Mr Scarletti's Ghost

by Linda Stratmann

  ‘Whatever is the matter?’ asked Mina, with the uncomfortable feeling that her mother’s distress was in some way connected with the curious mania for the spirits that had so recently gripped the town. ‘Has someone upset you? Have you been to a séance? Please do tell me if there is anything I can do.’

  Her mother shook her head as if speech had become difficult, and making little choking sounds in her throat, snatched the kerchief from Mrs Parchment’s hands and clasped it to her eyes.

  ‘Mrs Parchment,’ said Mina. ‘Please tell me what has happened. Do I need to send Rose for the doctor?’

  ‘No, no,’ murmured her mother, ‘it is just –’ she gulped – ‘I have been so terribly betrayed!’

  Rose was standing in the doorway and Mina, seeing that this was an emotional shock rather than the onset of disease, sent the maid to fetch brandy, and set about chafing her mother’s cool papery hands. ‘Now then, Mother, you mustn’t be anxious, I am here now, and if you like I will see if I can find Richard, and bring him here to see you, I know that will cheer you up.’ Mina paused, suddenly fearing that that had been the wrong thing to say, and it was Richard and his adventures that had provoked the scene before her. Fortunately there was no reaction from either her mother or Mrs Parchment. ‘Only tell me what has occurred and I will do my best to set matters right.’

  Mina’s calming words seemed to have some effect. ‘It is that young person Simmons,’ said Mrs Parchment. ‘She seemed such a quiet sensible woman, but I am afraid that she deceived us all. She has had a fit of hysterics, and said some very unkind things to both your mother and myself which I will not repeat.’

  ‘She is to leave at once,’ said Mina’s mother, pleadingly.

  ‘Of course,’ said Mina, firmly. ‘She must. Mrs Parchment, please look after my mother and I will go and see to it that Miss Simmons quits the house immediately.’

  Before either of those ladies could say another word, Mina left the room and with as much energy as she could muster, took the stairs up to Miss Simmons’s room, which was at the top of the house. By the time she had made the climb she was grateful indeed for the exercises she had been doing, as a month or two ago she might not have achieved her object without some pain. The newly developed strength in her grip was both a surprise and a pleasure.

  Miss Simmons, who was unusually red-faced, was in her bedroom, throwing unfolded garments into a small trunk, where they lay heaped upon each other in great disarray. She looked around in astonishment when Mina appeared, and while labouring under feelings that seemed to approach anger, had the hard defiant look of someone who thought she was about to be scolded and didn’t care.

  ‘Please calm down,’ said Mina, ‘and tell me all that has happened. Don’t worry yourself about the trunk, I will get Rose to come and help pack your things. Do you have anywhere to go?’

  Simmons breathed more easily and nodded. ‘Yes, I have a sister in Brighton. I can go to her.’

  ‘Well, that is something. Now sit down. Neither my mother nor Mrs Parchment will go into any detail about the reasons behind this upheaval, and since it was I who initially employed you, I feel I should know everything before you leave. You have been very efficient in all your work, and unless there is some compelling reason not to, I am prepared to give you a character so you may find another position.’

  Miss Simmons sat on her bed, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. ‘It is Mr Clee,’ she said.

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Mina. ‘What has he done?’

  Miss Simmons gave her an anxious look. ‘You do not like him?’ she said.

  ‘My opinion of him is of no consequence,’ said Mina. ‘I am only interested in learning what has so upset my mother.’

  ‘He is a very charming and clever and nice-looking young gentleman,’ said Miss Simmons defensively.

  Mina had a horrible suspicion where the conversation might be tending but said nothing.

  ‘I had never thought for a moment that I might receive the admiration of a young man such as he,’ Simmons went on, ‘but some weeks ago I chanced to encounter him one afternoon as I was going to see my sister on my half-day, and he engaged me in conversation. We struck up a pleasant acquaintanceship, and after that we used to meet as often as we could. My sister always walked with us for propriety’s sake, only she was a little way behind so that that we could talk alone. He never – I mean, there was no – he was always very respectful.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mina, ‘although my mother would undoubtedly have disapproved, especially as these assignations seem to have been made without her knowledge.’

