Ghostly Images (5 page)

“It’s simply not right what they are doing!” she cried and limped to the safe resting on the floor in the corner. She bent down, only to feel a shooting pain in her back and knees, but she was determined not to give in to it. David brought over one of the small stools for her to sit on, which she reluctantly accepted. She struggled with the key in the lock but finally opened the door to reveal a safe bulging with brown and white documents and folders
.
When she placed her hand inside, some of the dust from the papers came out. She inhaled, and it tickled the back of her throat.

She handed a large envelope first to David, and then to John, who ripped his envelope open first. Six one-pound notes fell out. John picked them up along with a single sheet of paper. Inside the gold-leaf border in large, bold, italic writing said:
Certificate of Completion of Apprenticeship in Photography
.

John shook his head in disbelief. “There’s a mistake. I had five weeks to go to finish my apprenticeship…I can’t take your money after all that has happened.”

“My husband would want you to have it to buy a camera.”

“I can’t accept it,” insisted John.

Her cheeks reddened with impatience. “You will make me very upset if you refuse to take the money, John Evans.”

“But you have no income now,” said John softly.

“My brother has rescued me financially. He is coming to live with me when he retires after Christmas.”

David had no money in his envelope, but there was the same certificate of completion. He took a slow breath. Then he smiled broadly, and in his surprise couldn’t summon any words of appreciation.

She beamed. “I kept all the records and accounts for the business, including the dates when you were first employed by my husband if any official wanted to confirm that you are both fully accredited photographers. No one will know the truth, apart from us...and my dear husband.”

John’s face flushed. “I don’t know what to say, Mrs Jenkins.”

“The same goes for me,” added David. He brushed his finger delicately against the gold-leaf border of his certificate.

She put her finger to her lips. “Say nothing…though a kiss on my cheek would not go amiss.”

John kissed her on the cheek followed by David.

While the lads looked on, stunned by this news, she checked inside other envelopes. In one, she found a certificate of excellence in photography given to her husband in his early years as a photographer. In other envelopes, there were letters from grateful customers. Skimming through these brought her a sense of pride until she came to a string attached around a large batch of pale brown envelopes. Bile rose to her throat. These were demands from the bank and from creditors in the weeks preceding the bankruptcy. She threw these back in the safe in disgust. They hit the rear wall with a thud.

She brought out a bulky envelope, uneasily clambered to her feet, and walked over to the small table, placing the envelope delicately on it. She was about to open it but was distracted when she saw John take an object out of a drawer. No bankruptcy label was attached to it.

She limped over and took the neck clamp from his hand. It looked more like an instrument of torture than a photographic instrument.

“With the gelatin-bromide process and exposure times of one second, there’s no need to use neck clamps now,” said John.

“My Gareth had great faith in collodion. The image quality was far superior he said.” She handed the neck clamp back to John and rummaged through the drawer until she picked up a tiny photograph. “There are still a few of these old, metallic-looking photographs in the studio, but that was long before your time.”

“It was the Daguerre process,” said David. “I vividly remember Mr Jenkins telling me the history of photography. The hidden image is developed by vapour of mercury heated over a spirit lamp.”

She nodded appreciatively at David, proud of her husband’s masterful training of such fine lads. She returned the photograph and picked up another one. She looked at it intently, holding it gently within her swollen and painful hand. She cleared her throat. “My husband used this process briefly before he went on to the albumen on glass method. The ingredient of importance here was something every housewife would have in her kitchen…”

“The white of an egg,” David supplied.

“I can see that my husband did an excellent job,” she said and smiled at David.

“We could not have found anyone else matching his skill and patience as an instructor.”

“The years come and go so quickly...” she whispered, wiping her moist eyes with her fingers. “Life is precious but so fleeting...” She shrugged her shoulders, regaining her composure. The photographs had brought back old memories, but it was unusual for her to cry. She didn’t even cry at her husband’s funeral, knowing that it would be what her husband wanted.

