Mr Scarletti's Ghost (10 page)

‘Only deportment classes,' said Mina. ‘I was required to walk in a circle with a bag of shot on my head while juggling oranges. I was not their best student.'

Miss Hamid smiled. ‘I believe that oranges are better when the flesh is eaten and the peel dried for its scent. I would like you to undertake some suitable exercises, but I do not wish you to attempt them alone, not yet. Some of the movements, known as callisthenics, would be very beneficial to you, but only if performed correctly. Others, however, are best avoided. If you would like, then the next time you come here I will show you what to do. You need to strengthen your weaker side, but take care not to neglect the other, and also work on expanding the chest to help your lungs and heart. We will begin slowly. You must be patient and avoid over-exertion which can be harmful.'

Mina smiled, because Miss Hamid knew, and she also knew, that she would return. ‘I would like that,' she said.

‘Young women are often dissuaded from exercising, as if weakness was a desirable state,' said Miss Hamid. ‘But it is not. You can be strong; stronger than you might imagine, stronger than anyone would expect of you. Your mind is already very strong, but your body can be as well.'

Mina had never thought of herself as a creature of the body, but began to see that she had spent the last nine years merely trying to exist with her condition, and find an occupation for her mind that would distract her from it. Miss Hamid had offered her not a cure, which was not within her powers, but a means of alleviating the symptoms, and perhaps also making herself into something better than she was.

With an agreement that she would call on Eliza Hamid in two days' time, Mina departed for her home. As she stepped into the open air she felt that she took with her some of the scent of herbs and flowers in which she had bathed and whose delicious savour she had inhaled. The sun seemed brighter, the sky more glowing, the air softer, the people more colourful, the season more charming than they had been before.

She returned to find that an important package, which she had requested by letter from Mr Greville, had arrived. It was an unbound advance copy of the report of the special committee of the London Dialectical Society regarding their investigation into the question of spiritualism, the report that Professor Gaskin had spoken of in such exultant terms.

F
ortunately Mina's mother, nesting in the parlour amongst an array of periodicals and pamphlets, was too preoccupied with her own concerns to be curious about the delivery, which did not excite any comment. Mina passed on the message she had been given by Mr Bradley, and Louisa received the news with pleasure and informed Mina that she expected her to attend the healing circle on the following day. It would be a meeting of important and fashionable individuals and quite the most glittering event of the season to date. Mina, expecting no more than the usual gathering of bored widows, quickly agreed and took the parcel up to her room as soon as she was able. The size and weight of the package had suggested to her that it might contain other works, too, since she had expected the report to be a slim bundle of papers, but on unwrapping it she was astonished to find only the report, a work that ran to almost four hundred pages.

It did not, however, take very long for Mina to discover that Professor Gaskin, who claimed to have read the report, had made two very significant errors of judgement. Professor and man of science he might be, but he was as vulnerable to bias as anyone else. He had, first of all, chosen only to see those areas of evidence that might favour his own viewpoint, interpreting them in a manner that supported his contentions, while ignoring not only the other possible and indeed more probable interpretations of events, but also additional evidence and points of view which were not favourable to his cause. The man who pitied the closed minds of others did so, thought Mina, with a mind that was in itself closed. He had also made the fatally dangerous assumption that no one present at Miss Eustace's séance would take the trouble to read the report and compare its findings with his description.

Mina settled herself at her desk, raising her hip with the new cushion, which was a wonderful improvement on the old one, and started to read.

Even a small and seemingly harmless falsehood invited suspicion from the outset. Professor Gaskin had implied that the report was to be published by the Dialectical Society, but this, Mina saw at once, was not the case. The Society had appointed a committee to investigate spirit phenomena in January 1869, which had reported its findings in July 1870, in the hopes that the Society would publish them. The Society had noted the committee's report but had declined to publish, a refusal that suggested to Mina a lack of trust in either the conduct of the investigation or its conclusions. The committee members had therefore taken the decision to publish the report themselves.

During the course of the enquiry, six subcommittees had been created, each of which had held meetings and séances. The committee had also collected statements from non-members, all of whom were believers in supernatural phenomena, having failed, for reasons it was unable to explain, to obtain evidence from anyone who attributed the phenomena to fraud and delusion.

Mina was less interested in opinions than results and so studied the reports of the six subcommittees with especial interest.

Two of the subcommittees reported that no phenomena at all had occurred during their meetings, and another was conducting séances with Mr Home, who, since he was a cheat with money, was in Mina's opinion likely to be a cheat in other things, too. She decided that these three subcommittees had failed to prove anything.

Two subcommittees had heard rappings and witnessed the movement of a table, but this occurred only when certain individuals were taking part. The presence of these persons was undoubtedly essential to the results but whether this was due to their supernatural powers or the ability to deceive was not, in Mina's mind, established beyond doubt.

The most extraordinary performances were at meetings that took place at the houses of two members of the Dialectical Society where, to avoid any suspicion of fraud, the gatherings did not include anyone claiming to have mediumistic powers. Not only did rapping and table moving occur but, by giving the meanings ‘yes' or ‘no' to numbers of raps, or even spelling out words when one of the party named a letter of the alphabet, it was possible to establish a free communication with the spirits who had produced the manifestations. These cheerful entities expressed a friendly regard for those present and were able to provide correct answers to questions and personal information. The subcommittee members had no doubt that they had been in communication with spirit intelligences, but reported that they had inevitably failed to obtain any manifestations without the presence in the party of the wives of the two members of the Dialectical Society. Mina was left weighing up two possibilities, one being that the party had been conversing with the spirits of the dead and the other that the two ladies had been mischievously providing their friends with some novel entertainment.

