maintained.” He placed a high-backed Jacobean-style chair in front of the fireplace and asked Kate to sit in it. “Now, Madam Gummler, if you please.”
Madam Gummler rose from her chair, tossing the corner of her shawl that had drooped off her shoulder back around her neck. She walked to the camera and placed her hand above it. “This encourages the process,” she said, swirling her hand over the camera.
“How should I pose?” Kate asked.
“Hold out your hands as if to receive your little boy,” Godfrey said.
Kate did as she was told, sitting very still while Godfrey took the picture.
Madam Gummler put her hand over her chest and took a deep breath, looking as if she were about to swoon. She turned to me. “Someone is trying to contact you, and he is being most persistent. Would you like a photograph, dear?”
I shook my head violently.
“Please do not reject the spirits who have come to see you. It insults them,” she said. “I work to keep my parlor a hospitable environment for those on the other side. Do not destroy my efforts with your skepticism.”
“I am not skeptical,” I replied, trying to keep my voice calm. “I simply cannot afford your fee.”
“Why, Wilhelmina,
“Yes, Wilhelmina, please allow us to get this for you,” Jacob said. I supposed that he and Kate wanted to gather more evidence for their story.
“But Mr. Gummler has already taken the camera away,” I said. He had indeed left the room with the camera immediately after Kate had been photographed.
“Ah, but I have returned.” For how long he had been standing at the parlor door I did not know. “I unloaded the exposed plate in the darkroom, and I have placed a fresh plate in the camera,” he said, attaching the instrument to its tripod. “If you please,” he said to me, pointing to the antique chair, which suddenly looked to my mind like it had been used in the Inquisition.
I did not see how I could refuse. I took Kate’s place in the chair and, sitting very still and very glum, allowed myself to be photographed.
“I understand from other clients of yours that you allowed them to witness the development process,” Jacob said. “May we be afforded that privilege?”
“My pleasure,” Godfrey said, “if you can spare the time.”
We entered a small darkroom, foul with the odor of the chemicals of Godfrey’s trade. The room was stuffy and lit with a single lantern, its glass darkened with red-black paint. “It only takes a minute or two to develop the negative plates,” Godfrey said as he brushed both sides of the plate with a little camel-haired brush to remove the dust. “High-contrast pictures must be developed quickly, and in these cases, the contrast between the living subject and the spirit provides a veritable chiaroscuro of dark and light.” He placed the first negative in a pan and mixed a solution that smelled like ammonia in a large cup. After stirring it like a sorcerer with a glass rod, Godfrey poured the solution over the negative and swished the dish from side to side.
“Remarkable!” he said. “Mother, come look at this.”
Madam Gummler lowered her head over the dish. “Why look, there is the little babe,” she exclaimed. “There is your Simon, come to see his dear mother.”
The three of us looked over her shoulder. On the plate, as if it had come straight out of the ether, a wispy image of a bundle appeared lying in Kate’s lap. The face was indistinguishable, but the image did look like a baby swaddled in a pretty lace blanket.
Kate looked at the image, and then looked at Jacob.
Madam Gummler asked Kate if she needed to sit down, or if she thought she might faint, as was usual with women who make communication with their deceased children. Kate answered without emotion. “Will we be able to take a finished photograph with us when we leave?”
“Why yes,” Godfrey said. “Though I would prefer if you left it with us to dry. We could send it tomorrow.”
“No, we are set to leave for the country tomorrow to visit our relations. We must take the photograph with us,” Kate said.
I was surprised at Kate’s restraint in not exposing her true mission, but I supposed that she had to carry the ruse straight through to obtain her evidence. I began to have difficulty breathing, what with the acrid chemical odors and the heat in the tiny, cramped room generated by five bodies and no ventilation. I said as much, and Madam Gummler offered to make tea for us in the parlor while her husband developed the other negative and made prints of the pictures.
“You must be very excited,” Madam Gummler said to Kate as she poured tea for us.
“You have no
“Perhaps your photograph will show you who is trying to contact you, dear,” the woman said to me. “Sometimes the spirits are shy, but this is someone of power. I felt him here,” she said, pointing to her heart.
Kate snickered, and I was afraid that she was about to give us away, but she busied her mouth with sipping tea. After seeing the image of Kate’s nonexistent dead baby, we all knew that the Gummlers were running a fraudulent operation, but I was still curious about what Madam Gummler was saying. I wanted to question her, but I also did not want to alert Kate as to my recent disturbing incident. Not inquisitive, disparaging Kate.
Jacob walked over to the fireplace, which was not lit, it being summertime, and stared into it as if flames were there keeping his attention. Madam Gummler took a Spanish shawl from the back of one of her chairs and draped it over Kate’s shoulders. “It’s best to keep the body warm when one goes into shock from having contact with the dead.”
I wished she would have put the thing around me. I felt a draft sweep through the room and past my face, though no one else seemed to notice it. My body, which had been so hot in the darkroom, now felt as if a piece of ice were slithering down my spine. I wrapped my hands around the warm teacup and brought it to my stomach. It did not help the inexplicable coldness that was sweeping over me, and my hands started to shake. I put the cup down, hoping that no one would notice.
Madam Gummler was about to offer more tea, when Godfrey entered the room. He spoke to his wife. “Mother, I need your assistance.”
She excused herself and followed her husband back to the darkroom. Kate looked at me. “Are you well, Mina? You look positively
“I’m just a bit cold,” I said.
“Do not worry. We will soon be out of here,” she said.
“Quiet, darling,” Jacob said. “The spirits might be listening.” They both giggled. I did not know if he called her darling because he was pretending to be her husband, or if they were, in fact, lovers and Kate had declined to tell me.
The Gummlers entered the room slowly, Madam Gummler leading her husband as if the two were in a solemn procession. Each held a still-damp print with two fingers.
“We have a rather startling surprise,” Madam Gummler said. Godfrey went to give me the photograph, but his wife snapped at him. “One at a time, dear.”
She gave one of the photographs to Kate. Jacob and I rose to look at it.
“There he is, little Simon, so lovely in his mother’s arms,” Mrs. Gummler said.
“What do you think of little Simon, Mr. Reed?” she asked, handing the photograph to him.
“I think we have everything we require,” Jacob said.
“Require for what purpose?” Godfrey asked. His eyes, already hooded by heavy lids, narrowed into suspicious little gashes.
“We are journalists and colleagues, sir. We are not married, and neither of us has a child, either alive or dead.”
“We told you our story before we arrived,” Kate said in the familiar tone she had used with the tenement landlords. “You tampered with the plate before taking the photograph. You have deceived many people and defrauded them of money, but it won’t continue.”
Rather than succumb to humiliation or back down, Madam Gummler replied calmly. “Journalists, you say? Who came here with a lie? I ask you, who are the real frauds here? I submit it is the two of you.”
