The Royal Ghost Read online

  ‘That is very kind of you to say so. We can only hope that they will remain where they can do no more harm for a very long time.’

  ‘That is my hope too,’ agreed Mina, ‘however they will be free again one day, and I suspect that once they are, they will continue their lives of deception, since it is all they know, but I do not think they will dare show their faces here again. If there are people still holding séances in Brighton they are at least doing it on their own account merely for an evening’s amusement and not paying others to cheat them. Let them go on and take what comfort they can until they tire of it and turn to something else. I am pleased to say that my mother will have no truck with such things again, and in any case she has plenty to distract her – my sister Enid and her twins are staying with us and they are keeping the fond grandmother happily occupied.’ Mina made a significant pause. ‘But just in case mother does succumb to temptation and reads An Encounter, what signs of upset should I look for? Fainting and excitement, you say; mother can produce them both at will when she means to have her way, without recourse to disturbing literature. Is there anything else that might give me cause for concern?’

  ‘Imagined symptoms of illness, headaches, difficulty in sleeping, lack of appetite, overindulgence in stimulants or soporifics. The presentation can be different depending on the individual. Tight lacing can make matters very much worse. But if you should notice this in any lady you know, please do refer her to Anna, who has devised a special massage to release the harmful vapours.’

  ‘That is very helpful, thank you.’ Mina rose to depart, but did not immediately do so. ‘I do have one other request.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Dr Hamid warily. He had, Mina noticed, a peculiar tone of voice which he had adopted recently at any suggestion she might make which could, if pursued, lead him into the murky waters of professional embarrassment.

  ‘I would like to borrow your copy of An Encounter and study it for myself. From what I have heard booksellers might be chary of selling it to a spinster, and I would prefer it if my mother did not know I was reading it. My purpose is to learn what I can about the book, to see if it can be exposed as a mere work of the imagination.’

  Dr Hamid looked understandably alarmed. ‘Do you think that is wise?’

  ‘I promise I will try very hard not to be put into a great state by it and if I am, then I already know the symptoms, and I will simply come here and enjoy a steam bath and massage which will surely set me right. In any case, I really cannot believe that all the ladies who have read the book suffer unpleasant consequences.’

  ‘That is true,’ he admitted. ‘The ladies who derive such an unhealthy excitement are, I have observed, those with no occupation to use their natural energies, and husbands who neglect them.’

  ‘I shall never have a husband, neglectful or otherwise, and I think I am the happier for it,’ Mina declared. ‘When I am not practising my callisthenics, or enjoying the sights of the town, or attending to my mother’s many whims, my story writing keeps me fully occupied.’

  ‘And what tale are you currently busy with?’

  The question was intended to deflect her purpose and she smiled. ‘I am writing about a little lady, one who suffers many bodily afflictions and is shunned by a society that sees only outward appearances. She has beautiful visions, because she has a good soul, and becomes surrounded by a glowing light. As a result others are at last able to see the goodness within her, and she is much loved.’

  He swallowed back a sudden burst of emotion. ‘Is she called Eliza?’

  ‘She is.’

  A moment passed between them in which shared sadness and fond memories mingled, as they recalled Eliza’s too short yet defiantly cheerful life which had, in her last weeks, been enlivened by friendship with Mina and enjoyment of the more amusing and less bloodcurdling stories in her repertoire.

  ‘As I am sure you know,’ Mina pointed out, ‘I am the last person in Brighton to be worried by a ghost story.’

  ‘I know that you are strong-minded but believe me, it is far worse than that. There is material in the book which is quite unsuitable for a respectable single lady. I do not think,’ he added cautiously, ‘that you would be put into a great state by it, nevertheless, I cannot risk taking the responsibility of lending you a copy. I really am sorry.’

  Mina glanced at his desk, feeling sure that a slim volume lay within her reach in a drawer. ‘You are being careful of my health, which I understand and appreciate. But a lady who uncovered the secrets of an extortioner’s plot can certainly obtain a book if she sets her mind to it.’