Her husband’s favourite plate camera was a few feet away from her. She went over and wiped away the dust but stopped abruptly. “Come! Look at this and tell me what you see.”

David and John inspected the surface of the camera. “Dust,” said David, and John nodded in agreement.

“Does it not show the profile of my dear husband? Is it not his way of communicating with me?”

David took a closer inspection and then shook his head. “It shows that you’re in grief over the loss of your husband. That’s why you are clutching to primitive and unscientific belief in the supernatural.”

Her lower lip quivered. “You are young, David Taylor, and still have a great deal to learn. All of this so-called modern and scientific thinking cannot explain all the mysteries of the world. I’ve been attending a Spiritualist church for a few years now. The issue of human survival after death has always been something of great interest to me. I was sceptical at first, but slowly, I began to understand it was possible.”

“There’s no rational or scientific basis for this,” said David.

“The Fox sisters in New York were in regular contact with the dead,” she argued.

“How could they be sure that they were in contact with the dead?”

“They hear strange rapping noises in their house.”

David smirked. “I hear that sound nearly every night where I’m lodging. There’s a perfectly simple scientific explanation. For example, it could be something to do with atmospheric changes affecting the pressure of water in the pipes.”

“Or the sound of subsidence,” added John sarcastically.

“The Fox sisters had a code, so they could rap back questions to the ghosts who haunted the house,” explained Mrs Jenkins, “and the ghosts rapped answers back to them.”

“It all sounds a bit fishy to me,” said David.

“They held séances and were in frequent contact with the dead. I went to a séance in London last year. The medium went into a trance and spoke in the voices of spirits who have a message for the living,” she stated emphatically.

David grinned.

She levelled a hard gaze onto David. “You’re supposed to be an open-minded and rational man. You don’t know anything about these matters. It’s about time you got rid of that silly smirk! You should open your eyes!”

“I know superstitious belief must give comfort to the bereaved,” David said, “but the truth is more important.”

Mrs Jenkins’ limbs suddenly felt heavy and throbbing pains racked her body. She reached for the stool by the safe and dragged it over to the table. Sitting down, she reached for the bulky envelope. She didn’t want any further procrastination. She removed a photographic plate from the envelope. “I asked you to take a photograph of my husband with Patrick Tate’s camera on 10
th
August...the day of our silver wedding anniversary. I want the plate developed.”

“Are you sure?” asked David. “He was in a great deal of pain and died minutes after I took the photograph.”

“I am. In fact, I’m completely certain.”

John stepped forward. “Wouldn’t it be better to remember your husband when he was a healthier man? You have plenty of photographs showing him happy and smiling.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

“What don’t we understand?” asked David.

She gestured for them to sit. The lads picked up stools and sat at the table with her. “David, It was my idea you should have Patrick Tate’s camera for your birthday present. You’d only had the camera for three days when I insisted on you taking the photograph during the final minutes of my husband’s life. I had to make sure that there is an afterlife...I just had to…I need to know if heaven was about to receive him.”

“I’m shocked that Mr Jenkins would have Patrick Tate’s camera. He didn’t believe in the paranormal.”

“He was in a confused state and didn’t realise you were being given Patrick’s camera.”

“How did you come to get the camera?” David asked.

“A few years ago, Patrick became very ill and Byron Marsh bought his studio. I regularly went to Patrick’s house while other people turned their backs on him. He’d had several people visiting him purely to get their hands on his camera, but he didn’t like the look of them. He trusted me and gave me two journals—and his camera. His mental condition was fast deteriorating. It was only a question of time before he would be committed to the asylum. He said he was confident that I would know what to do with everything when the time was right.”

“Did Mr Jenkins know about this?”

“I never mentioned it to my husband. He despised spirit photography.”

“He was right. Spirit photography has a murky reputation,” said David.

She folded her arms over her chest defiantly. “You don’t know anything about spirit photography. The truth is that you are woefully ignorant on the subject.”

