Based on S1 E5, Early to mid 1788
A/N: The Ting Tong mines were later recorded as the Ding Dong mines, just outside Camborne. Francis Bassett was a real person, who features in the books/TV show.
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"But we have a contract!" Jemima Withering, having arrived at dawn, was outraged to find Ross Poldark blocking her way. He had then walked away from the mine office and had begun arranging the tackles that would bring up the third parcel of copper - so much copper from behind the blackstone.
But Jemima was not to be involved. Apparently.
"You are apprenticing me!" she persisted, running behind him. "My father wrote a letter - that you signed!" Poldark turned, and folded his arms.
"No."
"Yes!" she countermanded, and added, "Davies. Davies Giddy is a lawyer! He will know someone availed in employment law and…because you now have copper you…no longer need me?"
It was because Henshawe was not there. Jemima was expecting to see him, so they could continue planning the exploratory drill holes, to test to see where there might be copper still. To see if her prediction that the seam fell down lower than Poldark thought and joined up to Grace. It was to Henshawe she had confided her hypothesis. But he was not sitting in the chair in the office, and when Jemima went to put on her mining cap, Poldark had barred her way.
She could see he was uncomfortable with her confrontation, but she didn't care - let people hear he had broken his word. He turned and advanced on Jemima, stalking back to the office and bringing her along with him by gripping her shoulder.
When he had closed the door and stood in front of it, he continued, "I have not said you will not have an apprenticeship, and I am well aware that your actions have saved this mine," Poldark conceded, his arms folded again.
"Not me," Jemima replied. "The copper was there - you just took six months longer in finding it, though I instructed your captain as to exactly where it was."
"You - !" he shouted, then paced away from her trying to find the words he wanted to shut back at the impudent girl. But…he could not - there was nothing she had said that wasn't true.
"I will take your apprenticeship, and my wife still wishes you to come to our home to show her how to cook…what is it - oat cakes?"
"And William, that is, Captain Henshawe?" Jemima pressed, ignoring him.
"Is currently on leave in Launceston with his desperately ill wife." Poldark had the trump card - that did it. Jemima Withering was stunned for words for a moment.
"His wife," she echoed. Then stopped, and put her mind straight.
"Then, I am grateful. Where do you think more copper could be in this mine?" Her eye saw Wheal Grace in the distance. South West?"
"Why do you say that?" Poldark looked at her curiously.
"Because you told me Grace closed not because she was availed of her ore but because your father was out of money for a time. It is in roughly the same position as the copper behind the blackstone. There could be a seam - "
"Hardly. Look. Your seam runs diagonally down, and while I am confident of six months, too deep. How I know, I cannot say, but my skill does not divine and it is not hokum." There. If Poldark had high value cards in this game of verbal poker, she had to show one or two of hers from time to time.
"You heard what was said."
"Captain Henshawe told me what you said. It is true, I did kiss him. But, he was there when I - "
"When you - "
"When I risked my life to go deeper. Captain, the seam does not go deeper, it veers away from the cliff and heads towards Grace. Of that matter, it was improper of me and has never and will never happen again. Water was coming in and I feared for my life."
Poldark stared at her for a while. He would have been anywhere but in a mine at her age. At sea, fishing. With Elizabeth. He looked to the door, the sounds of the miners arriving at work drawing his attention, He turned his head back to Jemima.
"Well, I am grateful to you for your honesty. But, I am sure you are wrong."
"But I am not!" Jemima's voice was hot and sharp. From her pocket she took a piece of paper, well folded, stained at the creases. It was her log of the mine on a map she had drawn for herself. She unfolded it, and held it out to Poldark, who drew it to his face to look at it. "I took assays at various points - here, more blackstone." She pointed in the south westerly direction.
"You took the samples and analysed them?"
"Yes?" Jemima replied, as if to say, what else would I have done with them. "Most I have done - I am still working on any we got in the last two days - Henshawe knows this; worryingly, you don't."
But Poldark did not seem to notice the sharp barb. "You may be onto something, but you may be not. Minerals do not behave like coal seams, sometimes they go at different angles, or suddenly stop."
"I know," Jemima replied. "Leisure has taught me that. Coal is much a different animal. And your men are healthier."