  ‘I have no doubt of it, but it will not be from me.’

  ‘If I can prove that the story is a fraud dressed up as history then that information could help soothe your patients.’

  He wavered, but at last shook his head. ‘My answer is still no, and please do not press me further. But there is one thing that I should mention. The book nowhere involves séances or mediums. It describes a vision – one for which the ladies were wholly unprepared.’

  ‘A ghostly sighting – well there are many such stories about.’

  ‘And have been since stories began. Brighton is rife with them. But are they no more than idle tales? I think that if ghosts did not exist at all, then people would not talk or write about them. There must be some small grain of truth in it. In fact —’ he hesitated. ‘I know you would not like to believe this but from time to time patients of mine have reported seeing phantoms of the deceased – those they love and sorely miss. These are intelligent people, both men and women, not disordered in their minds apart from suffering the grief of recent bereavement. Their visions are clear and convincing – the individuals appear before them as solid and real as if they stood in the same room.’

  ‘Do these visions occur in daylight or darkness?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘But only of those friends and relations who are constantly in their thoughts, not celebrated individuals unknown to them.’

  ‘True.’

  Mina paused, reflectively. ‘My mother once told me that she saw my father’s ghost, but I am not sure what it was she saw. She does like to embroider a tale. And you – have you experienced anything of the nature you describe?’

  He uttered a little sigh of regret. ‘No. I often think how pleasant it would be to sit in my parlour with Anna and have my dearest Jane and Eliza there with us, so that we might gaze on their faces again, but it has not come to pass. Perhaps some special talent is required which I do not have, and it may be that the ladies who wrote this highly unwise publication do.’

  ‘So you think it may be genuine and not a fiction?’

  ‘It is not, in my view, impossible.’

  Mina gazed on him sadly. He had every reason to want to believe in ghosts, as did she. The passing of her dear sister Marianne ten years ago, dead of consumption at the age of twelve, was still a painful memory. So too was her father’s death in the spring of last year after his long wasting illness, yet she had never sought to call their spirits to her from the heavenly beyond where they now resided, and which was surely now their natural home. Dr Hamid saw only the void in his life that had once been filled by his wife and sister, and his judgement was weakened by a keen sense of loss. She wanted to tell him that time would help heal the wound. There would be a scar, of course, and it would still hurt but it would not be so raw and open. But he had surely been told this by others, and as a fundamentally sensible man he realised it himself. Hesitantly she reached out and patted his arm, in a way that a sister might comfort a brother.

  He sighed again and nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  Three

  Every day in Mina’s life was a battle with the infirmity that had first become noticeable when she was fifteen. She did not, as others might have done, choose to hide from the world, but was determined to live her life to the very fullest in all ways that were both decent and possible, except those that she had been told were denied to her. By n
ot confining herself to those restricted spheres of endeavour thought to be appropriate for women, she was able to embrace eagerly all else that the world had to offer. Some three years ago, Mina and her family had deserted the fogs and chills of London to live in Montpelier Road, Brighton, a location chosen for the invigorating air and bright sunshine, which it was hoped would restore her ailing father’s health. Her older brother Edward had remained in the capital, where he helped maintain the successful publishing house founded by their father, and also to stay close by the side of the enchanting Miss Hooper, an heiress who had recently consented to be his bride.

  Soon after their father’s death, Mina’s sister Enid, who was considered to be the beauty of the family, had deserted the house of mourning, which she had found unendurable, to marry a Mr Inskip, the dullest solicitor who ever existed, and they had made their home in London. Enid had been amusing herself by tormenting a shoal of ardent and agreeable admirers, and her impetuous acceptance of Mr Inskip, based solely on his superior financial worth, had, she soon realised, been a terrible mistake. In recent months, important business concerns had demanded her husband’s presence in the far reaches of Europe and had placed a sea, a mountain pass and great tracts of barren land between them. Enid had come to Brighton to be with her mother, accompanied by her infant twins and a nursemaid, her state of mind and health exhibiting that glowing perfection of contentment that could only be achieved by the extended absence of Mr Inskip. The boys were a source of endless delight to the doting grandmother, if not the mother, and were constantly and resolutely declared to be the image of their Scarletti grandfather. Mina did not want to contemplate the dismay that might ensue if their baby noses ever sharpened to resemble Mr Inskip’s proboscis or their infant blue eyes darkened to the colour of silt.

