The Spirit Photographer

by Jon Michael Varese

  The girl would leave on her own—that much was certain. But the spoon was the revelation that something else had happened.

  How, through the years, had Jenny carried the weight of this indiscretion? If she had spoken a day or two later, would Isabelle never have been sent away? Jenny’s own confession was what needed to come to the surface. Because, after all, Isabelle had come back to claim it.

  “Senator Garrett,” Jenny had said. “I’m so sorry … I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done.”

  She was crying now, her usual staunchness finally failing her.

  “I would change it,” she said. “If I could go back and change it all, I would.”

  Garrett, at his window, had received the story with alarming composure. His whole life had come down to this moment … welled in the reflection of a child’s teaspoon.

  “Ah, Jenny,” he said, turning the spoon over in his hand, “you have been nothing but good to me these many years.”

  “But there is no excuse for what I done.”

  Garrett, again composed, as if readying to sing from a hymnal, breathed a sigh of acceptance for everything that had happened.

  “We are the keepers of our own fates, Jenny,” he said. “And while your meddling then may have been unkind, it was not responsible for the outcome. We all commit our crimes, Jenny … and in the end we must account for them.”

  XLV

  THE FIRST WITNESS for the Defense was Jeremiah Gurney—the renowned photographer from New York whose visit to Boston in the early days had been so instrumental to the establishment of Moody’s reputation. Once on the stand, Gurney described the visit, which had taken place on behalf of Charles Livermore, the New York financier.

  “I witnessed the process of Mr. Livermore’s photograph,” Gurney testified, “but I did not discover any deception. I saw the process of preparing the plate for taking the photograph, and watched Mr. Moody develop the picture. I can say with certainty that I witnessed nothing out of the ordinary, and that upon the negative there emerged—a shadowy form.”

  Gurney was of course referencing the spirit of Arabella Livermore, the distinctness of whose face in that early picture had created thousands of believers overnight.

  Townsend held up the picture, and the courtroom stirred audibly.

  “And this is the picture to which you refer, is that correct?”

  Gurney examined the picture.

  “That is correct,” he said.

  “And in your opinion,” Townsend said, “could this effect have been produced by any of the methods that the Prosecution has so eloquently laid before the court?”

  “By having a person stand for a short time behind the sitter? I can tell you that wasn’t the case here. Nor was it the case that a previously prepared glass was used, for I chose the glass plate for that photograph myself.”

  “And what of these other methods the Prosecution has set before us?” Townsend said. “Extra glasses or objects in the camera … reflectors … and things of that nature?”

  “In all my experience,” Gurney replied, “I have never known a picture to be taken by placing an object in the camera. It is not possible to take a photograph of an object unless it is outside of the instrument.”

  Appleton cross-examined Gurney, but Gurney’s stature was so immense that even when his answers did not make sense, the people believed them to be true. Despite a week of damaging presentations by the Prosecution, Moody’s trial, strangely, had become a place hostile to probing questions. The Spiritualists who dominated not just the galleries but also the steps and corridors outside, had somehow managed to infect the whole scene with the frenzy of their own beliefs.

  More witnesses came forward for Moody. There was Charles Livermore from New York, who told the jury that he believed the likeness of his wife so pure and so genuine, that any doubt about its authenticity was a crime against “the larger mysteries that we are all called upon to believe.” There was also William P. Slee, the well-known Spiritualist and photographer from Poughkeepsie, who had come on an investigation to Boston with his own camera, and who, upon witnessing Moody’s entire operation, had been “unable to find any device or trickery” in the spirit photographer’s process. And there was Andrew Jackson Davis himself, one of the fathers of the Spiritualist movement, who had sent numerous photographers of high reputation and authority to examine “the miracle” that was happening in Boston. “If these pictures be a swindle, or a sleight-of-hand deception,” Davis said, “then Mr. Moody’s ingenuity beats that of all the necromancers and prestidigitators of the present and the past … and frankly that is not something I am willing to give him credit for.”

