Autumn/Winter 1790, S2E2-4
Autumn trees lost their leaves and soon became straggly skeletons of their former selves. The sea, though not yet in its January keening, beat upon cliffs and pounded shores, making water rush up the pump water channels.
Watt and Wedgwood, so easy and genial in their arrival left in cold, awkward haste, Thomas and Gregory not even having a chance to bid farewell to Jemima.
Worse still, Humphry was asked by Beddoes to return a week early to Bristol so he could make his presentation to Thomas Young of the Royal Institution. Jemima had arranged with her father for a few days with them to explore the Scillies again and had pinned her hopes on Davies.
But he also was to leave: he was to meet Dr. Young too, his paper on the Plutonian formation of rocks, with reference to rocks in the Cornish sub-landscape.
A sense of loss, felt in her stomach accompanied Jemima daily, with two consolations, the first was that they would return at Christmas, the second, the daily and perpetual consolitatory joy was the pumping engine.
Sir Francis has been right: more orders were taken, and she, Dick, and Edward - who stayed on and help.
"If Watt launches action, then he launches action!" Edward told her when an astonished Jemima saw him the day after the Statute fair, and went on to explain that mine owners were being won over because they did not need to buy new parts, whatever engines they had could be adapted, vastly reducing the costs.
Dick had not repeated what he had done the night Jemima had come to tell him she was putting her money into his locomotive engines. But for the occasional glances, when their eyes met, and he gave her a brief smile, it was like it had never happened.
Which was as it needed to be: Jemima's father could not know about this, and she suspected their work together would suffer. Edward's presence helped greatly, as did that of Drake Carne, who was needed to make parts that were needed when reassembling old Watt or Newcomen low pressure machines to be high pressure Cornish engines, the inlet valve recoil, the seocnd arm, another cog, an inlet valve casing.
Time flowed like the pumped water from the engines and soon the trio had fitted Fortune, Ishmaels, East and Treskilian of their own mines, from their own original pumping engines, and Leisure and Busy, with a start to be made on Grace.
"I thought Warleggan had ordered two engines," Edward asked one morning, as crisp cold clouds lay high in the sky.
"I spoke to Mr. Warleggan," William Wild told them, "And he wants a mine survey done first."
"He still wants the pump?" Dick asked.
"He says so," Wild told them, "And has asked for your father to come over too Grambler. I have said that we cannot spare him, our mines doing so well.
Jemima smiled inwardly, thinking about the offer Warleggan had made her. She had not gone to the Leisure installation but had listened as Edward told of their mine captain and workers who had not gone across to Grace, there were others of the Martin family, and the Lanyons, Rowes and Couches, all up from farming jobs, all happy to be at a profit-making mine, for copper was beginning to be lifted, just where Jemima had demonstrated it would lie.
She had been at Busy, though, Henry Harvey senior listening to her as she explained the principle of the Cornish engine design as Edward, Dick and Harvey's engineers of their once proud Newcomen as she was dismantled and refitted. Thankfully for Jemima, Jane was, "In Truro with your sisters and cousins," he told Dick, and Jemima supposed young women would be buying new dresses for the Christmas season.
It was telling how little she cared for clothes that it had taken until Captain Trevithick had discovered her wakes dress shortly after the 5th November Bonfire Night, and had returned it, wrapped in a linen bag, Mrs. Trevithick having laundered it for her.
His engine had had a test, hauled the head gear, and had brought up ten tonnes of coal from Falmouth. That was much more interesting than ribbons and laces. It was more lucrative, for a start.
Edward was returning to Brummigem after Christmas, to work with Gregory at Boulton's Soho works. He was under contract with Boulton and Watt and, being an orphan with few contacts saved those he knew from his work on Cornwall and even fewer options was going back to the Midlands.
"I'll write," he told Jemima, knowing her prodigious letter writing.
"I am sure I will visit. My uncle has written to say that Mr. Darby at Madeley wishes to extract his coal using steam…our Cornish pump might fit.". Except, of course, Abraham Darby might not be so confident in refusing to listen to James Watt's patent process.
"It is there I will be," Edward told her. "We know about the extraction problem, but the main problem the miners have is still firedamp and blackdamp."
Jemima shivered, and not from the brilliant cold of the morning. Though her father had bade to keep her away from the explosion at Netherton. The bodies of eighteen men were brought out burned from the back blast of the gas that had built up and exploded as they had held their naked candles forth.
Winter bore on and Christmas had meant the party given by Francis Bassett. Whether Jemima had even wondered if they would get an invitation or not, her mind was fixed on steam and machinery and engineering.
As Sir Francis had predicted, more mine owners had placed an order for a high pressure steam pump. Jemima returned very tired one evening and her father bade her bathe and dress.
"We are going somewhere?" she asked, when she reappeared in her wakes dress. Her father shook his head.
"We have been invited to Sir Francis's Christmas party," John Withering told her. He passed her the invitation. Blue ink spelled the words: "Pleasure Ball, While we Live Let us LIVE, Dr. and Miss Withering are requested to attend the ball at Sir Francis Bassett's house of Tehidy House on Tuesday 26th December to dine and dance."
"Oh, Jemima exclaimed. "Us both? That will be good, father." John Withering looked over the edge of Zoonomia, which had been on his teak table in the sitting room since Enys had returned it several months ago.
Edward and Dick had spoken about the party - they were going, and she had exclaimed that the three of them could go together and had put out her hands to them both. "I would not be happy unless you both accompanied me, we three are friends, are we not?"
Then the three of them discussed Murdoch's steam engine, and Dick confided in Edward that he planned to patent the locomotive engine and Jemima told Edward that she has invested her dividend from the Cornish engine into Trevithick's locomotives.
"1800, that is when Watt's patent expires," he told them. "I am glad for you, Dick, Jemima. I only wish I were to be here."
A thought had passed through Jemima's mind about whether the engine could be used by Abraham Darby, but Edward Bull, being downcast about leaving, it did not seem the right time to suggest that Dick could travel to Coalbrookdale, to Madeley, and demonstrate the machine. Hauling coal by a steam engine rather than horse would improve Darby's efficiency, and he would be able to make iron faster…cheaper…
They had agreed, and Jemima decided to make her wakes dress over with some of the lace from the dress that Mrs. Wedgwood had given to her.