Since the publication of my third novel, I’ve been asked a few times whether or not I believe in ghosts. Once you know the plot of that novel, the question won’t come as that much of a surprise. ‘The Spirit Guide’ is the third in the Variety Palace Mysteries, following on from ‘The Tumbling Girl’ and ‘The Innocents’. The novel opens in London, 1879, where my crime-detecting duo, Minnie Ward and Albert Easterbrook, areinvestigating two mysterious deaths. The trail leads Minnie to a grand country house in the Suffolk countryside, home of a spiritualist group. Once there, she finds herself isolated from everyone she loves and is confronted by some decidedly unsettling events that defy rational explanation. Mysterious visitations in the night, unexplained odours, screams in the darkness. Your classic ghost story fodder.
So, back to the question of whether or not I believe in ghosts. The short answer is ‘no’, simply because I’ve never seen any evidence to support their existence. But, strangely, I’ve lived in a house that other, perhaps more receptive, friends insisted was haunted. And I taught for several years in a school that was apparently inhabited by a spectral ‘Grey Lady’, a nun who broke her vows for a romantic relationship. In both instances, if I was living or working alongside supernatural beings, they were decidedly uninterested in me and never made their presence known.
But whilst I have no personal investment in spiritualism, the same can’t be said of the Victorians. The second half of the nineteenth century in particular saw intense interest in the paranormal, the strange, the unexplainable. The Victorians were fascinated by the idea of communicating with the dead, perhaps as a result of high infant mortality rates, perhaps as a reaction to the attacks on more conventional religious belief triggered by Darwinian thinking. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was famously a firm believer in the ability to communicate with the dead. Harry Houdini thought it was all a load of hokum. Houdini’s theatrical background might have been what triggered his scepticism. Victorian seances had a distinctly performative air about them, with a series of set pieces and a high level of trickery and illusion, something Minnie is quick to spot when she attends one with Albert.
My focus in ‘The Spirit Guide’, though, was not so much on whether or not ghosts existed, but more on why people would want to believe they do. Having lost both my parents, and other loved ones, I would give a great deal to have just one more day with them. An hour, even. So, I understand why people want to believe in the possibility of talking to the dead.
That desire for communion is, however, ripe for exploitation. In ‘The Spirit Guide’ Minnie insinuates herself into The Spirit Sisterhood, a spiritualist group targetting wealthy young women. The Sisterhood is a cult in all but name, a group of young women who believe themselves specially chosen, but who are actually being hideously manipulated. As someone once said ‘no-one sets out to join a cult’, and yet so many people find themselves part of one, often when it’s too late to extract themselves without great personal cost. Cults, initially at least, often offer something profoundly attractive to those they are targeting. The Spirit Sisterhood positions itself as a kind of proto-feminist organisation, empowering young women to abandon their corsets in favour of what was termed Rational Dress, to spend their money as they see fit, and lead a life not dictated by the expectation of marriage and motherhood.
And Minnie can see the appeal. Despite having her head firmly screwed onto her shoulders, a street-wise young women who grew up in one of the poorest districts of London and learned to survive — indeed, flourish — within a society aimed at suppressing working-class women, even Minnie isn’t immune to the initial allure of the Sisterhood. Although the delights of a bucolic existence in the wilds of Suffolk are entirely lost on her. She’s decidedly uncomfortable outside of London, distrusting the existence of cows and finding the quiet and immersive darkness as oppressive as the noise and bustle of London might be to others.
While undercover within the Sisterhood, Minnie is forced to confront events from her past, most notably the murder of Rose Watkins. Rose was Minnie’s best friend, whose murder in ‘The Tumbling Girl’ was the catalyst for Minnie’s alternative career as a private investigator. In the intervening years, Minnie has never fully come to terms with this loss. It’s in ‘The Spirit Guide’ that she finally reaches a resolution which enables her to move forward. And that resolution is only reached by coming face-to-face with her own particular ghosts and laying them to rest.
The Spirit Guide by Bridget Walsh (Pushkin Press) Out Now
Tragedy strikes Minnie Ward's beloved Variety Palace Theatre when a man is found dead in suspicious circumstances. Along with private detective Albert Easterbrook, she investigates. The trail leads them from the streets of London to a grand country house in the Suffolk countryside, home of the shadowy Spirit Sisterhood, who promise their clients an audience with the deceased. Minnie isn't buying it. She goes undercover within the Sisterhood and enters an eerie world of seances and mediums. But unravelling their secrets will bring Minnie face-to-face with ghosts from her own past. Can she get to the truth before the murderer kills again?
More information about Bridget Walsh and her books can be found on her website.
Photo © Trevor Watson
