Autumn 1790, S2E2-4
When do you know you are living the best days? Time in the future when Jemima looked back, in her mind's eye she remembered clamouring and fighting for freedom, and Tom Harry. He had pulled off the bag, and she was outside a house she would come to know well. He hadn't laughed when she bit his hand thought Jemima could still see the look in his eyes that, for her purpose there - wherever there would turn out to be, he would have hit her for it.
These were some of them, although they did not see it at the time. These few years when everything seemed light and happy, and there was goodness in the world. Even if Jemima had been kidnapped from her own doorstep.
Restraint tearing at his patience, the man bundled her through a door, into an unlit room. Jemima caught her foot on the doorframe and stumbled through. Harry dragged her up by her shirt collar, catching her throat.
"You have been summoned, Missy!" he growled by her ear and, hauling her through the door into an equally unlit hallway, gripped the back of her shirt and marched her to a room at the end. The glow of life irradiated through the door's outline.
"Where am I?" Jemima asked, as Tom Harry marched her forward.
"You are wanted!" He told her. "Go on - knock!"
What else was Jemima to do? She knocked, and when the reply came, "Come!" it was she who opened the door.
And realised why her father was not at home. For light was pouring in through the four long windows, one of which showed the full moon.
Of course! He'd be at Reverend Giddy's tonight for dinner, and Jemima's mind lit up - Davies had told her that he was to cone back for the wakes.
"Well?". The voice came from the fireplace, but the first person Jemima saw was tall, thin, bald skin on his head to best display a periwig. He looked down at his long nose at her. Jemima turned to go, but two great hands were at her back ushering her forward.
"She's here, nephew," said the man, without taking her eyes off Jemima, looking at her up and down, lingering on her figure. Jemima folded her arms across her chest and turned turned her head, looking to "nephew", who turned and looked at her. It was Mr. Warleggan!
The last time she had seen him he was in the Red Lion when she was extolling her scheme to dig south from Wheal Leisure to Wheal Grace. He had spoken keenly in her favour. And why not? It was a good plan: the shareholders would be on their way to being rich by now. She was not in the mood for clemency, however.
"I was snatched from my father's own doorstep, a bag over my head and slung over a horse, Mr. Warleggan," Jemima told him determinedly.
A small slip of his head, and George Warleggan looked at Tom Harry. From the look on George's face her manners of arrival was news to him. From the look on Cary Warleggan's it was not.
"You did this?". His words were light, but with the determination of cold steel. Tom Harry looked between uncle and nephew.
"Yes, sur, I - "he looked frantically towards George's uncle now, for support.
"Mister Warleggan, you asked me to bring her - " But George Warleggan waved a hand and the manservant fell silent.
"Leave us," he intoned, coldly. "I will deal with you later."
Tom Harry gave a desperate look to Cary Warleggan, who shook his head and looked at the door. But Jemima wasn't finished.
"So you did not instruct your man to abduct me in the night?"
"I most certainly did not," Warleggan replied.
"But you wanted to speak to me? In the middle of the night?" When he did not reply, Jemima added, "Whatever you wish to speak to me about must be nefarious - honest people would knock! Of a morning!"
"I do…apologise for the manner in which you came to Cardew. There is a matter about which I would like to speak to you. Would you sit?"
"I am still in my work clothes, Mr Warleggan." A snort came from Cary Warleggan, and Jemima felt conscious of her appearance. Not her body, but that she would be dirty from the mine, dirty from Murdoch's steam carriage - which he had let her drive, and had left smutty marks on her shirt sleeves.
"Come now, you are still a lady, please do sit," George encouraged. Jemima crossed the floor and took a place on a green velvet-covered wing-backed chair. From his position by the fireplace Cary Warleggan examined her body. Jemima made herself look to George Warleggan.
"You wish to speak to me about business?" she prompted.
"I will be straight to the point, so that you may be home as soon as possible, Miss Withering.". He took a step towards her, a graceful, well practised step.
"When I…bought shares in Wheal Leisure it was in order to make money. And I believe you still believe in what you spoke to us of, at the shareholders meeting."