"Hardly," Poldark shot back. "I have a friend who is studying lung diseases. Ask him whether the men are healthier." But Jemima knew she was right - the coal miners of the Midlands - in fact anywhere, would be amazed to find a mine with so few comparative hazards.
"They do not encounter pockets of get blown sky high. Were I a miner I would choose Cornwall or Wales or Cumberland any day to coal, though money is better and extraction rates are higher."
"Then, I had better let you survey south west and see what can be done." Jemima's heart soared, and she pushed unwanted thoughts of a now redundant attachment to the back of her mind.
"Captain Poldark?" He turned in the process of opening the office door.
"Yes, Miss Withering?"
"I would be grateful if you would tell Mr. Francis Poldark to stop trying to buy my services for his own mine. I do not believe determining the position of his ore would solve the problems." Again, her directness caught Ross Poldark off guard.
"When were you at Grambler?"
"I was not. Mr. Bettys spoke to me two days ago, and last week, and the week before, wishing me to call at Grambler. I have not." Not legitimately, at any rate, Jemima reminded herself.
"Miss Withering, supervise what we have, take Jago Martin down with you and take as many samples as you wish." And with that, Poldark left her in the office, closing the door behind him.
It was only when she was alone, later that day, deep underground with only hers and Jago's candles alight that she allowed herself to think of .
Married? But, of course he would never say. Yet, he didn't act married. He came to life when he was teaching her mineralogy and mining technique. She liked his humour, his patience. She was attracted to his strength as he yielded pick. She felt safe in his company, protected. Attracted.
Jemima remembered the kiss, the first on his cheek, which he had recoiled from. Another, his mouth on hers, his hands are her back, not forceful, but warm and strong. The Giddy girls had spoken to each other about this sort of kissing - Jemima should not have been listening, and she had learned more besides. But, to feel it? She had certainly felt the lurch in her stomach, the tingle of her skin.
No, no. He was gone now and she had a job to do. Now, she had the hammer and chisel herself and was working at an angle near the bottom of the 30 level. She needed to be further down.
"Jago, can you help me into the 40th? I want a piece I can compare with the one you are working on." It was a narrow squeeze, and the air was thin. It was no wonder Jago looked apprehensive.
"I won't be long. And, if I am, tell Captain Poldark I insisted, and there was nothing you could dio. But I really won't be long.
"OK, Miss," he told her, and turned to go down the narrow slope. Jemima followed him, and reaffirmed her own resolution: put him out of your mind, stick to your work, earn your money place and reputation. Get your reference from Poldark and go home, back to coal and the land you love. One day Leisure, Henshawe, Poldark - these will be all but a memory.
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"It's good to see you, Doctor Withering. It is good to know that doctors do exist that keep up with current knowledge."
"It is a pleasure, Lord Bassett," John Withering replied, standing behind his desk and extend a hand.
Digestion issues and an irregular heart, he had prescribed regular meals with more fruit and vegetables,"Which allow the passage of food through the system, sir," he had explained to Francis Bassett.
As for his heart, "Digitalis extract," he had furthered, feeling the glow of pride that it had been his brother who had determined that the extract of foxglove allowed for re-regulation.
William Withering had been conferred to the Royal Institution for this discovery, but it had been the Lunar men who had heard it first, Erasmus Darwin, Watt, Boulton, Wedgwood…they had sat, all those years ago as his brother had stood and explained what he had done, and the success rate of his patients, severely ill people who had made full recoveries.
"Your daughter," Bassett said, turning at the door. "It is unusual for a woman to be a worker at a mine."
"It is not, in Salop, sir," John Withering told his patient. "Many mine managers are women, as are they industrial managers, canal surveyors, metal workers. Whatever professional a man may work it is rare that fair women of the middle counties fail when she is allowed to succeed." Dr. Withering smiled.
"Even if the profession be doctor?"
"Dr. Darwin has trained two women, one works beside the admiralty now, the other has a practice in Shrewsbury," John Withering told Lord Dunstable.
"When I heard of my son's death, I promised my wife we would not limit Jemima - but she has always been an excellent mathematician and mineralogist. I expect nothing but her best, and she never fails to meet my high standards."
