Bettiscombe Manor

Nathaniel Pinney gazed at the portrait of his ancestor the third Baronet John Frederick Pinney with a mixture of pride and contempt. Sir John was dressed for hunting in boots, a red coat with a three-cornered hat balanced upon a wig in the fashion of the previous century. An ornate flintlock was in his hands and his dogs pranced at his feet.

“And who is the negro boy?” Nathaniel gestured to the figure of an African youth standing behind John in the uniform of a footman, carrying a brace of pheasants.

“That is Jacob Smith, your honour. The Baronet brought him back with him from his plantations in the West Indies.” Answered Jenkins the manor's butler.

“He made a savage his footman?” Nathaniel was incredulous.

“Jacob was raised a Christian and could read and write sir. I understand he was very popular with the staff and in the village sir.”

“Poppycock Jenkins” Nathaniel snorted “It is now well known through the twin sciences of eugenics and phrenology that members of such races are primitive, subhuman at best.”

“As you say Sir” the butler replied with the faintest hint of insolence in his voice.

“What became of this Jacob?”

“A sad tale sir. Mr Smith died of tuberculosis, his last wish that he be buried in his homeland in Africa-”

“Such ingratitude” snapped Nathaniel.

“Sir John concurred with your opinion sir. The young man was interred in the grounds of Saint Stephen's Church. But many in the village say his restless ghost haunts the graveyard-”

“-ridiculous superstition. To imagine even rustic folk could credit such nonsense.”

“As you say sir. The coachmen have placed the laboratory equipment in the study as requested, will there be anything else sir?”

“No Jenkins there will not.” As he answered a plan began to form in Nathaniel's mind and a wicked smile passed across his lips.

Nathaniel had come into the Bettiscombe estate by way of his uncle, the sixth Baronet who had died childless. A sickly, pale hunched man with a balding pate fringed with lank long hair Nathaniel had spent much of his life in the grounds of his college in Cambridge. A champion of Charles Darwin he had gone even further extending theories of evolution and degeneration to humankind. In his system of categorisation, it was the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy who were the most highly evolved creature upon the Earth - far more refined and advanced than the base lesser races and the criminal class. Nathaniel sought to prove his hypotheses by measuring skulls and comparing a primitive visage to that of the cream of English society. Such examples he published in monographs within his circle who wholeheartedly endorsed his views.

Of course, finding decent specimens often proved problematic. Nathaniel lacked the constitution to travel to Africa or Asia and those skulls he could obtain in a Christian country were often of unclear provenance. Now to his surprise at the old family home on the border of Dorset and Devon presented the perfect opportunity. The bones of a full-blooded Negro lay but a few hundred yards away in the village graveyard.

Nathaniel visited the church the very next day and accompanied by the grovelling vicar took a tour. Within minutes he had located the headstone of the footman inscribed with the verse:

I who was born a pagan and a slave
Now sweetly sleep in a Christian grave

To Nathaniel's surprise, fresh flowers and some trinkets had been laid upon the resting place – obviously, the villagers still held the dead man in high regard. It was clear it would not be easy to disinter the body without creating a fuss and perhaps worse still a scandal. The doings of the resurrectionists were still very much in the public imagination – Nathaniel could not risk bringing such associations to the family name. No, if the deed were to be done it must be done by subterfuge without any suspecting Nathaniel. And of course, the academic being unused to manual labour would need help.

The following week Nathaniel took the train to London to give a talk at a Phrenology Society dinner. Whilst in that vast metropolis of vice and sin he made discrete enquiries to seek out those vile enough to undertake the deed he had planned. He was directed to an insalubrious street in East London to meet in a gin palace with two low men of the very worst kind who plied the dubious trade of grave robbing. Mr Mendes a defrocked priest and Mr Clothier, a drunkard heartily agreed to Nathaniel's nefarious scheme in exchange for a crisp pound note and a box of snuff.

The villainous pair were to stay at a boarding house in nearby Yeovil then travel to Bettiscombe by cart arriving at St Stephens at midnight whilst the village slept. This would allow them to dig into the earth and retrieve the skull of the unfortunate African. Not trusting the two rogues to fetch the correct cranium Nathaniel agreed to meet them in the churchyard and direct them to Jacob's grave.

