The Heartbreaking Ghosts Book Detail That Makes Kitty’s Death All the Sadder

WARNING: This contains SPOILERS for series five of Ghosts

Oh, Kitty. For five whole series of BBC sitcom Ghosts we’ve wondered how this adorably naive, golden-retriever-in-Georgian-noblewoman-form (played by Lolly Adefope) came to lose her life, and thanks to the latest episode “Pineapple Day” we finally know the answer. 

But if you’re still reeling from discovering how Kitty died, we’ve got even more bad news for you, thanks to a heartbreaking revelation in one of her diary entries, which is featured in the show’s upcoming book Ghosts: The Button House Archives.

Quick recap: Kitty’s death is particularly cruel and needless (and, given how the other ghosts died, that’s saying something), stemming from an innocent moment of her textbook enthusiasm for life. As the show’s final series has recently revealed, Kitty was delighted to experience pineapple for the first time when Lord Bummenbach brought her family one as a gift after returning from the Americas. As Kitty excitedly held the pineapple aloft, she didn’t realise it was harbouring a poisonous spider, and she mistook its fatal venomous bite for the pineapple’s prickly skin.

But the new Ghosts book (published on October 26th) shows that this unhappy accident cut Kitty’s life short mere days after her fortunes changed for the better: she’d found love!

The book includes several of Kitty’s diary entries, which mostly reinforce the notion that her sister Eleanor was a right knob, constantly taking advantage of her trusting nature to inflict cruel, near-deadly pranks. 

The last entry was written just days before she died – 7th March 1780, to be precise – and describes a blissful night at one of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens’ famous masquerade balls. Eleanor had once again woken up and chosen violence, luring Kitty into one of the gardens’ notoriously hard-to-navigate walkways, known as “dark walks”, in an attempt to get her lost, before running away.

But these disorienting “dark walks” were also known for their romantic potential, and just as Kitty starts to panic and fall, she finds herself “caught in the safe arms of a young gentleman… his eyes so kind and gentle. He helped me to my feet and inquired if I was alright.”

When Kitty explains she’s lost, her mysterious stranger offers to help her find her way back to the party adding (rather dreamily): “He said he did not know the way himself, but at least if we were to be lost, it would be together!”

On the way back, they bond over their love of “music and fashion and animals” (the unfailingly positive Kitty also lists “talking” and “listening” among their shared interests), and once Kitty is reunited with her father her new friend introduces himself as Ernest Moore:

“Father said that he knew his parents and that he was welcome to call at the house. He said he would like to (I do hope he will!)”

Sadly, this final diary entry ends with the news that Lord Bummenbach’s visit is that weekend, and Kitty poignantly asks “Who knows what I shall have to write about after that?”

While she didn’t get the chance to write again, we’re sure Ernest Moore would have visited Kitty if he could, and given her the Love Actually romance she so craved… no YOU’RE ugly crying.

But, as our favourite optimist reminds us, without her untimely death she’d never have become best friends with her beloved Alison. We’re choosing to comfort ourselves with that.

Ghosts: The Button House Archives is published by Bloomsbury on 26th October, and is available to pre-order now.