  ‘That was the reason we could tell no one,’ said Miss Simmons. ‘James – Mr Clee – said he wanted very much to meet me more often, but he knew that I might lose my place if it became known.’

  ‘Did he speak of his intentions towards you?’ asked Mina.

  ‘Oh, yes, and they are the most honourable possible,’ said Simmons, happily. ‘Marriage, of course. But he has no fortune and cannot think of it at present. He is, however, the favourite and sole heir of a great-aunt, who is in poor health and unlikely to live long, so he is sure to be a rich man very soon.’

  ‘I suppose my mother found out,’ said Mina, certain that the wealthy great-aunt would prove to be as illusory as any ghost. She declined to mention her suspicions that Mr Clee was already a married man, as she felt that Miss Simmons was quite upset enough without that suggestion.

  ‘Yes, and I am sorry to say it was Mrs Parchment who told her. She must have seen us walking together and reported it. I think that is very petty-minded, to so destroy the happiness of another. I am not sure the lady approves of marriage at all. From the things that she has let slip, I have gathered that she disliked her husband, perhaps dislikes all men. When I said that Mr Clee and I were intending to announce our betrothal as soon as he came into his fortune, she was very rude to me. She said I was deluded. She accused me of throwing myself at him, and said that it was quite impossible he could have any affection for me. I am afraid I was not at all polite when I replied, and I said a great many things I ought not to have. Still, it is in the open now, and at least your mother knows the truth behind the séance, though it cannot have pleased her.’

  ‘The séance?’ said Mina. ‘Do you mean the one that took place here?’

  ‘Yes, James asked if I might help him. He said he feared from some incident that had occurred recently that you had lost your faith in the spirit world and he wanted to restore your belief. He hoped very much that the spirits would be able to do all that was necessary, but sometimes, in the presence of an unbeliever, their powers fade and they need help.’

  ‘So when you said that the table had moved –’ said Mina, understanding at last.

  ‘James said that Miss Eustace would try to get the spirits to move a table or a chair if they could, but if not, he would give me a signal and I was to pretend that something had happened. That would increase the energy in the room and after that the spirits could do all that was necessary. And you did hear rappings, which gave you a message from your father. I had no part in that, it was quite genuine.’

  Mina saw that there was no hope for Miss Simmons, who would have to discover the hard way that Mr Clee had no interest in her, and had only courted her with a view to having an accomplice in the Scarletti household. How many other women he had duped in a similar way for the same purpose she dreaded to think.

  It took all afternoon to restore the household to some semblance of calm. Mina dispatched a note to Richard, hired a cab for Miss Simmons and her trunk, and wrote a character for her, but not before obtaining her new address in case she might wish to speak to her again. Her mother was settled in a darkened room with her smelling salts and a carafe of water, and Mrs Parchment, whose foot had been restored to its accustomed strength, went out on one of her long walks.

  There was very little point, thought Mina, in discussing the revelations concerning the séance with her mother, especially since Simmons, kn
owing that some of the events had been trickery, persisted in her belief that the rest were not. She could only hope that her mother, lying alone with her thoughts, would make her own conclusions, and come to her senses.

  As Mina exercised alone in her room she reflected on the fact that Mr Clee and Miss Eustace had both been very eager to bring her on to the side of the believers. She recalled that Dr Edmunds in his letter to the Dialectical Society had mentioned that when he had expressed scepticism, the spiritualists had tried to persuade him that he was a medium. It appeared to be a common ploy to convert sceptics into believers by promising special powers, but in this case there had been particularly strenuous efforts to persuade her, and Eliza as well. As she pondered the mystery, Mina suddenly realised why both she and Eliza would have been valuable associates to a fraudulent medium, and it was Miss Gilden who had unknowingly supplied the vital clue. Both Mina and Eliza were adults in child-size bodies. Mrs Clee in London had used a child to represent a child’s spirit and as a result had been found out and put in prison. She cannot have wanted to risk such an exposure again, yet the ability to produce the form of a child was one that would add greatly to the demands on her services. An adult who could masquerade as a child, smuggled in under cover of darkness, the sound of hymn singing masking any telltale noises, was a considerable asset.

