The first meeting was graced by five lady visitors and two gentlemen, who kept Rose and Simmons busy with constant demands for tea, bread and butter, biscuits, sponge cake and fruit, consuming enough to feed a funeral party even before the proceedings had begun. Mr Bradley, bathing in the glow of admiring faces, and thrusting out the suspicion of a developing embonpoint, allowed himself to take centre place, and lead the company in prayer.
Having invoked the power of God, and being satisfied that he had not inadvertently summoned a more diabolical spirit, Mr Bradley then proceeded to the healing, which was no more than inviting his little group of devotees to sit in silence and contemplate what infirmity they wished to be cured, while he walked about the circle, allowing his hand to hover over the head of each person. There were a few pitying glances at Mina, the assumption being that she would be asking for divine intervention to straighten her back, something not even Mr Bradley’s disciples deemed remotely possible.
Mina was not thinking of herself at all, but was taking advantage of the quiet time to compose a new story about an incubus, which preyed on virtuous widows, and which in her mind’s eye looked very like Mr Bradley. Could her mother not see that this man’s presence in their house was an insult? Where were Mr Bradley and his pretensions when her father was dying? Where was his healing power when Marianne had lost her fragile hold on life at the age of twelve? It was she for whom Mina had first started writing stories of magic and adventure, stories in which her sister was the golden-haired heroine.
Marianne lived on in print, for unexpectedly, Henry’s business partner Mr Greville had offered to publish the stories for a new venture, the Scarletti Children’s Library. Mina was invited to visit the office and saw packets of little books piled high on shelves, some of them books that her father had never dared bring home, with stories of brigands and murderers and haunted castles, all illustrated by woodcuts. These appealed to Mina’s taste and spirit rather better than pious tales in which the worst sin that anyone might commit was vanity. When Mr Greville suggested that she might like to write him a story about a child who gave her last penny to a ragged boy, Mina was already eagerly perusing The Goblin’s Curse, and was lost forever to the world of morally improving literature.
The peace of the little circle was broken only by the gurgling of Mrs Bettinson’s stomach and the gentle snores of a Mrs Phipps, an elderly lady who was a regular attendee at gatherings of every kind, and slept through all of them, although she always succeeded in being awake when refreshments were served. Mr Bradley then proceeded to what he announced was ‘a special healing’, which amounted to no more than his going about the circle again, taking each lady briefly by the hand, and placing his fingertips on the forehead of each gentleman. He then led the company in a final prayer, and suggested that they all needed more tea.
One of the company, a Miss Whinstone, was a lady of Louisa’s age, but less well favoured by the hand of time. Since emerging from the period of mourning appropriate to the loss of her beloved brother, she had invariably dressed in the same unflattering shade of bronze, which was reflected in her skin and gave her cheeks a sickly yellow cast. Her face was drawn into a permanent frown of anxiety, and she always appeared to be flinching from something. Miss Whinstone had arrived with trembling fingers clutching a copy of the Brighton Gazette, which was open at the page of town news, but she did not refer to it until the meeting was drawing to a close.
‘Mr Bradley,’ she whispered, confidentially, ‘if I might seek your advice …’
‘But of course!’ he exclaimed. ‘How might I assist you?’
She hesitated, then pushed the paper towards him. ‘I have read— I have seen—’
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Bettinson, whose steely gaze missed nothing, ‘yes, a most extraordinary thing, but ungodly, I fear.’
‘And yet there is the involvement of Professor Gaskin, who I understand is a scientific gentleman of some note,’ said Miss Whinstone, meekly.
‘He is said to be one of the most scientific men in the world,’ Mr Bradley assured her, ‘and I am confident that he would not lend his name to anything ungodly.’
Mrs Bettinson looked unconvinced.
‘Science,’ announced a Mr Conroy, a portly gentleman with a red face, ‘is a very remarkable thing.’ He hooked his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets, thrust out his lower lip, and stared about the room in case anyone chose to contradict him.
The assembled company agreed to a man and woman that science was indeed remarkable.