  The stakes for Spiritualism had grown very high during Moody’s trial, and so it went on like that, for days and days, almost to the point of monotony. Moody’s lawyers went so far as to bring in an old woman from Delaware who told the story of a young man who had sat for his portrait with another spirit photographer there. When the portrait was developed, there appeared on the negative the spirit of an old man whom the sitter had apparently murdered for his money. The photograph, she said, had compelled the young man to confess the crime, and while she swore to having seen the photograph herself, she was not able to say for sure whether it still existed. The appearance of so undeniable a “truth,” however, was enough, in her mind, to acquit spirit photography in general.

  And then at last, nearly two weeks after Moody’s trial had begun, Mr. Townsend stood from his chair at the front of the courtroom, and said:

  “If your honor will indulge us one more line of questioning, the Defense would like to call … Miss Fanny Van Wyck.”

  The courtroom fell silent—the breath drawn out of it—and at the back the door opened, and the small woman appeared. She looked at no one as she held onto the arm of another Spiritualist, who accompanied her down the central aisle, through the parting and astonished crowd.

  The medium crowned the witness stand like a rediscovered sculpture, the black gems of her eyes gazing out upon the audience.

  Townsend approached her.

  “Please state your name and occupation for the court,” he said.

  “My name is Fanny Van Wyck,” she replied. “And I am a spiritual medium.”

  There was then a small wave of commotion in the courtroom, for there were many in the audience who had not heard Fanny’s voice in years.

  “Thank you, Miss Van Wyck,” Townsend replied. “And what is it that you do—as a medium?”

  Fanny did not move. She was the monument so many believed in.

  “My object,” she said, “is to give to those who believe, as well as those who do not, evidence of this new and beautiful phase of … spiritual manifestations.”

  “Spiritual manifestations,” Townsend said. “And for how long have you been doing this?”

  “It has been nearly twenty years since I commenced revealing the spiritual truth to those who have embraced it: scientific men, photographers, judges, lawyers, doctors, ministers … in fact, all grades of society. All of them now bear testimony to the beautiful truth that they have received through my mediumistic power.”

  “And Miss Van Wyck, can you—”

  “What joy to the troubled heart!” Fanny went on. “What balm to the aching breast! What peace and comfort to the weary soul … to know that our friends who have passed away can return and give us unmistakable evidence of a life hereafter—that they are with us, and seize with avidity every opportunity to make themselves known!”

  “Thank you, Miss Van Wyck,” Townsend said, “but can I ask—”

  “But alas, the enemies of truth want to close that old door of disbelief against them, and prevent them from once more entering the portals of their loved ones. But that old door is fast going to decay. It squeaks on its rusty and timeworn hinges … its panels penetrated by the wormholes of many ages …”

  Appleton at that point leapt up from his chair.

  “Your honor, I must object to this—”

/>   Fanny shot him a glance.

  “And through those penetrating holes,” she demanded, “the bright and effulgent rays of the spiritual sun have begun to shine.”

  “Miss Van Wyck,” Judge Downing said, “I’m afraid I must ask you to answer Mr. Townsend’s questions as he asks them.”

  Fanny made no reply. She was gazing out upon the crowd.

  “Miss Van Wyck,” Townsend then proceeded, “are you acquainted with the defendant, Mr. Moody?”

  Fanny’s head turned, not toward her questioner, but toward Moody. There he was—the old, sad Moody. The same old picture of himself. But at that moment something strange happened … something noticeable enough for many in the audience to detect. A kind of shiver had run through Fanny, as if in looking at Moody she had been startled.

  “Miss Van Wyck?” Townsend said.

  “I am acquainted with the defendant,” she said.

  “Mr. Moody?”

  “Yes, Mr. Moody,” she said. “And to answer your next question, I am familiar with his spiritual photographs.”

  “And how long have you been acquainted with Mr. Moody and his photographs?”