A slow smile formed on Francis Bassett's face, warm, sage and he took a step back towards John Withering.
"Admirable sentiments. Were I married, with a daughter of my own, I would wish her to have equity to her brothers. And is she safe?"
"As safe as I believe her to be in a mine. I trust her propriety, and that of the mine owner for control of his men."
Bassett smiled again and furthered, "And if my daughter, were she to exist, were a surveyor at Ross Poldark's Wheal Leisure, I would like someone to tell me if I thought there were better places in which to earn a living."
"You believe there to be such a place?"
"Your daughter has a growing professional reputation which is not going unnoticed by the mine owners and captains.". Bassett watched the man's face, expecting pride. But he only saw thoughtfulness and deliberation.
"This is true - Grambler's captain, Bettys, sought her out for advice on the lode," John Withering told him. "Although Grambler being a Poldark mine - ". He broke off when he noticed Bassett raise a hand.
"I am sure she has her own merit," the man told him. "I own controlling shares of two mines at Ting Tong, and on the board of investors at the other three - they know how to collaborate to get the best of the ores beneath. Your daughter would be a good fit there."
"And they are prepared to pay her? As a surveyor? Not on the cheap?"
"I am certain they will," he told Dr. Withering. "I expect she may feel reluctant, loyal. But she would have an opportunity few others get. Tell her to see Wild."
"Mr. Wild," repeated the doctor, "Yes, I will certainly tell her."
Lord Bassett was at the door before he turned once more. "She would benefit, as I see it, to be at a place less…open to instability. Good day to you."
Touching his hat, Lord Bassett turned and left John Withering staring at the door.
He brought the enigmatic statement to dinner the next Saturday evening. In the same tradition as the men in Birmingham, Reverend Giddy and Thomas Beddoes chose to continue the tradition of monthly meetings by the full moon, an arrangement beginning when Wedgwood and Gregory Watt had first cone to stay, and one they had kept up.
John Withering rode his horse by a brilliant, translucent April moonlight south west to St. Erth, mind on Bassett's words. After the lamb and spring vegetables, the men retired to the withdrawing, and John Withering broached the subject.
It was Edward Giddy who provided a possible explanation after explaining to his friends Davies's success in Bristol at securing his own law practice, and told him that there had been a buyout of a shareholder, with another one being discussed informally.
"Do we know the man?"
"The banker, George Warleggan," Giddy told Withering. He gave a smile and a little shrug.
"If it is a banker, he would wish to enrich the mine, not cause a shareholder breakdown. Beddoes?"
"I would agree," he told his friends. "I believe this is the very opposite of instability.". Giddy poured the port from the Brierley glass decanter that had been a present from Dr. Withering when he had arrived, one of the few possessions not repossessed when he lost Bank House.
"I surveyed that mine, so I know it. I also know the Ting Tongs are prone to flooding."
And after that, with a mind to tell Jemima that she had been invited to see the mine by Lord Bassett, John Withering thought no more about the conversation and instead, broke first for a game of cribbage, anticipating an evening with good drink and excellent company.
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"My father is a doctor," Jemima told Dwight Enys, when she was sent by Ross Poldark to Leisure's office hut. It was a few days after her father's advice from Bassett, and at that point, Dr. Withering had mentioned in passing that William Wild would like to discuss her working for him.
The man had introduced himself and told her he was studying mine diseases, and as quick as Jemima had sat she stood back up again.
"Perhaps you do not understand my intent?"
"You study mine diseases," Jemima repeated. "And my father is a doctor. Should I have a disease, he would be the first person to notice."
"Oh, well then," Enys cleared his throat, feeling the feeling that he had just been put in his place. "Do you nurse, Miss Withering?" Jemima examined his face - he seemed almost as young as Davies, and not at all prepared for her answers.
"I have, I do," she told him. "Would that a miner need immediate help. But I have no mind to take it on."
"Ross, that is Captain Poldark has said you work in his mine. How are you finding that?". He twiddled his pencil between thumb and forefinger as he anticipated her answer.
"Only three miles walk from my home; I never get lost.".
"Oh, no I meant - " Despite her getting a little fun teasing the doctor, Jemima stopped and answered him.