  Enid never spoke of her husband; to her he was in a sense dead, and she clearly wished him to remain so. She and her mother spent their days shopping, admiring the babies and engaging in private conversations to which Mina, as a single woman, could never be admitted.

  Mina’s days were largely solitary; writing or reading, exercising with the dumbbells she kept hidden in the bottom of her wardrobe, or taking in the sights and scents of the town. There were other worlds in her mind, which she could explore freely – places where ghosts and witches and demons abided, and broke out onto the pages of her books to trouble the heroes and heroines she created. Most of all Mina enjoyed the random and usually unannounced visits of her younger brother Richard, a charming rapscallion with a heart of gold, who divided his time between London and Brighton depending on where he was most able to obtain and spend money, an elusive commodity which ran rapidly though his fingers like a glistening stream.

  As Mina arrived home the maidservant, Rose, was taking a laden tray into the parlour. The pile of iced fancies and a fat yellow sponge cake filled with jam told Mina at once that the visitor being entertained was her mother’s friend Mrs Bettinson, whose favourite delights these were. Not that the word ‘delight’ was one often associated with Mrs Bettinson, a lady who gloried in her widowhood so much that her relatives obligingly died at regular intervals to afford her fresh opportunities to display her imposing bulk in an excess of jet, bombazine and crape. Above all, Mrs Bettinson relished the discovery and dissemination of gossip, and enjoyed the flavour of misery better than that of the choicest pastry.

  As Mina entered the parlour, which was smokily warm from the first substantial coal fire of the season, the two ladies glanced up at her quickly and the conversation, which had been proceeding apace, abruptly stopped.

  ‘Why Mina,’ said her mother with a brightness that was too brittle to be convincing, ‘we were just discussing —’ there was a pause, ‘the – er – healthfulness of Dr Hamid’s steam baths. I trust you are refreshed?’

  ‘Very much so,’ said Mina, cheerfully. She limped to a comfortable seat and sat down, making an effort to maintain as straight a posture as possible. Mrs Bettinson frowned at her disapprovingly. ‘I am at the very peak of healthfulness,’ she added. Mrs Bettinson frowned harder.

  Rose poured tea for Mina, and she sipped it with the contented smile that she knew their visitor deplored. A newspaper, the latest copy of the Brighton Gazette, was open on her mother’s lap. Louisa, who had entered a profound and lengthy period of melancholy following the death of her husband, had only recently begun to emerge into the light of Brighton society in which she was rapidly becoming an acknowledged ornament. Having once declared that newspapers gave her a headache, she now devoured them for all the news of the town and its personalities, taking little interest in events that lay outside that confined circle. Her favourite study was the Local Fashionable Intelligence, which listed those gentry and other persons of note who had just arrived and which hotel they were favouring with their presence. Her thoughts seemed constantly to be occupied with how she might obtain an entrée to a more rarified social circle than the one she currently enjoyed.

  At fifty-five Louisa still had a youthfully slender figure and almost unlined face, with soft pale skin and golden hair that owed nothing to artifice. Her mourning gowns, which had been sombre black for a year, were now being trimmed with white lace and mauve ribbon in preparation for her future butterfly emergence into brilliant colour. Louisa’s fresh glow appeared all the more charming beside Mrs Bettinson, who occupied any room she inhabited like a great dark hill topped by a stony monument.

