England, then New England – building estates of growing magnitude in each vicinity. Adam van Cufton told me this family history at almost the first moment of our meeting, a little like one of those knights in the medieval stories who begins with: ‘I am so-and-so, son of so-and-so, heir to the lands of…’ Except that in stature he was anything but knightly, and quite different to the swarthy scions of other American clans who made their presence known in our college.

We were in the common room, a few of us sitting scattered about like the autumn leaves on the neat quad of grass outside the windows. Blustery scatterings of rain drummed on the lead panes that morning, and the fire crackling in the stone hearth was most welcome. The room had a cosy air that had not yet become sleepy. I had a volume on skeletal anatomy open on my crossed knee, and was busy absorbing synovial fluid, when a chair placed itself in front of me, then a hand presented itself with the fingers well lined up and pressed together. I took hold of it and it shook vigorously.

The young man belonging to the hand had an extraordinary appearance. He was tall, quite a few inches in excess of six feet, but thin, and his grey three-piece tweed suit was so closely tailored as to make his limbs spidery. His face was long and his features aquiline, bright yet darting, with wide yellow-flecked green eyes beneath pale bushy brows. His hair was so curly that it held itself up a further half foot above his head, although it receded frizzily at the temples, as if torn at.

‘Jonathan Felldarking?’ he asked me with a slight drawl, as he settled graciously into his chair.

‘Ye-es,’ I stuttered, somewhat taken aback.

‘I saw your name on the medicine register,’ he explained, ‘and I asked after your appearance. I was told that I should look for a pale, lean fellow, grey eyes, studious, but with a bold stare and the jaw of a fighter.’

I laughed. ‘Who on earth told you that? I’m fighting to memorise skeletal anatomy!’

‘Perhaps I added that last detail. But you are studying medicine?’

‘Yes. Are you?’

‘No, biological sciences. I am Adam van Cufton…’ (I shall spare you a repeat of his lineage.)

‘I am from London,’ I said. ‘I went to St Paul’s school.’

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘How were the laboratories there?’

‘They were quite good,’ I said.

He paused and leant back with an appraising air. He lowered his sharp chin to his neck, garnering not a fold of fat. ‘The laboratories at my school were not so good, Jonathan,’ he said. ‘But I did not care much for them. I was what we call a jock, a guy more interested in sports.’

‘Oh, what sport did you play?’

‘Football. Meaning not soccer, but a game recently appropriated from your rugby.’

He had the least likely physique for a rugby player imaginable. I commanded every muscle in my face remain straight. ‘Will you join the rugby team here?’

‘Jonathan!’ he exclaimed, as if hurt. ‘Do I look like a rugby player?’

I realised at once that he must have lost weight from a wasting illness or similar, and I felt a complete fool. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Call myself an aspirational doctor.’

He nodded very slightly at me then, as if to confirm that I was thinking along the right lines. Then a flicker of worry crossed his face. A look that I can only describe as haunted.

‘Actually I don’t follow you,’ he said. He pushed his chair back slightly with his narrow legs as if making to stand.

I was intrigued. ‘Well despite my fighter’s jaw, I’m no rugby player either,’ I laughed. ‘Those blockheads are entitled to go and crack their bones on a field, but I want to learn all I can of medicine, and use the fine facilities that we have here at our disposal; the fine laboratories.’

Van Cufton leant forward again at once. ‘Which area of medicine most interests you?’ he asked.

I considered the gaunt appearance of this man who had previously been some sort of wrecking machine. ‘Infectious diseases,’ I answered.

He flung himself bolt upright and his long fingers drummed on the arms of his chair, then he leant back forwards again. As if an electric charge had gone through him. ‘And of those?’ he asked.

‘The ones that bring about the most pronounced physiological change,’ I answered carefully. ‘Isn’t it incredible that an invisible thing can be transmitted, which causes the body to manifest such horrendous alterations?’

Now I had definitely tickled the spider’s web. Van Cufton’s pressed lips began to twitch, and his fingers writhed round themselves. They made shuffling sounds. ‘It is awfully good to make your acquaintance, Jonathan,’ he said. I could tell he was tempering his excitement with manners.

At that instant, a chap across the room called out ‘noon lectures,’ in a baritone, and there were thuds of books being closed and scrapings of chairs. I began to rise, but van Cufton stood first, facing me. I looked up at the eager face poised above its dark crane of a body. ‘Say,’ he said amiably, ‘It’s been great talking. Let’s catch up later. How’s four o’clock?’

‘Certainly,’ I agreed. ‘Here?’

‘I can’t – it gets too noisy!’

