Early 1789, Follows S1E7
"It was Trevaunance land all right," Tom Harry told George Warleggan just as the dawn came up.
Night, and the encouragement of boot into rib and stick across back were the man's tools of the trade, and George Warleggan knew how to wield the Harry brothers.
He also knew how to manage the thug and kept clinking a bag of coin in his pocket. Tom Harry kept looking to the pocket, a hungry look in his eye: a thirsty eye.
"I followed her, all the way home, and waited to the next day. She went to the Trevaunance smelting works," the man paused and imagined the sight. Likely he would have ingratiated himself with her favours had Warleggan told him to strictly avoid her. A pity.
"She went in, and came out with a small box. And she was met by some man."
"Do you know who?"
"Wild, I think, Mr Wild, owner of the - "
"Of the Ting Tong mines, yes I know," George Warleggan muses, grimly. A collection of seven mines, all in a co-operative: unbreakable in their loyalties, incorruptible. They made more combined than their individual mines would garner, for they dealt in bulk.
William Wild had gone to Francis Bassett, George knew, because his physician was the efficacious John Withering because his daughter was a mine surveyor and was well regarded as having some sort of intuition as to what was beneath their feet.
He wanted her for his mines, not that he had more than Grambler. But he intended, with push and shove and Thomas Tankard on the case, to get the whole north coast and make himself even richer.
But before that, George knew he needed to break this Carnmore Copper Company at the root, and now he knew on whose land the smelting works stood.
And now, through Ross Poldark's reckless disregard for his cousin, Francis Poldark had named the shareholders. It would be easy to apply the pressure, and, with the passage of time and economic logic, Wheal Leisure would be more and more vulnerable to a hostile takeover - his hostile takeover.
"Make sure that young woman comes to no harm," George Warleggan told his hired muscle. "I will need her in the future. And now - ". He handed Tom Harry the bag of coin, for a well paid hound was a loyal one, "Make sure you pay a visit to Mr. Aukitt."
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It was when the bright summer sun came to Cornwall that Davies Giddy and Humphry Davy decided to suggest to Jemima Withering that they should go out on the sea.
Both Davies, young man that he was at nineteen, and Humphry, growing fast and now thirteen, came to Meadowsweet House, John Withering's home, to let him in on the surprise that they were planning.
"Well, it is her birthday on St. Piran's Day, is March to early for what you plan?". He looked up from his desk to the faces of the two young men, who had known Jemima for over five years and had always been her closest, dearest friends.
"I know a boatman out at St. Ives. He would take us out and over to the Isles. Only, he does not come back until the morning."
Which wasn't a suitable arrangement for two gentlemen and one lady, even if they did think of themselves as siblings.
"Of course, my aunt lives there," Humphry spoke up. "I could write to her and see if she would put us up - I have the money you give me for my Saturday work, Doctor."
John Withering stifled a laugh at two grave, eager faces, of two people who merely wished to allow his daughter to have a good day out on her birthday. Not that it was technically Jemima's birthday - she was born to Joshua Poldark's wife two days before.
But then, such trivialities seemed so far away when all his wife Anne could see was a child struggling for life and a father who had rejected the child.
"Then, let me pay for your transport and board - I couldn't ask for Jemima to be in safer hands if I were to sail the boat myself, which I could never do, being from one of the most landlocked counties in the land. He smiled, and opened his desk drawer, withdrawing a ten pound note. "D'you think this will cover it?" He asked Davies, who stared at such a large sum.
"Thrice over, I should think. But do you - "
"Nay, Master Giddy, I would have my daughter have a wonderful pair of days with her best friends.". He got to his feet. "I could not have asked for better friends for Jemima than if I had designed and made you myself."
"And you think it a treat she will enjoy?" Reverend Giddy asked John Withering over dinner a few days later.
"I know it will. She is cautious of the sea, having never grown up with it.". He beamed at Davies and Humphry, "You are her true friends, you challenged her and spend time with her on things that interest you. You put her in the right place, where her brother can no longer do."
So the boys went off to engage a boatman and write to an aunt and plan food with which to take with them, and where to go to while the time. It would be like a St. Michael's Mount trip but over two days, with good weather and marvellous things to hunt for in rock and shallow.
"When I leave this earth, I would like to say that I gave her a good life, a trade that she likes and I protected her, and yes, if not knowledge of her real family, I placed her beside her brother." This he told to Giddy that Sunday when the reverend mentioned Jemima's birthday.