"Yes, I know. I am not a natural nurse, but I do it when my father requires. I like working in the mine and I hope to please my father by pursuing a worthwhile career."
"I am sure you will," he told her. "Now, I would just like you to stand, and take this bag." Enys handed her a linen bag, empty, or so it seemed. "Now when I say, I would like you to take a deep breath and blow into it. Cover your mouth and nose with it, so all your breath goes in. Understood?"
"Understood," Jemima nodded. She was about to breathe in when Enys stood to one side of her, raising his hands to her body.
Afterwards, Dwight Enys would tell Ross Poldark that he was only going to put his hands close to her front and back in case she lost balance and fell, and that Jemima had misinterpreted his intentions.
Jemima, on the other hand, just saw the man's hands attempt to grip her back and chest so, instead of exhaling, she rounded her left arm and swung it back, then forward into the man's face, letting out an almighty scream.
Zacky Martin had got there first, shortly followed by Poldark.
"I…I…". began Dwight, as Ross helped him to his feet. He looked at Jemima, his face expressing anger and inquiry.
"He made to touch me where he should not," Jemima told Poldark, when Zacky had escorted him out.
"This is all I need, on a day like today!" Poldark stormed, slamming the office door behind him. A few muffled words came from Poldark and, presumably Enys, and then Poldark.
Once Dr. Enys's explanation came forth, however, Poldark stepped back in and asked whether he could be there, explaining that it was to steady her if she were to faint.
Jemima was cross. She had been with her father enough times to know how to speak to a patient. You always, she remembered John Withering impressing on her, demonstrated your intentions, you always had a chaperone if a woman was alone. The basics! Was this man even qualified, who looked younger than she was. He had annoyed her, now, and she looked firmly at Poldark, her arms still folded.
The procedure done, Enys looking suitably chastened by Jemima's left hook, that had given him a red face, and a black eye tomorrow, asked for Poldark to stay while he asked her a few questions.
Why did she mine? Was it for money? Was her father's income insufficient to keep them?
When she hadn't answered one, Enys looked uncertainly over to Poldark, who looked as if he were about to say something to Jemima. But instead, she took the lead.
"You mean, you see me in a hobby, not a profession, Dr Enys, and one day I will settle down and do female things.". Jemima got to her feet, anger causing her usual demeanour to evaporate. "Let me tell you, no, I will not, not ever spend my life crocheting or bringing up infants. I am good at this work - others think I am good at this work and I have had - "
"But, what precisely do you do, Miss Withering? Doctoring? Nursing?"
"She mines," Ross told him, sensing an eruption of temper in the girl which he had not seen before. He glanced to Jemima, and held her glare, "She takes samples of the ore, assays them, takes measurements and has a knack of knowing the location of nearly every metal rock in this mine." Jemima had now transferred her glare to Ross, who was now looking at her. "She knows precisely what we need to do and when, and inspires my workers. In short, she is exceptional."
"Well, yes…" Dr. Enys tailed off, looking at his paper, his pen shaking, not from fear, but because he did not know exactly what he should write.
Poldark nodded to Jemima, as much as to ask whether she was satisfied now. Jemima nodded, and managed a smile and she watched the man escort the doctor out again, closing the office door. Jemima strode over to it to listen.
"Enys, I have more to worry about than Jemima Withering and her blasted coal. But need her I do if I want to get my copper out, will that do you?"
Jemima listened as Poldark conversed with Enys, and she overheard the doctor wondering about getting all the lung samples assayed. She opened the door.
"I will do it, Captain Poldark," she declared. The look on Dwight Enys's face was one of disbelief.
"After I go to Polreath tomorrow, I can stop by my friend Davy's house and we can both go to the smelting works and assay them together.
Which is what Poldark agreed to, and what Jemima did, bringing a full breakdown of substances they had determined for every miner Enys had tested.
"She is exceptional," Dwight Enys told Ross Poldark the same evening, as they rode out to hear the travelling players performing.
"I know," Ross agreed. "And I have a feeling I am going to lose her to a bigger mine, unless I do something to keep her here.
The nefarious scheme that came to Ross's mind at that moment never truly went away, and in the future he would wonder whether he had not engineered its come to pass anyway.