Mid to late 1789, follows S2E1
Her father was still not back when Jemima reached home. Tired and sore from her injuries she ascended the stairs and redressed in her work clothes, waiting a short while in the dining room, where Mrs. Vaughn had put breakfast out for her and a note that she would be back at noon, and retreated to the housekeeper's domain to find water from the well at the back and cleaned her face and arms and left her bags in her room.
Where was he? Jemima supposed she could walk over to Tehidy to enquire, but her father could be often a day or two at a patient's home, depending on the nature of the illness, and Jemima hoped that Sir Francis was on the mend, not least because the Ting Tong mines belonged to him and any inheritor may choose to keep them, but may think twice about Dick Trevithick's pumping engine.
It was while she was eating the bread and cheese that a knock came to the back door. "For Mistress Withering," the messenger told her, and Jemima found a penny in her jacket to give to the boy. It was from her father, saying he was still with Sir Francis and would be home that evening.
Two letters - Sunday was a day for writing them, Jemima supposed - one to Humphry, and told him about the copper that was being pulled from behind the blackstone, as she had theorised, "...at least someone is listening to me…" and wrote to ask him how his work at the hospital with Beddoes was, what had he learned, what had he discovered. "And have the fish and fauna discovered that you have discovered them?" Jemima had finished with, remembering her friend's obsession with hunting. Sea fishing was his favourite, although river fishing may have to do, so far from the coast that he was.
The other was also heading to Bristol and was to Davies, telling him she was delighted with his news, if his mother and sister were to be interpreted to be saying he was to be engaged. "...I cannot wait to hear about this wonderful woman who my dearest friend has chosen to marry…" and later on in the letter told him, "...I do not see a school failure in Dick Trevithick, only a talented engineer. I have written to Gregory to ask that he may contribute his expertise. I would suggest to Trevithick he should visit the mines belonging to Lord Dudley, or up to Coalbrookdale, but I do wonder whether he has been out of Cornwall, let alone up-country."
Then Jemima addressed them and laid them aside, putting back her father's quill pen and ink: they could go tomorrow, feeling a shadow of guilt that she had not written to Trevithick the whole time she was away, nor had sent him a message now.
She would go to see Wild presently, and discuss a way she might remain at Leisure, should the mine still want her if the owner was imprisoned, and work on the engine too.
If her father was to be home that evening, they could go to chapel. But Jemima found she could not rest, her mind on the attack she had suffered at Captan Poldark's cousin's hand, and her refuge in the home of William Henshawe.
No, think of him not, Jemima scolded herself, and instead of trying to settle with an indoor activity, took herself out and headed towards Redruth, which took her to Illogan, which took her to Sawle. Before she realised that she had walked all the way back to Wheal Leisure a shout went up. It was Zacky Martin calling to her and when Jemima looked in the direction of the call, the mine captain was waving his hand.
"Miss Withering! A welcome sight, Captain Henshawe did say he did see you!". He came over to her and walked beside her in the direction of the mine office.
"Good to see you, Captain," Jemima managed, smiling. Her lip hurt as she did that, and she noticed Zacky's face flicker. "While you were gone, some things have changed! It is good to see you!" He continued. "And how was your journey home to - " The man, so pleased to see Jemima at first, stopped when she turned her head and he saw her face.
"What happened to you?" His face filled with concern and Jemima put a hand to her own.
"I fell," she told him, a little self-consciously. It was true, she had. "I shouldn't have been out at night."
"Quite right, Miss Withering, you may have wand'rd right o'er a cliff. And - " He glanced back to the mine office.
"Tell me, Mr. Martin, I have heard so much, but I don't know what is true."
So Zacky Martin took her inside and told her of the loss of Poldark's daughter, and her burial at the height of the spread of the diphtheria, and his grief had turned to anger, and he had shouted for all to come to the shipwreck."
"...he took the crew to safety at his home, and turned away from our common pickings," Zacky finished. "Perhaps you don't know the Cornish way, Miss Withering, being as you are from the coal lands - "
"I was born here, Mr. Martin," Jemima told him, "And would say of the Midlands that not one person would overlook an opportunity that might otherwise go to waste. The food would have spoiled, had not people made use of it?"
"They would that," he agreed.
"And the mine?" Jemima turned her attention to the thought that was uppermost in her mind.
"We continue, despite Cap'n Poldark's bein' away. Other shareholders depend on a dividend from this mine - Cap'n Henshawe did this morning explain to me why he bl'a that we should follow your seam. Though coal this is not."
He handed to the floor, which in fact was not the floor but the ceiling of dozens of corridors where the ore had been worked, was worked. Would be worked.
"Two new lodges are where we are now," he told her, "Further down, we are at water level, but you were right, Miss Withering, there is copper there."