"And are you going to tell her?"
"In time. You agree the brother is reckless - if she felt compelling to make arrangements to live with him, I would feel that I had done her a disservice. She could easily retire and undertake domestic things, wait for a match of a man in my class. Jemima has plenty of choices and I am glad to be able to give her something she likes."
Withering stopped, and the pause between the old friends invited Edward Giddy to nod and agree, which he did at length, before adding, "The girl has a right to know - there are others of her family. Her uncle has recently died, and - " he broke off when he saw John Withering's expression.
"I know, I know," he agreed, patting his friend on the shoulder. "Jemima knows that she was born here, she knows her mother is buried here…I would have thought she might have come to ask me more."
"What you did, what you are doing, is a Christian thing. Now, you need to plan how to tell her the last part of her story."
And Withering thanked his old friend, and made a promise that he would. Before the girl came of age, at least. And if she asked, it would be easier to tell.
But not yet. Let her have her life, her innocence. Let her ask me when she was ready.
And they walked beside each other from chapel the three short miles back to their home as John Withering listened to his daughter about ores and a pumping engine, and Jemima listened to her father about a new treatment developed by Thomas Beddoes for tuberculosis.
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"I don't recall seeing you in a dress before."
There had been an argument at the mine the previous day over her two days' leave.
"But you agreed it, Captain Poldark!". Jemima protested. Her father had told her he wanted her to be at home for her birthday.
She had come in early, to set off the men, her team were below, all working towards Trevorgie now and she would otherwise have been down their with them, taking measurements, selecting places where Jago Martin could take samples.
It was the look of Will Henshawe - Captain Henshawe, Jemima reminded herself, that troubled her most, that of coldness, disdain. Hatred, even. Gone, where once had been the golden warmth and openness that they had shared when she had first arrived, he had merely tipped his hat to her and walked on, a frown to his how. What had happened? She would apologise when next they met.
But she couldn't think of that then, she had to finish the list of work to be done for that day, the conspicuous dress blowing readily in the breeze on the cliff as she saw them below.
Zacky Martin had come past as she was seeing them below surprised when he heard that she was to be on leave for a few days adding, "Poldark has not said.
So as Jemima had gone to the office hut to find out about the leave her father had organised with Poldark, and to have him laugh at her in a dress, both had been surprised with the arrival of Humphry Davy who had chosen that moment to arrive with the assays of the miners' lung exhalation samples, lists of substances and approximate ratios. Copper dust, tin dust and arsenic, but there were some he could not identify.
Jemima had given him a quick smile, and Humphry had returned it as Ross Poldark scrutinised the list.
"My thanks, boy," Poldark had nodded, whereupon, Humphry took back the analysis list and placed it into Dr. Enys's hand.
"I am apprentice physician to Dr. Withering and was taught chemistry by Master Watt. I trust you will find my assay accurate - " and then looked across to Poldark, "- and you can find answer for the needs if your workers."
Both Enys and Poldark had their mouths slightly ajar as he left and Jemima fought to suppress a smirk. There could be no argument there, though Poldark would make one, and, predictably, it was his age that would become a target.
"Since when have we permitted schoolboys - " he turned to Jemima as the mining teams trudged past the window to the pit head, " - you said you would undertake this work."
"I did, and Master Davy checked my work, captain. There is copper, tin, arsenic in the dust, which means it is in the mine. And look," she men who worked in my team, behind the blackstone, myself included, more copper - " She broke off as Humphry looked across to Poldark.
"I can assure you I am well trained. Mr. Watt junior has taught me all the New course, and he was trained himself by - "
"Yes yes, very good, lad, you may go," Poldark told Davy. Humphry inhaled, as if letting go the last few words of his sentence that he had been about to say, smiled solemnly at Jemima and let himself out.
"There was already several lodes of coppee, which makes sense. This proves nothing.". Poldark exchanged a glance with Enys.
"This proves that there is still copper there, on the southern level. It means - "
"It is not conclusive. But you were right about the first.". He looked Jemima up and down, and grinned.
"Your father came to see me - of course you may have these days off, considering it is your birthday. But I don't recall seeing you in a dress before."
"Not here, at the mine, but my father did point you out once, in Truro. You dipped your hat to me.". Jemima touched the strap of her bag that she used to carry her lunch and tools in.
"Yes, yes," Poldark told her, waving a hand between them. "Find Jago Martin and Ned Hoblyn and tell them what you want done in your absence. And - ". Jemima turned back from the office door, "Happy Birthday."