  “It does not matter,” Fanny said.

  Townsend looked surprised.

  “Please answer the question,” Judge Downing said.

  “I have answered it—it does not matter.”

  Townsend hesitated.

  “Miss Van Wyck … if you would please to tell the court: what your first experiences were with Mr. Moody’s photographs?”

  “My experiences were ones of horror,” Fanny said.

  “Excuse me?” Townsend said.

  “Yes—of horror, because it was clear to me from the first what he was trying to do.”

  “But Miss Van Wyck …” Townsend stumbled, “you have described the ‘beautiful truth’ of spiritual manifestations. Why then would such a truth produce in you an effect of horror?”

  “Because Moody’s photographs are not the truth. They are nothing but a sham.”

  The courtroom gasped, and Judge Downing called for order.

  “Excuse me?” Townsend said.

  “Mr. Moody’s photographs are nothing more than a sham, and he nothing more than a third-rate circus prankster.”

  Again the audience reacted, and Judge Downing banged his gavel. Appleton and his associates, while confused, were grinning broadly.

  “Miss Van Wyck,” Townsend said, “I must admit I am a bit shocked by your—”

  “That is all there is to say on the matter,” Fanny said. “Other than—”

  Fanny was now looking over at Moody, who was staring back at her with a compassionate gaze. The two knew each other, and even though Fanny had just tarnished him, there was an understanding between them that no court of law could ever muddle. Moody smiled—the slightest, barely detectable smile. It crawled up one side of his bearded mouth, somewhat hidden, but it was there, and Fanny could see it. In that moment they were as close as two lovers who had shut out the world … two soldiers on the journey that no one else dared to take.

  Then Fanny’s eyes blinked, and she again became stone.

  “I’m quite finished,” she said.

  Townsend sighed in disbelief.

  “Thank you, Miss Van Wyck,” he said. “I have no further questions.”

  LATER THAT EVENING, in the dankness of his cell, Moody read over the statement that the Spiritualists had prepared for him:

  In 1865, in the city of Boston, while engaged in business as an engraver, I took a photograph of Mrs. Lovejoy, who is the proprietress at 258 Washington Street. The photograph was of Mrs. Lovejoy and of Mrs. Lovejoy alone, but it was in the process of developing the plate that I first discovered the appearance of a second form …

  The statement was long—too long for Moody’s comfort—and was even embellished in sections with information that Moody had never himself provided. It told the story of his rise to fame—his unlooked-for career as a photographer of spirits—and of the multitudes of believers whose lives had been transformed by the “beautiful truth.” As he read, he realized how such elaborate words re-enlivened his treachery … how the statement prepared by the Spiritualists represented the greatest fraud he had ever been asked to commit. In the end, Moody was to assert that in the taking of his photographs, he had never availed himself of any deception: “These forms have appeared in each and every instance without my effort. They are forms captured by a power that is beyond the realm of human control.”

  Would he be able to read it? He had promised them he would. He had quietly agreed to speak whatever words they had prepared, because if he hadn’t, they never would have allowed him to speak at all. It was not the certainty of prison that Moody feared at this point. It was the fate of dreadful silence that scared him most.

  And as he thought this, the sound of the door’s bolt tore through the silence. His cell was dark, his candle having shrunk to a mere stub. The door opened and closed—harsh sounds again—and the outside bolt echoed its first call.

  Then, from the shadows, the small form stepped forward.

  “Moody—” it said.

  An odd feeling came over him. Then Fanny Van Wyck moved closer to the light. And for once Edward Moody was happy.

  “I do understand,” he said. “I understand why you condemned me.”

  “I would not say condemned,” Fanny said. “Saved. I was trying to save you.”

  He looked down at the statement—the dull words of the Spiritualists.

  “Ah,” she said. “And what will you do now then?”