He said it so plainly, and yet Jemima's heart soared. But guilt soon followed: she had dreamed of it, but was just applying the idea William Smith has described. She was glad she had made the map for Henshawe and put it in his hands.
"Can you show me?"
"I would have the doctor look at you first," Zacky Martin told her, severely.
Enys, Jemima thought, her heart sinking further.
"I will speak to my father, he is treating Sir Francis Bassett," Jemima told the mine captain. But Zacky shook his head.
"Nay, Miss Withering, I'll let ee down when surgeon seen ee. I will stay for ee," he emphasised.
Good, thought Jemima. What else could be done? She wanted to see her lode, so she agreed, and the figure of Dr. Enys appeared in the office soon after.
"Miss Withering?" He began, and Jemima felt herself stiffen. "I was sent to see you?"
Jemima glanced to Zacky Martin, who nodded.
"I will be able to go down the mine, and Captain Martin will only take me when you have seen my injuries."
"And how did they occur?" His question was plain, guarded, and his expression changed only a little when she replied.
"Francis Poldark did this?"
"I discern that he may have thought me an intruder," Jemima pointed to her face. Dwight Enys took a step towards her and raised a hand to tilt her chin. She let him, but tensed, ready in case he might do something untoward.
"You have a big bruise to your face. Have you had it treated? Your housekeeper since your father is away?" Enys asked her.
"And then I fell." She held up her wrist, not answering his question.
"I…see," Enys replied, straightening up. Conclude now, Jemima willed. Yes, she had bruising on her body, and her chest felt sore - possible broken ribs. But that was enough of this doctor: conclude, now, Dr. Enys, her silent mind encouraged.
"Your breathing, he said, glancing to Zacky Martin. "How long have you had laboured breathing?"
Jemima tensed, searching her brain for a lie. But opted for defensiveness.
"Since I was assaulted. I fell. I think I may have broken my ribs. Father says there is nothing to be done for ribs."
There. All done. Bruising, a bit of a cut lip. Go away now.
"Does it hurt when you breathe?"
"A little." A lot.
"Where in particular?" She wanted to be down in the mine, looking for her copper! What did it matter?
Grudgingly, Jemima indicated her side. Dwight Enys looked to her body and Jemima folded her arms.
Then conceded. Get it done, she told herself, get him gone, and suddenly pulled up her shirt, exposing her slim waist from her upper abdomen to her hips.
To his credit, Enys glanced away and straightened up quickly. Zacky Martin shuffled his feet and Jemima sensed that he took had looked away from her.
"A lot of bruising, but no external injuries.". Enys made to put a hand to her stomach, took a look at Jemima's face and thought better of it. Instead, he stepped away and looked to her face as Jemima dropped her shirt.
"Your wrist…?" Jemima held out her right hand and turned it over. He took her fingers and looked at it for a moment.
"And your face, and your wrist…drink water and your lip will heal."
Jemima tucked in her shirt and crossed to the pegs on one side of the office hut, took up one of the drinking skins that were always filled every day from one of the moor streams by a lad, and drank from it.
"My thanks, Dr Enys," Jemima told him curtly, then turned to Zacky Martin. "May I go down now, Mr. Martin? Will I be going with you or Mr. Henshawe? Jago?"
"Jago be down on the tenth - go down, Miss Withering and tell him I bade ye leave to go with him to the fortieth."
Jemima nodded again, then went to the corner where the miners' hats were. She pulled off her overshirt and breeches, but heard a shuffle by the door - evidently both men were heading to it in haste. The fortieth. Did that mean they'd solved the water problem, then?
"Thank you Dr. Enys," she could hear Zacky Martin say, and Jemima turned her head as she made to descend the steps, and she froze. Then a noise came as if the doctor had replied. Zacky chuckled and she heard him add, "She don't like you for some reason, doctor!"
You're right, I don't, thought Jemima, grimly, and turned her attention to the welcoming gloom below. Her mood brightened: she would see the copper that would have by now be exposed behind the blackstone, over which that man and Poldark had doubted her.
Boots on the iron rungs, Jemima descended in darkness.
88888888
They had got on, Jemima thought, as she clambered up from the 30th. She had put her head down beyond, to where she had gone when she had first supposed the copper would be. When Henshawe had scolded her for risking being trapped with the water, which was much lower, but of course, it was the summer, and she had seen it in winter.
Now, with more of the top layer exposed it was really clear that the dark green veined rock continued across the level.
"Do you see it, Miss Withering?". Ted Carkeek held up a candle. Even without, Jemima knew it was there.
"It is indeed beautiful, is it not, Jago?"
"Yes, Miss," had told her. "You were right, 'tis there, n'all. But - " Zacky Martin's younger son told her.
"But nothing can be done…"
"I think there can be something," Jemima told him, and then bade Jago and Ted to return to the Trevorgie mining, that was still going on, and was still going on in the wrong direction.