Later that day, Poldark put his head around the door of the mine office. He looked at the papers that that imp of a lad had written for Miss Withering.
"These?" Enys sought to clarify, when Ross nodded to the desk.
"They are accurate?"
"Couldn't have been better if Lavoisier himself had assayed then. Or Cavendish. My God," he added, "He's even added a note about percentage uncertainty in the calculation procedure that he has used…and a poem!"
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She had been told be her father to come home for her birthday and another, but when she had walked across the headland to home, and expected perhaps a birthday breakfast or a visit to town, she was surprised to find Humphry was there, having hurried from Wheal Leisure to get there before her, as was Davies.
"The Scillies!" Jemima gasped in disbelief. Though she distrusted the sea, these were one set of islands she did wish to visit, and how marvellous that her friend's had conceived the treat.
"But father - "
"I have you a gift myself," he told her, and handed Jemima a large, leather-bound notebook. She was wont to complain her notes got in a muddle and so her father had sent for one, large enough for her to carry, and beautiful enough to be worthy of his daughter's sixteenth birthday.
She embraced John Withering for nearly a minute, knowing that she could not be as happy as she was at that minute, with her father and her friends around her, Humphry, who seemed to be nearly her height, despite being only thirteen, and Davies, who was a man in stature but still looked like the young adolescent she had first met at Tredree when that house had been all that she and John Withering could call home.
"Go to your adventuring, my daughter," he told Jemima, "And I want to hear of everything that you have seen and done on your return!"
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It was William Marsh who took them out, friend of Davies, once deckhand of a packet ship that traded between Falmouth and Lisbon. Jemima remembered his wife, honest face, his curling, pale auburn hair as he took her hand and helped her into the boat.
Not that the dress would be so much of an inconvenience when they landed - Jemima had made sure she had a change of her usual clothes, but had wanted to look her best to please her father.
"You were trying to avoid your captain when last we saw you," Jemima told him conversationally, as unexpectedly warm breezes buffeted them. "We had come round from St. Michael's."
The young man grinned from his position at the back of the little sailing boat. He heaved a leg further to one side as they went about and smiled down to her.
"He had calmed down a deal before I left. The woman he loves is…coming around to his way of thinking. It didn't help that he took a limp out of her brother's leg in a duel."
And in the course of the conversation Jemima learned that Andrew Blakey's affections lay with a Miss Verity Poldark whose duelling brother was -
" - Francis Poldark?! But he's a mine owner! And - "
"But what a mine owner, who had to close, Jemima! It's a wonder you stay when Mr. Wild makes you such a good offer! You could be a mine engineer at Ishmael, or Tredinneck or Boys?"
It was true. Her father has introduced her to Richard Trevithick, whose son was trying to engineer a pumping engine with another engineer, Edward Bull. Jemima had wanted to stay and help - she had watched James Watt construct his engine, based on Newcomen's, in a mine over at Ironbridge.
It would just need adaptations to work in Cornwall's unforgiving granite, and she would be there if she did not feel a more intense need to remain at Leisure and convince Poldark he should head towards Grace. It was foolish, as foolish as the man was in heading towards Trevorgie. There was something that held her there…
"I will go - and you know his son, do you not, Davies?"
Davies Giddy gave her a brief glance and then over to Humphry, who raised his eyebrows.
"We were at Truro together, and a less capable boy I have ever met. Nothing was his speciality, and he did not finish, he was absent for a lot of the time, and what good is that?"
Not much, Jemima thought, but she had seen the boy, Richard junior, working with Bull as if the engine they were building was the easiest task in the world.
He had been educated somehow then, Jemima decided, then put work out of her mind as the sun irradiated the sea and her face, and she looked out to the line of the coast, pale yellow blending in with a warm mist of grey and blue, the waves whipping the hull.
It was a memory that would be with her ever, of her and Davies before he had become an MP, before Humphry had moved to the Royal Institution…before the "Trevithick incident"... feeling like she was with family, brothers who knew her thoughts and values, who could contribute to their adventures together. She felt light, she felt indestructible, excited for what they were to find over the course of the next two days.
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A Mrs Warren, Humphry's aunt, ran a drop off boarding house where travellers, sailors, customs men and free traders came for a night or two. So when Humphry arrived with Jemima and Davies, she came out of her kitchen, apron smeared with fish entrails, a ruddy face and a wide smile
greeting them.
