figured out who Iris and Alice Carpenter really were and where they lived.
In Scarborough, Frances hated it when the newspapermen tried to interview her.
To avoid them, she snuck to school by cutting through a back lane toward the sea, then taking a roundabout way through the streets. After school, she would walk in a crowd of other girls and hide her face by pulling her scarf up and letting her braids swing forward. When reporters did find her, she’d tell them it was nice up the beck, and yes, she did see fairies.
And after that, they didn’t seem much interested in what she had to say.
Elsie was working in the upper room at the Christmas-card factory when a message came from the front office: a reporter was asking to see her. He was from a London newspaper, the
Westminster Gazette.
Elsie sent a message back saying she didn’t want to be interviewed. But the reporter sent another message, asking again.
So Elsie went down to the front office and stood behind the low counter. She was tall and slender and very pretty. Her thick auburn hair was tied back with a narrow gold band that went all around her head.
She told the reporter she was “fed up” with the fairies and didn’t want to talk, but he began to question her anyway.
He asked her where the fairies came from, and she said she didn’t know.
Did she see them coming?
“Yes.”
Then, the reporter said, she must have seen where they came from.
Elsie hesitated, then laughed and said she couldn’t say.
Where did they go after dancing near her?
Elsie said she couldn’t say.
After that, Elsie didn’t want to answer any more questions, but the reporter wouldn’t leave. Perhaps, he suggested, the fairies “simply vanished into the air.”
“Yes,” said Elsie.
Elsie told him the fairies didn’t speak to her, and she didn’t speak to them. She and Frances were the only ones who saw them. “If anybody else were there,” she said, “the fairies would not come out.”
The reporter seemed puzzled. He asked her to explain further, but all she would do was smile and say, “You don’t understand.”
Elsie told him that these days, it was getting harder to see fairies. The fairies’ shapes were more “transparent” now. Before, they were “rather hard.”
“You see,” Elsie explained, “we were young then.”
The reporter didn’t seem to understand, but Elsie wouldn’t add anything more.
When the article came out in the newspaper, the headline said:
DO FAIRIES EXIST?
INVESTIGATION IN A YORKSHIRE VALLEY
COTTINGLEY’S MYSTERY
STORY OF THE GIRL WHO TOOK THE SNAPSHOT
“My mission to Yorkshire was to secure evidence, if possible, which would prove or disprove the claim that fairies existed. I frankly confess that I failed,” the reporter wrote.
Elsie the school-leaver, Elsie the best-of-the-worst-or-the-worst-of-the-best, had outwitted the man from the London newspaper.
After that, reporters thought Elsie might have used trick photography to fake the fairies. So they went to Gunston’s Photography Studio and asked Mr. Gunston about her.
Mr. Gunston didn’t even know who she was. After a while, he got mad that reporters kept coming around and asking about some little nobody who used to work in his basement.
When Elsie found out, she wished she could have seen Mr. Gunston’s face.
T he newspapers didn’t come right out and call Elsie a liar, but they came close.
“I would suggest to Miss Elsie that she has carried her little joke quite far enough, and that she should tell the public what the ‘fairies’ really are,” proclaimed the
Times
of London.
“I know children,” someone wrote in a London magazine. “And knowing children, and knowing that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has legs, I decide that the Miss Carpenters have pulled one of them.”
It never seemed to occur to the newspaper writers that if Elsie and Frances said it was all a joke now, their parents wouldn’t think it was one bit funny — and Elsie and Frances
In Scarborough, Frances hated it when the newspapermen tried to interview her.
To avoid them, she snuck to school by cutting through a back lane toward the sea, then taking a roundabout way through the streets. After school, she would walk in a crowd of other girls and hide her face by pulling her scarf up and letting her braids swing forward. When reporters did find her, she’d tell them it was nice up the beck, and yes, she did see fairies.
And after that, they didn’t seem much interested in what she had to say.
Elsie was working in the upper room at the Christmas-card factory when a message came from the front office: a reporter was asking to see her. He was from a London newspaper, the
Westminster Gazette.
Elsie sent a message back saying she didn’t want to be interviewed. But the reporter sent another message, asking again.
So Elsie went down to the front office and stood behind the low counter. She was tall and slender and very pretty. Her thick auburn hair was tied back with a narrow gold band that went all around her head.
She told the reporter she was “fed up” with the fairies and didn’t want to talk, but he began to question her anyway.
He asked her where the fairies came from, and she said she didn’t know.
Did she see them coming?
“Yes.”
Then, the reporter said, she must have seen where they came from.
Elsie hesitated, then laughed and said she couldn’t say.
Where did they go after dancing near her?
Elsie said she couldn’t say.
After that, Elsie didn’t want to answer any more questions, but the reporter wouldn’t leave. Perhaps, he suggested, the fairies “simply vanished into the air.”
“Yes,” said Elsie.
Elsie told him the fairies didn’t speak to her, and she didn’t speak to them. She and Frances were the only ones who saw them. “If anybody else were there,” she said, “the fairies would not come out.”
The reporter seemed puzzled. He asked her to explain further, but all she would do was smile and say, “You don’t understand.”
Elsie told him that these days, it was getting harder to see fairies. The fairies’ shapes were more “transparent” now. Before, they were “rather hard.”
“You see,” Elsie explained, “we were young then.”
The reporter didn’t seem to understand, but Elsie wouldn’t add anything more.
When the article came out in the newspaper, the headline said:
DO FAIRIES EXIST?
INVESTIGATION IN A YORKSHIRE VALLEY
COTTINGLEY’S MYSTERY
STORY OF THE GIRL WHO TOOK THE SNAPSHOT
“My mission to Yorkshire was to secure evidence, if possible, which would prove or disprove the claim that fairies existed. I frankly confess that I failed,” the reporter wrote.
Elsie the school-leaver, Elsie the best-of-the-worst-or-the-worst-of-the-best, had outwitted the man from the London newspaper.
After that, reporters thought Elsie might have used trick photography to fake the fairies. So they went to Gunston’s Photography Studio and asked Mr. Gunston about her.
Mr. Gunston didn’t even know who she was. After a while, he got mad that reporters kept coming around and asking about some little nobody who used to work in his basement.
When Elsie found out, she wished she could have seen Mr. Gunston’s face.
T he newspapers didn’t come right out and call Elsie a liar, but they came close.
“I would suggest to Miss Elsie that she has carried her little joke quite far enough, and that she should tell the public what the ‘fairies’ really are,” proclaimed the
Times
of London.
“I know children,” someone wrote in a London magazine. “And knowing children, and knowing that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has legs, I decide that the Miss Carpenters have pulled one of them.”
It never seemed to occur to the newspaper writers that if Elsie and Frances said it was all a joke now, their parents wouldn’t think it was one bit funny — and Elsie and Frances
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