The conclusion drawn by the committee from these mixed results was that sounds and movement of objects did occur without having been produced by muscular or mechanical action, and the ability to spell out answers to questions showed that the phenomena were directed by an intelligence.

Further reports revealed that while many members of the society suspected fraud they had been unable to offer any proof. This was unsurprising since once an observer was suspected of being a sceptic who was bent on exposing imposture, the false medium, on being alerted to the danger, quickly arranged matters so as to avoid detection. This was done in a number of ways, the simplest being to produce no phenomena at the séance and then announce that his or her powers were exhausted that day, or that the spirits were being capricious, or even attributing the failure to a hostile influence in the circle. The hostile influence was of course the sceptic, who was thereafter
persona non grata
in the company, since both the medium and the circle of believers would not want that person disrupting their sittings in future.

It was with particular interest, and some amusement, that Mina read a letter written by the chairman of the Dialectical Society's special committee, a Dr James Edmunds. Fending off earnest attempts by spiritualists to persuade him that he himself could be a powerful medium if he would only open his eyes and recognise the fact, he remained unconvinced by the committee's conclusions, and had submitted his personal observations.

In May 1868 Dr Edmunds had attended a public exhibition at St George's Hall, London, given by the Davenport brothers, Americans who were touring England giving demonstrations of phenomena which they attributed to spirits but which many who had seen their performances had denounced as little more than clever, albeit entertaining, conjuring. Mina recalled the Davenports' tour, which had been widely reported and discussed in the London newspapers. The two young men had a large wooden cabinet specially constructed for their performances, which they carried about with them on their tour. Volunteers from the audience were first invited to make a thorough examination of the apparatus, after which two chairs were placed inside the cabinet, to which the brothers were securely bound. A collection of musical instruments, such as tambourines, bells, violins and guitars, joined them in the cabinet and the door was closed. Almost at once the instruments produced a perfect babel of sound, while spirit arms and hands were seen protruding through an overhead aperture. Every so often the door of the cabinet burst violently open and an instrument was tossed out on to the floor. Their most remarkable feat used a coat borrowed from a member of the audience, which was placed inside the cabinet and was later found on the person of one of the brothers, yet when they were examined after the performance the knots and ligatures were found to be as sound and tight as before.

Dr Edmunds was unable to explain away what he had seen that night, which had involved flying violins and the use of his own coat in the famous trick. Later the same month he was invited to attend a private séance, which was to be followed by the Davenports giving their acclaimed cabinet performance. Edmunds, though a natural sceptic, determined to approach the evening with an open mind, anticipating that in a private room he would have a better opportunity to observe and investigate the phenomena. Perhaps his reputation had preceded him, or the company was wary of any newcomer, for when the sitters were conducted to their places he found himself at a large round table that had been pushed close to a corner of the room so trapping him in his place. Had he been inclined to slip off his shoes and creep silently about the darkened room looking for evidence of imposture, something he had thought of doing, he would have been quite unable to do so. The part of the table towards the centre of the room, and thus allowing sitters free movement, was, he noticed, occupied by avowed spiritualists. Edmunds wisely decided not to protest about this arrangement in case he was held to be hostile, in which case he felt sure that no phenomena would occur.

The sitting proceeded in complete darkness for some little time. A few raps were heard but nothing of note occurred, and the company was finding the occasion somewhat disappointing, when it was decided to try and obtain a spirit drawing. The gas was relit and a portfolio case was placed on the table and opened to demonstrate that it contained nothing but a sheet of plain paper, then the case was closed again and a pencil placed nearby. The gas was about to be turned out when Edmunds suggested to a friend, who was also a newcomer to the gathering, that as a further test they should first initial the paper. He opened the case and saw that the paper was not, as he had at first supposed, a plain quarto sheet but a much larger sheet that had been folded. On unfolding it he saw on the interior of one flap a detailed pencil drawing of an angel. He tore off the portion with the drawing and he and his friend wrote on the remaining part of the sheet, which was returned to the case. The gas was turned off and he heard the sound of loud rustling, which led him to suspect that one of the spiritualists at the table had opened the case, and was handling the paper. When the gas was relit there were only a few ambiguous marks on the sheet and the test was declared to be a failure. The spirits, it was explained, were ‘capricious'. The sitters were not wholly disappointed by the séance, however, for a basket of fresh flowers was then produced under cover of darkness, which a Mrs Guppy claimed had flown through the walls but which Edmunds thought had travelled from no greater distance than the sideboard. Dr Edmunds was by now finding himself unable to conceal the fact that he thought the whole performance was a deception and was unsurprised to be told soon afterwards that the Davenports would not be performing their miracles as they had no spiritual power that evening.

A Mr Samuel Guppy had later written to the committee to deny that Dr Edmunds's account was correct, but a diligent search through the papers enabled Mina to establish not only that Mr Guppy was the husband of Mrs Guppy but that he was an ardent spiritualist, and his wife professed to be a powerful medium who could shower her devotees with fresh flowers, and even rise up and fly about the room.

Other exhibitions carefully observed by the tireless Dr Edmunds had attributed the sound of spirit raps to nothing more supernatural than the medium's foot. He concluded that during all his investigations he had never seen anything that could not be accounted for by unconscious action, delusion or imposture.

There were other statements in the report, some from gentlemen convinced of the reality of what they had observed, and some from those who felt sure that they had observed something of note but did not believe that spirits of the dead were directing events. The consensus, if such a mixture of differing opinions could be termed such, was that there was something occurring which was worthy of further cautious investigation, a conclusion with which Mina could only agree. She would not wish to prejudge the outcome of such an investigation, but her own feeling was that she was more inclined to believe that a bunch of flowers could be carried across a room by human hands than fly through a wall by spirit power. If that made her a sceptic or even a materialist then so be it.