  She was right, because Fanny had always been right. Since the moment he had met her, she had chastised him. There were powers in him, she had said, that he had criminally neglected. For Fanny, the crime had not been his fraudulent photographs—it had been his cowardice, and his failure to do what he had been called to do.

  “I do not want to go to prison,” he said. “But if that is my fate, perhaps it will be a start. The movement—”

  “The movement!” Fanny exclaimed. “The drivers of that movement are no better than you! Or at least no better than how you have been. The movement will survive—they will see to that. And in my own ways, so will I. The question is, Moody … what do our friends have in store for you?”

  “Our friends …” Moody repeated.

  Could they be friends to him, even now?

  “I see what you are thinking,” Fanny said. “You believe there may be no forgiveness. You believe that the punishment this world has in store for you will not begin to repair the damage you have caused.”

  “No, Fanny,” Moody said. “You are wrong this time. I know what I believe, and I do believe there is a way.”

  “Ah!” Fanny said, her eyebrows raising in surprise. “So you have come to something then, and believe what you should have believed all along …”

  They looked at each other, as they had many times before. Something touched them, though they themselves had never touched.

  “I see it,” she said.

  And then again:

  “I see it.”

  The candle flickered.

  “It was always what you were supposed to do,” she said.

  Moody eyed her—his face encouraging her to continue.

  “You brought her back,” Fanny said. “You placed her—”

  And with those words her voice trailed off. The cell became a dark room for Moody—a record of all the things he had done, and hadn’t done.

  For years he had rejected the idea of bringing her back, so much so that he had forgotten that she had ever existed. He did not whisper her name. He did not look at her photograph. He did not read and re-read the letter she had written before she left. There had been no point. The loss of her had broken him. There was no point to bringing her back.

  And yet—

  How they do come back … how it is that we cannot control them. We cannot be the ones to tell them that they are not allowed to come back.

  He placed her …<
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  “You placed her just where she belonged,” Fanny said.

  “I?” Moody said, exhausted.

  “Yes, Moody—you.”

  “I?” Moody repeated.

  “You did it,” Fanny said.

  And her eyes narrowed.

  “You … you summoned her back.”

  Moody’s hand moved over his heart, as if the negative still somehow resided there.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I am sorry for it all.”

  “There is nothing to be sorry for,” Fanny said, as she moved back toward the door. The candle was almost extinguished now, and Moody could barely see her.

  Fanny rapped her little hand on the door to call the guard.

  “Edward Moody,” she said. “It was perhaps the most honest thing you’ve ever done.”

  XLVI

  ON THE LAST day of the Moody trial, Eldridge Appleton stood before the jury. “Now, the Law does not deal with the supernatural,” he said in closing, “nor does it recognize the supernatural as an element when dealing with facts. And so in numerous reported cases, as where a man laboring under a hallucination hears voices ordering him to commit a murder—any defense based on the claim that those voices were real would be held untenable by the Law.” The Law did not recognize the existence of any superior or spiritual influences to justify what it considered a felony. “If today Mr. Moody were to commit a murder,” Appleton said, “and were to assert, as his defense, that spirits had urged him to commit it … that, my good gentlemen, would constitute no kind of defense at all. The Law does not excuse a murderous hand, whether guided by spirits or not.”

  For nearly two hours, Appleton rehearsed the “evidence,” pacing back and forth before the jury, with all audience eyes upon him. Edward Moody’s photographs had not simply been a crime against the Law—they had been a crime against his fellow men here on earth. “It is enough for the poor mother whose eyes are blinded with tears,” Appleton said, “that she sees a print of drapery like an infant’s dress, and a rounded something, like a foggy dumpling … and that all of it will stand for the face of her child, which she now accepts as a revelation from the world of the shadows.” Those who went to see Moody were prepared to believe, and were prepared to believe anything on very slight proof. “The Defense has demonstrated nothing more than that,” Appleton said. “The existence of a belief in Mr. Moody’s photographs is not the same thing as the truth of those photographs.”