Louisa, who did not read newspapers in case they affected her nerves, and had not had one in the house for some years, tried her best to look as though she knew what everyone was talking about, without success. Mina could see the early signs that her mother might be obliged to plead faintness to avoid embarrassment, so she quickly but politely borrowed Miss Whinstone’s newspaper, and read the article aloud. The company fell silent. Mina had a sweet, clear reading voice, and no one felt inclined to do other than listen to her.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT FROM WILLIAM GASKIN, FRS, PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
Professor Gaskin is honoured to make it known that the noted spirit medium Miss Hilarie Eustace will shortly be visiting Brighton where she will be pleased to offer demonstrations of her powers entirely gratis. Professor Gaskin, a founder member of the famous Ghost Club once patronised by the late Mr Charles Dickens, has devoted many years to the study of ghostly phenomena, and his experience enables him to state with considerable authority that Miss Eustace is entirely genuine. She has been subjected to numerous rigorous tests, all of which prove without a doubt that she is a medium of unusually consistent and convincing ability. Miss Eustace has demonstrated on very many occasions the production of spirit rappings and moving lights, all of which occur while she is in a trance. The agent of these manifestations is her spirit guide, Phoebe, a creature of the most extraordinary and angelic beauty who, when conditions are favourable, appears before astonished onlookers clad in glowing raiment. Professor Gaskin has himself seen this spirit rise from the ground, float through the air, and then melt slowly into nothingness, a sight which can only create the most profound amazement in anyone privileged to witness it. Next week’s Gazette will announce details of where Miss Eustace will be conducting her séances, and how the public might apply for tickets.
‘It seems,’ said Mr Conroy, with a throaty laugh, ‘that you have a rival, Mr Bradley.’
‘Not at all,’ said Mr Bradley, cheerfully. ‘If you imagine that I am jealous of this lady’s powers or her ability to command the attention of the public then you very much mistake me. If she can indeed perform all that she claims to do, and it appears that Professor Gaskin has proved that she can, then I will gladly add myself to the number of her devoted admirers.’
‘Then you have not seen her demonstrations?’ asked Mina, and there was a general clamour in the room to the effect that Mr Bradley, if he had not already seen the miraculous Miss Eustace, ought to do so as soon as was practically possible.
He raised a hand to speak and the room at once fell silent again. ‘I have not seen the lady, and it might be advisable if I was not to. Imagine, if you will, the consequences that would follow if two persons, both of whom are able to act as receptacles of supernatural power, were in the same room and one of them was to enter the trance state, which is a most perilous condition.’ He paused dramatically to allow his listeners to consider the dreadful results that might stem from that situation. ‘Of course I would do nothing to deliberately harm Miss Eustace, but suppose that by my very presence, I was to quite unintentionally attract forces that were drawn to her in her receptive state, and were more than the delicate frame of a lady could endure.’
‘Why, it could kill her!’ exclaimed Miss Whinstone, the tea in her cup vibrating like a choppy sea.
‘Or at the very least induce catatonia. She might never waken again. Such things have been known.’ Bradley shook his head, regretfully. ‘No, much as I would wish to witness one of her demonstrations, I dare not, but I can see no objection to anyone else attending. I understand that she created a very great sensation when exhibiting in London only last week. I spoke to a lady who was present on that occasion who was so overcome by powerful emotions when she tried to tell me what she had seen that she was quite unable to find words to describe her experience. You are very fortunate that Miss Eustace comes here now, for if she was here in the autumn season you would not be able to get near her for dukes and earls and countesses.’
‘Oh,’ said Miss Whinstone, ‘but my doctor says that I have a weak heart and a rheumatic stomach – from eating too much, or possibly from eating too little, I forget which – and I think if I was to see Miss Eustace I would catch the most terrible fright. And perhaps it might kill me, so I had really better not go.’
‘She wouldn’t frighten me,’ said Mrs Bettinson, and the other ladies suggested that they felt the same, apart from Mrs Phipps who, having finished her tea, had fallen asleep again.
‘But isn’t it all poppycock and playacting?’ said a Mr Jordan, grunting and looking at his watch, something he liked to do every few minutes for no reason that anyone could discern. He was a smartly turned-out gentleman of about thirty who had said very little throughout the afternoon, contenting himself with an expression of deep scepticism.
‘If it is, the lady gains no advantage by it,’ said Mr Bradley, reasonably. ‘Of course there are persons who pretend to be mediums and attempt to play tricks on the public, but there is one sure way of knowing them. It is really very simple, they will do nothing without first being paid.’
Mina’s mother had expressed no opinion about Miss Eustace, and after the meeting only commented that she had to wonder if such a person could be wholly respectable. Nevertheless, she told Mina to arrange for a regular delivery of all the popular Brighton newspapers and was later seen perusing them with interest. In a matter of days the dreadful Miss Eustace passed through a process of metamorphosis in which she became by stages the dangerous Miss Eustace, the alarming Miss Eustace, the uncommon Miss Eustace, the fascinating Miss Eustace and finally the astonishing Miss Eustace. One evening at nine o’clock on the hour, a hired carriage arrived in Montpelier Road and Louisa Scarletti and Mrs Bettinson boarded it in a state of very considerable excitement.
‘I do not know why this should be,’ said Mina’s mother, ‘but it has been my observation that men who are very clever and whose words repay the most earnest attention are often very ugly, whereas those who have been favoured with a handsome countenance have nothing in their heads worth speaking of.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Mina, ‘men with attractive faces see no reason to cultivate their minds, and men with good minds exercise them so often they have no time to make themselves handsome. But do you speak of Mr Bradley? He seems to me to have neither good features nor a mind that is out of the ordinary.’