  Mina saw that the newspaper was open at the page of correspondence, but Louisa, noticing her glance, folded it shut so quickly that had it been a book it would have made a loud snap. Mina suspected that the two had been discussing An Encounter, which had been the subject of much heated debate in the Gazette in so far as this was possible without the paper actually stating why the work was so objectionable. This led her to consider whether her mother had read the book, something that she would never admit to any member of her family. It was easy enough for Mina to avoid being drawn into the conversation, which dwelt largely on recent deaths and other terrible misfortunes, and she quickly finished her tea, declined a cake, and said she would retire to her room. Mrs Bettinson, assuming that Mina was weary and needed rest, nodded, her lip curling with grim satisfaction.

  Mina went upstairs as fast as she was able, using both hands on the rail to assist her. If the amount of tea and cake was anything to judge by she had a full hour alone.

  It took only moments to find a copy of An Encounter under her mother’s pillow, and Mina took it to her room. There she sat at her writing desk, placed her special wedge-shaped cushion under one hip in order to sit up straight, and opened the book.

  Four

  An Encounter was a short volume numbering some forty pages. The authors were the Misses Ada and Bertha Bland, which were so obviously invented names that it scarcely seemed necessary to mention as the title page did that they had adopted pseudonyms in order to preserve their anonymity. The only information revealed about them was that they were sisters, single ladies, daughters of a respectable clergyman, and lived in London.

  The cover was bound in plain brown leather and inside was a portrait, a drawing obviously copied from a painting, of the late King George IV in his princely youth. This was not the bloated gourmand he had become in later life, a man so unpopular in his latter years that he hardly ever went about in public and had even had a tunnel built from the basement rooms of the Pavilion so he could visit his stables unseen. This portrait was of a young, handsome, strongly made man, with a torrent of wavy hair and a commanding expression. How much of this portrayal was accurate and how much was flattery of the artist Mina did not know, but she could see that as depicted he might be thought quite a romantic figure, especially as he was at that period of his life Prince Regent, and therefore King of England in all but name, which was enough to make any female heart flutter.

  The book had been published that same year, 1871, although there was no indication as to when it had actually been written, and neither was it stated when the events
described within had taken place. There was no publisher listed, the title page simply saying that it had been printed for the authors and giving the name and address of a London printing company, Worple and Co. Mina turned to the text for possible clues.

  The Misses Bland, having heard of the health-giving properties of Brighton, had, accompanied by their widowed father, made a day excursion to that popular location. Their object was to enjoy the invigorating sea air and view the gardens and the Pavilion. Once a royal residence, now an amenity of the town, this building, they had been told, was a wonderful sight to behold. None of the family had visited Brighton before, and, said the ladies, they were quite unacquainted with its history. The sisters had determined before they set out to write quite separate accounts of their adventure since they thought it would be amusing and instructive to compare them afterwards. On arrival, their father had expressed a desire to take a bracing walk in the grounds of the Pavilion. The building itself he hesitated to enter, and was content to observe only its exterior. He did not think it an entirely wholesome place, since the late King George had been known for his scandalous behaviour, which caused great grief to his parents and brought shame to the royal family. The King, said the Reverend Bland, was reputed to have lived like an oriental potentate in more ways than one. Further than this he would not say, but his warnings had inadvertently whetted his daughters’ appetites to see the royal luxury promised by the domes and minarets that glistened invitingly in the sunshine.

  The ladies had at last succeeded in obtaining their father’s permission to enter the Pavilion by saying that there was an entertainment they would like to attend, an exhibition by a conjuror who was donating all his fees to a charity for the support of families affected by a disaster at sea. With some reservations the Reverend Bland agreed to this, and it was settled that they would all meet in one hour at the tea room. The ladies’ account went on to provide some slight description of the exterior, the velvet lawns, the rookery, and the music of a military band, but their main delight was in the gleaming white Pavilion itself, the fabulously exotic spires and cupolas that made visitors feel as if they had been transported by a magic carpet to lands of the orient.