  Now that she thought about it, the smuggled confederate was probably the source of the phenomena at the very first séance she had attended. She had sensed another person in the room, and with good reason; there had been one, a very human presence. A figure cloaked in black, moving silently about on stockinged feet, tapping on walls and clinking glasses, while the onlookers, commanded to stay in their seats, had to clasp hands so they found it impossible to turn and look about them. The confederate, in all probability Mr Clee, had then disappeared behind the curtains to wave the glowing apparitions on the end of sticks. There was nothing he had used that could not be hidden under a cloak or in a pocket or up a sleeve. At the second séance the raps on the walls had been more distant, and must have come from someone knocking from the hallway or the next room, but these had occurred when Mr Clee was in plain sight, so there must have been another confederate, the maidservant, perhaps. Phoebe’s voluminous draperies must have been made of some soft gauzy material like the delicate wisps that had formed so many yards of Miss Foxton’s etheric powers, something that could be rolled up and made very small and carried under Miss Eustace’s skirts.

  In the middle of these deliberations, Mina was surprised by the sudden arrival of Mr Bradley, and found that unknown to her, her mother had asked Rose to send for him. Mina was unwilling to allow him to sit with her mother alone, and was obliged to remain in the darkened sickroom and listen to that gentleman’s sympathetic and uncontroversial mutterings, which pandered to her mother’s sense of outrage and were therefore well received. Mr Bradley said that while having only limited acquaintance with Mr Clee, who had occasionally attended his healing circles, he had been impressed by the young man’s sincerity, good taste and intelligence. The entire blame for the upset was therefore laid firmly at Miss Simmons’s door, that lady having had her foolish head quite turned by Mr Clee’s natural friendliness, which she had misunderstood as protestations of love. It would have been useless for Mina to make any mention of the supposed wealthy great-aunt. Since she had originally employed Miss Simmons she was in no doubt as to how such an intervention would have been received, and for peace and quiet decided to remain silent.

  Her reflections led her to the conclusion that Dr Hamid in their most recent conversation had been correct in one very important respect; there was a significant difference in what was performed at the public séances and the private ones. While it was easy to provide explanations for the simple phenomena produced in front of a gathering, everyone who had been to private consultations had reported being given personal information that could not have been known to anyone but the deceased and their intimates. It was with some reluctance that Mina decided that the only way she might gather more information was to obtain a private consultation with Miss Eustace. The chances that Miss Eustace would agree to such a thing were, she realised, extremely slender, but she felt that she at least had to try. Once Mr Bradley had departed, she wrote a letter to Professor Gaskin asking if she might make an appointment.

  Mina remained sure that the Gaskins were as much dupes as anyone else, that the professor had embraced spiritualism as a means to enhance his standing, hoping to make great discoveries in science, while his wife bathed in the sunny glow of celebrity and the knowledge that she held a great truth which it was her duty and pleasure to convey to the ignorant. If the Gaskins’ apartments were arranged so as to facilitate Miss Eustace’s deceptions then it was done in innocence at her behest. Mina still did not know where the medium lodged, a location where presumably she stored all the items that were necessary to her performances.

  Richard breezed in, and said he thought he could have his mother sitting up and drinking tea in a trice. He had good news; his business was prospering and he had no need to borrow money.

  ‘Please do not tell Mother that you are appearing on stage with an almost naked actress,’ said Mina.