The appointed night was moonless, frosty and dark – the stars affording the only light. Nathaniel waited for accomplices shivering in the cold behind an imposing tomb of an ancestor. The church clock had struck twelve some time ago and Nathaniel nervously attempted to check his pocket watch again and again despite being completely unable to see the hands. Finally, after what had seemed an eternity, he heard the slow clip-clop of a horse's hooves and the turning of a wheel. Peeking out from behind the mausoleum Nathaniel could see two figures in heavy greatcoats creep into the boneyard tools slung over their shoulders.

“Over here,” he hissed. “I'll take you there.”

The pair of ghouls followed Nathaniel and stood before the gravestone.

“It has been some time, no?” Asked Mendes “Are you sure you don't want something a bit fresher?”

“No, I do not – this is the one and remember I only need the skull – but fully intact you understand.”

They grunted ascent and set to work, Mendes swinging the pickaxe to break the sod and Clothier shovelling it away. As they toiled Nathaniel held a bullseye lantern to illuminate the growing hole with a single beam of light. The two men cursed and spat as they laboured passing a bottle of cheap gin between them.

Just as the clock of St Stephens peeled two the shovel struck wood and Clothier frenziedly pulled apart the boards. “Buried treasure” he chuckled and held aloft a gleaming white skull, almost perfectly preserved.

“Sterling, even the lower mandible intact” gloated Nathaniel as he wrapped it carefully in a cloth and placed it in his bag.

Suddenly Mendes gave a startled cry, turned and fled blindly towards the gate. Nathaniel looked up fearing discovery by the sexton but instead beheld a ghastly sight. In the beam of his lantern walking the path towards him came the figure of a man dressed in a footman's uniform. A man but not a living man for although the figure walked it lacked a head.

Filled with dread Nathaniel snatched up his bag and ran headlong after Mendes. Behind him, he could hear cries of terror from Clothier still at the bottom of the open grave. Not looking back Nathaniel reached the cobbled road in time to see Mendes start his horse and drive the cart at a devil's speed away down the lane.

The Baronet was glad that his manor house lay but a few hundred yards from the church and despite his frailty made it in quick time back to the ancient pile. Locking the door behind with shaking hands Nathaniel tiptoed down the wooden panelled servants' passage and entered his study placing the bag upon his oaken desk.

He decided he must first come to his senses and stiffen his resolve, he poured himself a measure of brandy from a crystal decanter, drank it fast and then quickly refilled his glass. Nathaniel Pinney firmly did not believe in ghosts and was now certain what he had seen had been a trick of the light or a shared hallucination. Of course, being in the company of low-born hysterical papists he had become infected by their superstitious fears. Drinking a third glass Nathaniel now laughed at himself and turned towards his macabre prize.

He lifted the bundle from the bag and unwrapped it on the desk, the skull rolling out as he did so. Nathaniel turned to fetch his calipers – ready to begin the examination but as he did so he heard a sound, a sort of chattering emanating from the skull. Turning back towards it he saw to his terror the dismembered head now moving upon the desk, the jawbone opening and closing as if in speech. Standing and staggering backwards Nathaniel was unable to believe his eyes but the thing kept moving.

Slowly it rose levitating above the desk, its empty sockets becoming level with Nathaniel's eyes. Behind him the door of the study swung open and through it glided the headless apparition from the graveyard- he was now trapped between the two horrors.

Nathaniel fell to his knees and begged “Please I'll return you to your grave, I'm sorry for disturbing your sleep, truly sorry.” The mouth of the skull opened wide in reply and from it came forth a terrible scream of hate and rage that shook the walls of the manor house.

Jenkins found the seventh Baronet Nathaniel Pinney dead upon the floor of his study in the morning, his face etched with the marks of terrible fear, his hand clutching his chest.  You can see the skull to this day at Bettiscombe Manor and the local people will tell you with a shudder of its screams in the night for the man they called Jacob Smith still does not rest in his homeland.