“Mr Jenkins was an excellent teacher,” said David.

She unfolded her arms and calmed herself. “I don’t doubt that he was, at least on any matter relating to traditional aspects of photography. But do you know anything about William Mumler?”

David shook his head. “I’m not sure, but I think he was charged with fraud.”

She wagged a finger. “You think you are knowledgeable about photography, but you don’t know a thing about this wonderful photographer from America. Even the judge who wanted to expose Mumler became completely convinced. William Black, a top photographer, investigated him and proved Mumler was totally genuine.”

“A double exposure can cause these supposedly ghostly images to occur. John and I have seen plenty of them over the last few years.”

“You’re only young, so what do you know?” she snapped. “William Black looked at Mumler’s camera very carefully before he had his picture taken. Then, he checked out everything in the darkroom and was astounded to see the ghost-like image of a man leaning over his shoulder.”

“In a few weeks, you will have forgotten about all of this,” insisted David.

“I will not.”

“Tate was nothing more than a charlatan,” scoffed John.

“It’s a pity that Tate was never exposed in the courts for being a fake,” said David. “He got people to sit motionless for several seconds as the camera shutter remained open while his assistant, dressed in a flowing robe or cloak, would sneak into the scene behind the subject for a second or two and then leave. When the picture was developed, a semi-transparent apparition would appear.”

“He was sure all the photographs he’d taken with his handmade camera were completely genuine,” argued Mrs Jenkins.

“You can’t be sure that he was telling you the truth,” David replied.

She took in a deep breath and, with more than a hint of smugness, said, “I can. I spoke with him in July this year.”

“Isn’t he locked up in that lunatic asylum in Danby?” asked John.

“Yes. I visited him there and have no doubt he was telling me the truth.”

“But he must have lost his mind and can’t distinguish truth from lies any longer,” David argued.

“He has lucid intervals,” she stated firmly. “Fortunately, I caught him on one of his better days. Patrick admitted to greed and faking his earlier photographs but always insisted that when he made that particular camera—the one you now own, David—everything was genuine after that.”

“But he’s insane!” cried David. “You can’t believe a word he says.”

She slapped her hand on the table but did not wince from the pain it caused her. “He admitted to his shame and guilt, but I believe him when he says that there is something very special about that camera.”

David gave a dismissive shrug. “It’s not scientific or rational. It is only wood, glass, and brass, just like thousands of other cameras.”

“I’m sure it’s very special.”

“In what way?” queried David.

Her eyes twinkled. “Patrick was a sceptic to begin with, much like you. After his wife died, he was ill and couldn’t work for several weeks. To pass the time, he decided to examine hundreds of his photographs when he started to notice something. With the aid of a magnifying glass, he started to see a pattern. Dots, shadows, and shapes appeared. These were ghosts—dead friends and relatives—on the photographs.”

“This was with my camera?”

“No. Factory-made cameras. He also examined other photographer’s prints.”

David scratched his head. “So what you’re suggesting is that
all
cameras can reveal psychic phenomena?”

“Yes. But the images are not clear enough to convince many people. Patrick showed some photographs to my husband. Gareth was unimpressed, to put it bluntly. Patrick was unhappy with factory-made cameras and set about making a camera that would conclusively reveal psychic phenomena, even to sceptics, like Gareth. Then he made…” She pointed at David. “Your camera.”

“Granted, it’s a beautifully crafted camera, but it’s not a
magic
camera.”

Mrs Jenkins ignored David. “Either by a fluke of nature or sheer hard work, Patrick had found another Holy Grail…A camera that reveals the mysteries of another world to us.”

David shook his head. “I have taken photographs of trees and found an image of a face appearing on the trunk. But this is a simulacrum, the human habit of looking for the familiar in the unfamiliar—like you did when looking at the dust on Mr Jenkins’ camera. In the end, it’s just an illusion.”