She needed to speak to Captain Henshawe, and she found him moving the ore that was still being brought up from her original find.
"Miss Withering!". Henshawe turned to look at her and there was only a faint shift of his eye as he saw her bruises in the daylight. They must have been bad for him to flinch a little.
"Captain Henshawe," Jemima greeted him, taking care to stand away from him a little. "Would you walk with me? I understand the situation from Zacky, with Captain Poldark absent.". Henshawe put out his arm as a gesture to her that they should walk and they headed first towards the Wheal Leisure stone towards the south.
And she told him, and it caused Will Henshawe to stop suddenly, and look back to her.
"Miss Withering!". He exclaimed. "Meet with the shareholders without Captain Poldark?"
"'tis what companies do," she assured him. "My friend, Mr. Giddy, when he was last in Cornwall, told me a lot about company law, and if a shareholder is detained, this does not stop the other shareholders from meeting and making decisions. A nominated person can take Captain Poldark's place."
"Indeed?" He asked. "I will put it to them, then. And I will to Mistress Poldark to ask her who she wishes to represent ee. She may wish to write to Cap'n". He stopped and turned to face her.
"If you don't mind me saying, Miss Withering, you look done in. It looks as though you've no sleep at all."
"I slept at your house, sir, for which I am grateful. But, I should be home so that I may be back tomorrow."
A faint well, not sound exactly, came across her head, but she stopped for it had made her forget what she had been about to say. She did not see Will Henshawe glance about him at her choice of words and instead bent down to her.
"Miss Withering, I will be walking with you the whole way home to your father," he told her. "There will be no argument, for I beggar to think what he would say if you fell again.
And so they walked in the midday sun and Jemima chatted little, but listened to Henshawe tell her about growing up in Cornwall, and that his own father had been a boat builder and her mother the daughter of a mine captain from beyond Zennor.
"D'you know, the Phoenicians came all away along the sea and out beyond Spain, and north to find hardy Cornwall and buy her tin," Henshawe told her when they approached Redruth. "The Cassiterides, they called this land. For bronze."
Jemima smiled up to him, but said nothing. She did know, but felt far too tired to talk.
When they got to Meadowsweet Cottage it was Mrs. Vaughn who welcomed them. Dr. Withering was in his study, where Jemima had written her letters and he looked up at his daughter and the mine captain. At the sight of her face a weary looking John Withering pushed back in his chair and stood and looked between the two of them.
"What happened? Jemima? Captain?"
"A fall, I thought to bring her home," Jemima heard Henshawe say. It was true, although he must have known what she had said to Zacky Martin because he had mentioned Grambler as they walked. As good an explanation as any.
"Then it is very good of you Captain…?"
"Henshawe. William Henshawe," and he took Dr. Withering's hand when he offered it and shook it firmly.
"I have a lot to thank you for," Withering continued. "I have heard many good things about you, sir. Thank you for keeping my daughter safe - I am sure she will tell me that it was not Wheal Leisure's fault but her own, knowing what she feels for her career."
John Withering cast a mock scolding look at Jemima. She would tell him, of course, but more importantly, she needed to tell of the stratification theory.
"We will be at chapel at Redruth this evening. Would you come with us, Captain Henshawe?"
Will Henshawe smiled and exchanged a smile with Jemima.
"I will be over this evening, sir, and delighted to be so." He bowed his head.
"Before then, and before she has rested, I will have words with my daughter on safety," Dr Withering told him, before nodding to Mrs. Vaughn, who had just come in to ask about food for Jemima.
"Goodday, sir," Dr. Withering, "and my thanks again."
Once Henshawe had left, John Withering took Jemima in his arms and kissed the top of her head.
"Oh, it is so good to see you, child!" he exclaimed, then took a step back, a hand on each shoulder, inspecting her face. "Come, sit with me," he told her, and they crossed to a red velvet settee.
"What is this you said in your letter?" John Withering asked her, "Something important to tell me?"
And Jemima told her father of William Smith's theory of stratification, that lodes of the same metal-containing rocks being in horizontal runnings in the earth. "I must have been using it," she concluded, "when I went to Poldark's mine."
"You think you can do any more with the mine?"
"If they listen," Jemima told him, her lip throbbing where it was beginning to heal.
"You may go to the meeting - that is what you were discussing?"
How wonderful was her father. Jemima often thought it, the day she tore to London to see Humphry, years in the future, and two decades later, when Dick was on his deathbed, abandoned by his wife and children, a subscription made for his burial because he was too poor even to afford to die.
That was the future. Now, her beloved father was asking her about her injuries.
And so she told him about trespassing at Grambler and Francis Poldark attacking her.
"I could see you didn't wish to tell me," Dr. Withering told Jemima.
"I have never told you a lie father," she declared. There would be a time, in the future, where this would not be the case, but right there, right then, Jemima took his hand and added, "I know I shouldn't have been there. But I wanted to try to prove William Smith's theory for myself, then Captain Poldark's mine would benefit, and I would have done my job."