"You have the loft," she told the boys, "And you, Miss Withering, there is a room off my own. Come when you are ready for bed, Miss Withering although I am sure you will want to be with the boys when they get the roof off, Humphry, for a view of the night sky?"
Mrs. Warren showed them the outbuildings which had a loft whose roof did lift off. The woman had laid some blankets up there and then had shown Jemima the bed made up for her.
"Now you will eat, young travellers," Mrs. Warren told them all, more an instruction than a suggestion, and before they could get out on the strand to hunt for the animals and plant that these islands held, they ate bread and cheese and ham, and a yellow, crumbly cake flavoured with Spanish saffron and drank boiled water.
They climbed tuffets of sea grass and paddles through shallows. The day, although bright, was still a little chilly and few sea creatures ventured far from the warmer shallows, they found hermit crabs and edible crabs, molluscs and limpets.
Anemones, purple and blue and bladderwrack, were to be found on the shore opposite Teän, and the friends sat on a grassy bank that afternoon, Jemima between Humphry and Davies.
Sharing out the once-boiled water that Mrs Warren, they looked upon the seascape, and Humphry began to hum a folk tune, the melody recognisable to both, and they sang it together to an audience of sea cabbage and sand flies.
Davies then reached into his pocket and gave Jemima a small wood carving that he had made himself out of driftwood, of a dove, which Jemima recognised as the same pattern as one on the tiles in the drawing room, a simple shape clearly created in the wood, a small olive branch in its beak, an overhang at the back that meant it could be attached securely to a garment with no need of a metal pin.
Jemima leaned across and put both her arms around Davies in a hug, a shocking gesture has they been back in civilisation.
But here, it was just them, alone, in the ocean, the only ones in the world.
"I too have a gift for you, but not as elegant as the one out friend Davies has given to you," Humphry told Jemima, and swept up her hand in his. She opened her hand in which now contained a folded piece of paper.
"Pressure one, pressure two, temperature? Mass?". Jemima read out. "You've given me a hydraulic equation?
"On the back," Davies prompted. Jemima turned it over and looked over words that were in sections.
"Oh, Humphry!". Jemima exclaimed with unusual emotion. "You wrote this for me?" When Humphry nodded, she pressed it back into his own hands.
"Will you read it? There is nothing as special as hearing it from the author's own lips."
Humphry gave Jemima a look, one she could not fathom, and she smiled, encouragingly. He smiled back too and took up the poem, leaping before his friends and, with a flourish of the paper, began:
"Nature on the Scillies," he read, and scanned down the page. Then he cleared his throat.
"Ye grand memorials of the fate of Man;
That rise a moral lesson to our eyes
More strong and more impressive than the lore
Which Sages teach and ponderous tomes enfold.
To raise a temple and to gratify
Imperial pride and luxury. The world
Was ravaged as a million slaves were taught to raise the pole
Fitted for barbarous sports. In which the blood
Of Man was shed. The master of the globe
The image of eternal majesty
Torn by the fangs of the relentless beast
The rack was brought from Egypt.
Ancient Greece was robbed of all her gods
Her temples spoiled.
And the divinities which Phidias framed
Were brought in bondage to the capital
What now remains, pillars & broken shafts
A heap of ruins. Witness those massy walls
Where once a hundred thousand voices hailed
The dying gladiator; silence reigns
And awful solitude – yet a spirit dwells
Within these ruins."
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It was in Jemima's head all that night, after she had put away Humphry's tribute to nature into the pocket of her trousers.
After they had had supper, Jemima went up with Humphry and Davies and looked out to sea from the open roof of the barn, blanket around them as the night enfolded around them. With Humphry's scope and a clear view of Jupiter and Saturn glimpsed up over the horizon dragging its rings with it. The moon rose, with Venus its close companion. Jemima lay watching the sky with her two friends, dearest in all the world, beside her, awakening at dawn, and hoping that Mrs Warren had not noticed that she had not gone there at all that night,
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It was the afternoon when WIlliam Morris collected them to take them back to the mainland. They were going back via Falmouth as the young man was to collect salt from an incoming cargo ship.
"I don't know if I like the waves on the south coast as I do the north," Jemima mused, her friends. "The waves seem happier here." She turned to them both. "I do miss Penzance sometimes, and the Mount." Jemima took their arms.
As they got to Falmouth harbour, Morris was having trouble mooring. He soon found out why so many different types of vessel was moored, instead of being afloat.
"It's my old captain!" he exclaimed, and pointed to Andrew Blamey. "He's getting married!"