Her mother looked displeased, but Mina did not mind that. It was the morning after the visit to Miss Eustace, and Louisa, in command of the breakfast table, already looked plumper and rosier as if, like Brighton, she had been painted for the summer season. Mina wondered if her mother’s year of melancholy widowhood that had followed her husband’s death had in recent months been less a genuine affliction than a craving for the solicitude of friends. Now, with other things on her mind, she had turned her natural vitality to other projects.
Simmons sat forlornly by, her manner expressing anxiety either that her mistress was about to be enlivened to the point of a brainstorm, or that she would be so restored to glowing health that the services of a nurse and companion might no longer be required.
‘I do not speak of Mr Bradley, who although not a scholarly gentleman has a reasonably good mind and is not displeasing to look at,’ said Louisa severely. ‘It is Professor Gaskin, who has been instrumental in introducing Miss Eustace to both London and Brighton society. He is a man with a very powerful brain, and a mind that constantly seeks the truth. But he has a bad posture and very large ears. His wife is a respectable sort of person but she is dreadfully plain, poor creature, and does not dress at all well.’ Louisa could not help preening herself.
The previous night’s séance had taken place in the parlour of Professor Gaskin’s lodgings, and had been attended by eight ladies and gentlemen who were considered to be the very best of the resident Brighton society. Mina’s mother said that she felt sure there was a solicitor amongst their number, as well as Dr Hamid who she thought was a very interesting and intelligent sort of person. The company was comfortably seated in front of a curtain that had been drawn across one corner of the room. The professor had then addressed them on the subject of Miss Eustace’s wonderful sensitivity; how he had encountered her first with the attitude of a sceptic, thinking to expose deception. On witnessing her demonstrations, however, not only had he become convinced of her genuineness, but he had also realised that she was worthy of serious scientific study. Miss Eustace, he had told the company, was possessed of powers that the most learned men could not as yet explain.
The professor had reassured everyone present not to be afraid of what they were about to experience, and for greater confidence, he had then led them in a short prayer followed by a rousing hymn. ‘I think,’ Louisa told Mina, ‘that that fully answers Reverend Vaughan’s objections. There was nothing irreligious in the proceedings, in fact quite the contrary. Professor Gaskin says that the spirits are gladdened by our devotion, since they are pure Christian spirits sent by God to guide those who are receptive to His teachings.’
‘What sort of person is Miss Eustace?’ asked Mina, who was tempted to ask if this creature of the holy spirits had ridden into the room on a sunbeam, but refrained from a comment that she felt would not have advanced the conversation.
‘She is a very proper and modest young lady,’ said Louisa. ‘I have to confess, I was concerned that I might be confronted by a person of coarse manners and appearance, and then I would have been obliged to leave immediately, but that was not the case. She was most tastefully attired, and behaved throughout with great decorum. She was seated on a chair in front of the curtain, facing us, and I am sure that she did not move from her place, yet all around us we saw lights and heard noises that no living soul in the room could have made. Professor Gaskin showed us a bell and a tambourine behind the curtain, also a pencil and paper. All of us heard the bell ring several times and a good hard rattle on the tambourine, then the sound of the pencil moving. None of us was near enough to touch them.’
‘All this was behind the curtain, hidden from view?’ asked Mina.
‘It was. One of the gentlemen present said he wanted to draw the curtain and see what was happening for himself, but Professor Gaskin explained that any disturbance could injure the medium, and so he refrained, but very unwillingly. He was a bad influence and I think he will not be admitted again.’
Mina thought that had she been present she too might have been tempted to part the curtains, and wondered what she would have seen. A bell suspended in the air ringing itself; a tambourine in the grasp of a ghostly hand? Somehow she doubted it. Surely a more earthly and tangible arrangement of wires and black thread would answer the purpose.
‘Then, as if that was not wonderful enough, Professor Gaskin announced that he could feel a hand on his shoulder. Of course we all felt somewhat alarmed, but he reassured us that there was nothing to be afraid of, and if anyone should feel the same thing they should not try and clasp the hand, for it disturbed the energy. And then,’ Louisa went on, her eyes glowing with excitement, ‘I felt it – very briefly – fingers touching my cheek. It was quite extraordinary!’
‘It could not have been anyone in the room?’ asked Mina.