"And that man, Henshawe," Withering nodded towards the door. "I trust him; he has shares and therefore an interest. What does he say?"
"He is interested in the theory no doubt. But with Captain Poldark in prison, he is cautious."
"But willing to call the shareholder meeting as you suggested." Jemima looked in astonishment at her father.
"Just when I think that you cannot make me any more proud, daughter, you do something else and I have re-evaluate my measure!"
Jemima hugged him, and John Withering stroked her back.
"Now, I bid you rest if you are to come to chapel."
88888888
Dressed as she was in a dress, coat and bonnet, waiting for her father in his study that evening, Jemima wondered if William Henshawe would come with them to the Redruth congregational Methodist church. Though their parents had been Covenanters, Presbyterian, both Withering twins had attended a church being established where they had heard John Wesley speak.
And when Captain Henshawe did eventually knock, and was shown into the study too, John Withering continued the story on their shirt walk to chapel, Henshawe listening politely and Jemima listening out for key bits of the tape, for she had heard it several times before.
"I happened to be over towards the Marquis of Anglesey's mine, in a village called Hedgford. It was late and my brother and I stayed at an inn called the Cross Keys. As had a man who had evidently stayed there many times before.
"He had a gathering of people around him, so I asked the landlord who he was, whence he had come.
""That's John Wesley; every fortnight on his way to Manchester he stops here. Improves my trade," the man said," - John Withering looked to his daughter on his left, and Henshawe on his right, " - although, if one looked, those who were listening to the man speak were drinking."
""Where is the meeting place, sir?" I asked him when he had finished, I liked what he was saying. "I come here so often, I do not know why I do not have one," Mr. Wesley replied."
"I remember, Father," Jemima told him. "We went back there, when you saw Lord Paget? I remember we were at a hill top and a lot of people were there."
"Daughter, you have an excellent memory; you could only have been six or seven."
"But I remember Mr Wesley, father," Jemima enthused. "It is why I do like to come to chapel with you. I like to hear that anyone can come to God, and God is within us, and our actions, our deeds for others honour God." She smiled up her father, and noticed that Henshawe was smiling too.
Outside the established church as they were, Methodists, and Primitive Methodists - Hugh Bourne had met her father when John Withering had been to High Peak and the Bluejohn mines - seemed to talk a sort of sense, and offer God to any man, regardless.
"My daughter is quite right, Mr. Henshawe," Dr. Withering continued. "Mr. Wesley then started to preach under a large tree outside the coach station, and soon after, a hut was erected on Hilltop to keep Mr Wesley and listeners dry from wind and rain."
Henshawe nodded, and listened, but said little through the walk, and at the chapel, built by contribution and made comfortable enough for the congregation to listen to the preacher.
Jemima glanced over to him once or twice in the service; he was as all the congregation were, bowed head in prayer, attentive in listening and, Jemima noticed, richly musical in song.
"Goodnight, Mr Henshawe," John Withering said to the man, and they shook hands. Henshawe had declined the offer of returning for the evening to Meadowsweet for he needed to be up in the morning if the mine.
Jemima thought back to the small, badly-built but rather cosy cottage the man lived in, and felt a little sorry for him - his money, she had discerned from more than a few overheard discussions, kept his wife cared for in the place where she was. The mine could, if yielded of enough valuable copper ore, change his fortunes as well as Poldark's and the other shareholders.
At the prospect of holding the potential key in the form of William Smith's map, Jemima's heart beat faster. A meeting that week might change all their lives, and the terrible feeling of attraction to the man once again rose in Jemima's chest.
It was then she realised William Henshawe's looking at her.
"Goodnight, sir," she replied, dutifully.
"Miss Withering," Henshawe replied, the merry sparkle that she so liked clear in his eyes. They turned to walk the Camborne path, Henshawe to Illogan and then Sawle.
"Oh, Mr. Henshawe," Dr. Withering called, turning back on the path. Henshawe turned too, as did Jemima.
"My daughter may attend your shareholder meeting, whenever it is called."
"That is good news indeed, sir!" Henshawe exclaimed, and Jemima's heart soared at his happiness. He would be rich, or at least richer than now.
But, more than that, William Henshawe's reaction told Jemima that he believed in her theory, that he truly believed that the copper lodge would head to Grace, not Trevorgie.
"I look forward to seeing you both, at the meeting," and Henshawe nodded to Jemima, "And Miss Withering tomorrow, or whenever she is ready to return to work."
"At the meeting?"
"The shareholders' meeting," Henshawe clarified.
"My dear sir, would I attend if Jemima were my son and not my daughter?" John Withering cast a proud smile over to Jemima. "If she is with you, Captain Henshawe, I will have no cause to worry.