‘Alright, how’s my room? It’s C 38?’

‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘See you there.’ He swivelled and strode towards the door. Each lope of a long tweed leg seemed to cover half the floor.

Chapter Two

My chamber was the last of a row accessed from a central hallway. It was simply furnished with a single metal bed, a chair, a chest of drawers and a large wardrobe. I was aware that other students had brought varying degrees of extra furnishings; my battered, second-hand (or possibly fifth) trunk had contained only a colza lamp and some candles, books, boot wax and spare rags, a sewing and a wash kit. Upon opening the chest of drawers I discovered that the previous occupant of my room had left a mirror in one, and stuffed another with dirty sheets and towels. I immediately took these to the wash room, and paid a few pence to have them laundered, privately thanking my profligate antecedent. One of the cloths was quite nicely embroidered, so I spread it over my trunk in the middle of the room, effecting a small table upon which I put my lamp and a conspicuous pile of medical books.

As four o’clock approached I sat on my bed looking through the window, and watched the comings and goings along the path leading to the streets beyond the college walls, but the thin teary old panes emanated cold, the air outside throwing chilly autumnal swirls in the leaves and the grass. Slender brown foxglove corpses swayed precariously in a corner of the borders, and a single red rosette on a hollyhock nodded rapidly as though accepting its imminent demise. The sky was drawing in with sulphurous yellow streaks edging the low dark clouds, and I decided to light my lamp. Matches I had too in my trunk; I deigned to mention those as would you, if you came from my home. I removed the glass chimney on the colza lamp and twiddled the dial slightly to raise some wick. I struck a match which flared angrily, then winged gentle oval flame to the charred cotton tape. Just as I was replacing the chimney there came a sharp rap on my door. I nestled the glass quickly into place then grabbed the mirror from my drawers and checked my appearance, which was quite as usual. Hair slightly lank, skin clear but faintly greasy, grey eyes anxious that they should be decisive. I shoved the mirror back in a draw and crossed the short space to the door and opened it.

Van Cufton bent his spidery frame under the mantle and rose again in my room.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Interesting glasses.’

He wore the dark lensed type that desert explorers wear to protect their eyes from the sun, with round silver frames and leather blinkers.

‘I have sensitive eyes,’ he explained, removing the glasses and sliding them into a leather case which he pocketed.

‘I’ll draw the curtains then,’ I said, moving to the window. ‘There is little light left anyway, but more to the point they only put these radiators on for an hour in the afternoon, and the curtains are sufficiently thick to stop so much heat escaping.’

‘Don’t you have your own paraffin heater?’ he asked mildly. I turned back to him without an answer. He had on a long, navy-blue military style coat from the pocket of which he drew a bottle as he scanned my room. It was vintage port. I realised shamefully that I had no glasses, but that there might be some in the shared kitchen along the hall.

‘One moment,’ I said, and van Cufton nodded sagely as I ducked out of the room and hurried along the dim hallway. To my relief a couple of tumblers had been left on the draining board. When I got back, my guest had made himself comfortable in the chair, and was flicking through one of the medical volumes. His long legs were stretched out, and I noticed how fine the brown leather brogues at the end of each were. He seemed very alert despite his languid pose; his eyes flickered energetically, and his nose twitched. I was sure he looked at the colza lamp with some distaste once or twice.

I picked the port up from the table, chipped the red wax seal away, then stared in consternation at the cork eying me snugly from within the neck of the bottle. Without seeming to look away from the book, van Cufton reached into the pocket of his coat and extended a penknife to me housing a folding corkscrew in its handle.

After the port was poured, I sat on the bed and van Cufton raised his glass to me from the chair. The port was exceptionally good, with velvety, prune-like notes. I quite forgot what his earlier meaning had been in our meeting. It seemed quite sensible to sit and drink fortified wine. I poured myself some more.

‘Felldarking,’ he asked. ‘Where in London do you hail from?’

‘From south of the river,’ I said amiably, conjecturing prosperous suburbs.

‘I don’t know London very well,’ he admitted. ‘We have friends in Belgravia.’

‘I prefer the countryside anyway,’ I said.

‘Really?’ he asked meaningfully. ‘What do you like about it?’ I am sure that I saw him shudder slightly.

‘Old families,’ I began. I saw him look genuinely hateful. ‘Landscapes,’ I added hastily. ‘The open vistas of hills and forest, and all that.’

‘Then you would like Morgrave,’ he said, but the last word seemed to make a bitter taste in his mouth which he salved with a swig of port.

‘Morgrave?’ I asked.