  ‘Oh, I will find some story to tell her, don’t fear!’ he said, hurrying upstairs.

  Richard returned after an hour announcing that their mother was vastly improved, and would almost certainly not need nursing, although she had announced her intention of never employing another companion. ‘I am afraid that will be your duty from now on,’ he said. ‘It is not what you might have wished, but I see no way to avoid it.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Mina. ‘I would gladly tend my mother night and day if she really needed me, but this is no more than one of her airy vapours. Rose shall see to her wants, she has been with us for five years and my mother likes and trusts her, and I will engage a daily woman to take care of the cleaning.’

  He smiled. ‘You have it all planned. Now then,’ he said rubbing his hands together, ‘Mother declares that she has no appetite for anything except a little broth, so that means there is a dinner in the house that should not go to waste!’

  Mina rang for Rose to order dinner and a suitable tray for her mother.

  ‘I really do think that it will benefit my mother far more if I was free to go about my business and put a stop to Miss Eustace, than sitting chained to her side,’ said Mina. ‘I don’t suppose Mother has mentioned Miss Simmons’s confession that she was Mr Clee’s accomplice in the séance they performed here?’

  ‘She has not, although that doesn’t surprise me. Simmons is a good young person and deserves better than Mr Clee, but unfortunately she can be easily persuaded of the reverse. Plain young ladies with no fortune can be made to do almost anything on a promise of marriage.’

  Mina gave him a hard look.

  ‘Oh, no please, Mina,’ he said hastily, ‘whatever I have done, I can assure you that I have never given any lady cause to complain of me. Does Nellie seem unhappy? But I know that other men do not have my scruples.’

  ‘Has Miss Gilden attended one of Miss Eustace’s séances?’ Mina asked, avoiding any further conversation on the subject of Richard’s scruples.

  ‘It has been hard to get tickets,’ said Richard ‘as the gatherings are so well patronised, but yes, by dint of calling herself Lady Finsbury and having an expensive calling card not to mention one of Mrs Conroy’s new Paris gowns, she was one of the congregation last night, and created quite an impression. She is all bows and lace and fans, and looks quite the thing. I think the Gaskins were very taken with her and, of course, Miss Eustace who thinks of nothing but money and how she can get it, has noticed her particularly.’

  ‘Was Mr Clee there?’ asked Mina, concerned that even from his seat at the back of the room he might have recognised Nellie from the séance at Mrs Peasgood’s.

  ‘Not in the flesh, but there were some rappings and knockings that might have been him. And if he had stood before her, he wo
uld not have seen the dowdy Miss Foxton in the elegant Lady Finsbury. As to her etheric and finely shaped friend,’ he added with a knowing smile, ‘I do not believe there was a man in the room who could have described her face.’

  ‘And what were the noble Lady Finsbury’s conclusions?’ asked Mina.

  ‘Exactly as we suspected, the effects are purely conjuring and chemistry and not very skilled at that. M. Baptiste is a hundred times better and he performs in full light. But then he does not pretend to be anything other than he is.’

  ‘And you, Richard? What are you pretending to be to please Mother?’

  ‘I am the manager of a theatre,’ he said, proudly. ‘A large theatre, patronised by Brighton’s most fashionable society. Respectable entertainment only, of course. Mother never goes to the theatre so I think she will not demand to know more, although if she asks to be driven past the establishment so she can see my name on the posters I will have to make some excuse.’

  ‘I might have wished you to be a private detective,’ said Mina, ‘then I could have employed you to discover where Miss Eustace lives.’

  ‘Oh, that shouldn’t be difficult!’ said Richard.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Mina ‘then I expect the answer within the week.’

  Twenty-One

  Not unexpectedly, Mina’s letter to Professor Gaskin was favoured with a prompt reply to the effect that Miss Eustace was unable to grant a private séance as her energies were fully occupied with her present clients. Miss Eustace, thought Mina, would be occupied for as long as was necessary to prevent her ever having such a consultation.