‘Oh no, most assuredly not. We were all, on the strict instructions of Professor Gaskin, holding hands, so no person in the room could have touched my face, and of course Miss Eustace was the furthest away of all. The surprising thing was that I had imagined a spirit hand to be somehow different, less … well, less like a real solid warm hand of a living person. But there was nothing insubstantial about it at all. If Miss Eustace can manifest things of this nature she must have very considerable powers.’ Louisa waved a hand at Simmons to attend to her plate, and the young woman, anxious to please, scurried to comply.
‘So a spirit hand feels just like the hand of a living person,’ said Mina, without a change in her expression. ‘That is most remarkable. I wonder how Professor Gaskin can explain such a thing.’
‘He has many years of study before him,’ said her mother who, if she detected irony in Mina’s tone, chose to ignore it, ‘but he remains hopeful that one day he will be able to reveal to the world how the spirit powers manifest themselves. Miss Eustace was, as you may imagine, quite exhausted, so that was all we were able to experience on that occasion. We all sang another hymn and then when the gas was turned up—’
‘The gas?’ said Mina. ‘The gas had been lowered? That is a detail you omitted. Was there candlelight? Or was the séance conducted in darkness?’
Louisa looked offended at the question. ‘Of course there was darkness; you don’t suppose we could have seen the little spirit lights otherwise? But I can assure you that Miss Eustace did not move, or we would have heard her. When the gas was turned up she was barely conscious, and had no memory whatsoever of what had occurred. Then Professor Gaskin drew the curtain aside and all was as it had been before – except for the paper.’ She poured more tea, exhumed a warm roll from its napkin and applied a salve of butter and honey. ‘You, Mina, have a hard inflexible mind, and will no doubt find this impossible to believe, but there was writing on the paper – clear writing! It can only have been a message from the spirits. It said that all those present would enjoy good fortune.’
Mina had never seen a ghost or experienced anything that suggested the existence of a force outside of the body apart from what was already known to and approved of by science, such as the warmth and light of the sun. The world of paper ghosts she had created from her imagination was, she thought, a great deal more interesting than the commonplace manifestations described by her mother. She was not sure that she even believed in the apparitions of deceased loved ones that fanciful people sometimes reported seeing. Her stories, far from inducing her to credit the possibility of ghosts, did rather the opposite, since they created a vivid impression in her mind that was very different from what she saw around her. Perhaps, she thought, all ghosts, both those in stories and those said to be real, were only the product of the human mind. In her own case she knew they were false and wrote about them to entertain her readers, but for those who did not write, they became not words, but visions.
Still, Mina was obliged to admit that the evening’s séance had been considered a success by all present, and her mother said that she would certainly go again, since Professor Gaskin had said that they had only seen a tiny part of what Miss Eustace could do. There were things he had seen with his own eyes that they would not believe until they had seen for themselves. The professor was intending to write a book about Miss Eustace, which, he was quite sure, would cause a sensation not only amongst the public but all the leading men of science.
‘She is undoubtedly genuine,’ said Louisa. ‘She refuses to take any payment at all for her work, although some of those present did press her with small gifts, but she asked for nothing! When I go again I will see if Miss Whinstone can be persuaded to come, as I am sure she will benefit. I did ask Mrs Parchment, but really she is impossible. I do believe she may be an atheist, or even one of those horrid materialists who Professor Gaskin says are even worse. How you could have admitted such a person to the house, I do not know.’
‘I did not seek to enquire after her religious observation when I accepted her as a tenant,’ said Mina. ‘She seems perfectly respectable, paid a month in advance without quibble and has given us no trouble and regular rent ever since.’
‘Her husband was little more than a peddler,’ said Louisa, shaking a copy of the Gazette at Mina. ‘Do you see this advertisement? Parchment’s Pink Complexion Pills, that was he.’ She allowed her fingertips to glide over her cheek, as if to demonstrate that she needed no such thing. ‘The man must have been a scoundrel, since I believe they once had a fine house in London with a carriage and servants, but I suppose that is all gone now, and the poor woman has to live in one room and pay rent and entertain herself with long walks and fresh air. What a thing to come to!’
Mina was curious as to the nature of the gifts Miss Eustace had been persuaded to accept, but when she asked, her mother replied dismissively that she didn’t know, in a manner that entirely confirmed Mina’s suspicion that they took the form of money and that her mother had been one of those to part with a ‘gift’. Miss Eustace without doubt made a tidy enough income from her activities but then, Mina thought, the lady had provided a few hours of entertainment as one might do at a musical recital and it seemed harmless enough.
As Mina climbed the stairs to her room, trying to ignore the pain that stitched down her back, its needle-sharp point embedded deep in her hip, she began to have second thoughts. Was this new enthusiasm of her mother’s really so unobjectionable? Ought she to be concerned about something that might in time become detrimental, either to health or purse? By the time Mina had reached the top of the stairs her worries had multiplied to the point where she felt she needed sensible advice, and decided to write a letter to her older brother Edward.