‘The name of the village below my family’s last residence in England,’ he said. ‘Not so many dozen miles from here, north Oxfordshire. But it has no train station. I had to take a carriage there. Anyway, I was glad to return to civilization,’ he added briskly, as if wanting to change subject, a motion he confirmed by gesturing at the medical books.

But again my interest was piqued. ‘Where did you stay, if your family has gone?’ I asked, then I kicked myself slightly, realising that a rich American would think nothing of paying for accommodation whilst visiting the ancestral family realm.

‘Well I stayed at our house,’ he surprised me with.

‘Oh, you do still have family there?’

He smiled slightly at that. ‘Just a house. Nobody lives there. The fields are leased or something. I don’t know, I think there’s a solicitor who deals with it.’ He looked around the room then smiled again. ‘I think I have the gist of you now, Jonathan.’

It was the kind of self-satisfied, efficient and presumptuous statement only an American could make. I looked down at my scuffed boots, knowing he was right.

‘Don’t worry old fellow. I’m not a snob. I came here to talk about infectious diseases. Now, let’s begin with recurring ones, that don’t have any symptoms other than at certain times.’

‘Like malaria?’ I asked.

‘A little like that,’ he said.

For a long while we discussed prognoses and cures, and drifted to theoretical propositions that I believe had us both imagining that we had bypassed conventional scientific wisdom, and landed ourselves on a few paths to academic discovery. Van Cufton put up the signposts for these paths with quite specific place names, that I thought nothing of at the time. Eventually the port was finished, and I had an inkling that the warmth it made in my stomach would be a good foundation on which to lay a couple of ales, at a pub frequented by some of the more genial college lads and a few easy-mannered girls from the town.

I saw that van Cufton was growing restless too; he stood and began pacing, looking at the curtains with anxious greed. It was the look a person might have on their face if they were dying of starvation and had a plate of poisoned food in front of them.

‘Well,’ I said, looking at the thick curtains too, ‘it must be quite dark by now.’

‘Oh dear,’ van Cufton said, with a strange degree of relish in his tone. Then quickly, as if to himself, he muttered, ‘no I shan’t, I mustn’t.’

‘I have to go,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I hope it’s not raining again.’ I stood up and reached a hand to the curtains. At that moment my opposite wrist felt as though it had been placed in a vice. I looked down in shock. Van Cufton’s bony fingers were latched to my arm. His knuckles were white with the pressure. I made no effort to extract myself. I just stared at him. His eyes were wide beneath his bushy brows, and his straight teeth were bared. ‘Don’t open the curtains,’ he hissed.

I was quite afraid. ‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘Whatever is the matter with you?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘This isn’t your fault.’ He released my wrist but stood poised in his long dark coat, his head of wiry hair reaching almost to the ceiling, where the shadow he threw from the colza lamp stretched blackly over him.

‘Listen carefully,’ he said. ‘I shall need to stay in your room tonight. I shall give you the key to mine, B40, where you can stay.’

‘What is this all about?’ I cried.

‘Are we agreed?’ he asked icily.

‘No!’ I said. ‘Explain yourself!’ I had heard of the rich behaving eccentrically, but this was preposterous.

‘The only way I could explain,’ he replied, ‘would be too terrible. I will not let it happen. I am sorry Jonathan, but this is a matter of life and death.’ His eyes had a desperate look in them that I almost countenanced, before I remembered the absurd catalyst for this chain of events.

Before he could stop me, I leapt on the bed and grabbed hold of the curtain.

Chapter Three

‘No!’ he shrieked, diving into the wardrobe and closing the door behind him. I released the curtain and opened the wardrobe door. ‘I’ve had quite enough of this,’ I said, dragging van Cufton out and pulling him across the floor towards my door. He struggled desperately, but now that the immediate shock of his actions had worn off I was far the stronger of us.

‘Please, Jonathan,’ he begged as I fumbled with the latch on the door. ‘I’ll pay you a pound!’

This only strengthened my reserve. ‘I don’t want your money,’ I said firmly, pulling the door open and flinging him out into the hallway. He made to lunge back into the room and I put my fists up. He looked fearfully at me, then to the large window framing the end of the hallway, where from my edge of the door I could see a bright light. It came from the white face of a full moon, that seemed to be staring at us. In its pale light, van Cufton’s gaunt profile became rather noble, and I felt a pang of guilt which increased as he turned towards me with a look of pure, owlish sorrow. Then a lurid change flickered over his features, and suddenly I was faced with a different man; one unshaven and wild-eyed, who opened his mouth wide and made a laugh that sounded more like a bark. He narrowed his eyes