Jemima frowned. Here, at night, and a discussion about the mine?
Jemima was about to speak, about to say something about being absolutely convinced and so should he be, but then her brain caught up with her mouth - he already believes in what you say, he wants the copper out as much as you want to find it.
"What are you asking me, Mr. Warleggan? To go back?". Her heart raced at the thought of leaving her work with Trevithick and Bull, to go back to a place where she would be questioned and disbelieved. "I do not know that I can come back to Wheal Leisure."
George glanced past her to his uncle, who sipped at his drink. "Miss, we, Withering, I applaud your principles. I merely want to ask you, do you honestly think that copper is where you said it would be?". Her heart lightened.
"For the reasons I detailed, I do, sir," Jemima replied. "I would not have organised that meeting if not. It is a pity, as I cannot see that Wild will need me at the Ting Tong mines for much longer - I do not think that I am betraying a secret when I say that Wild has the mines already working to the idea of stratification and Bull and Trevithick have almost completed their engine."
He said nothing for a moment, just swallowed, and looked at Jemima.
"Would you consider going back to Wheal Leisure?"
"Not while Poldark is still in charge there," she told him, candidly.
"On that, you and I agree. It is perfectly understandable that you left the company of Ross Poldark. Now, I own - all of the shares of the mine, it has up to now been peopled by those of Poldark. Now I have my own people."
No Zacky Martin? No Jago or Ted? Jemima felt her heart beat faster. No Henshawe?
"The men have moved wholesale to Wheal Grace. You see, that day that you spoke to us all, I think that Poldark did believe in your stratification application, and chose to throw you off scent. Now he has been pressed by my influence he has decided to open his old mine so they do they can exploit the seam before Leisure did."
"There is no law as to who owns what is underground," Jemima shrugged. Her mind was tired - she had been up at dawn, worked strenuously at Fortune and with the steam engine at Dolcoath, and had been delighted by Murdoch's steam carriage. She had had the herbs that Enys had given to her, and brought all the way to Truro against her will. Stifling a yawn, she focused on George Warleggan's face.
"That I do believe," George Warleggan told her.
"If I were to guarantee Poldark has non say in whatever decisions are made at Wheal Leisure, would you agree to return?"
"I would," Jemima ventured. "I would consider it. You would be in charge?"
"My mine captain would be in charge, my men would follow their lead.". Warleggan smiled. "Tell me, I am curious, you said that you are of Cornwall. Forgive me, I have friends in Shropshire, you do not sound as if you come from Cornwall."
She eyes George Warleggan, and then his uncle, before looking back to him.
"The moon…do you not love it, sir, when it has the full light of the sun on it?". George looked where Jemima was looking. "Is it not beautiful?"
"Perhaps," George told her, with economy of words, anticipating the story.
"My father and mother, Reverend Giddy, and others of the time would meet at one anothers' houses on the light of the full moon - "
" - to best seen the coaches ride home, yes," George concluded, smiling, "My father, Nicholas, and my mother, Mary, both would attend at Tredrea." Despite herself, Jemima smiled. "His money was made on tin, Miss Withering, he mined it and smelted Idless. We Warleggans do know mining."
"Except, Dr. Withering is my adopted father, sir. I was left for dead on the day I was born. Here, in Cornwall. It seems my mother - my adopted mother - refused to leave me behind. So what I told Captain Poldark was true."
"Oh?" asked George, stepping towards her. He was intrigued. "Do you know your parents were?" Jemima shook her head.
"No, and I don't want to. As far as I am concerned John and Mary Withering are my parents. Now, if you don't mind, I need to get home. Though, I do not wish to be returned to my home in the way I arrived.". She got to her feet.
"Certainly not," George replied. "My servant will be suitably chastened for his behaviour towards you."
"And how am I to get home now? We are six miles from Camborne." Jemima's tone was one of affront again now.
"You could stay," suggested Cary Warleggan, seedily. Jemima opened her mouth in horror. That was preposterous! What would her father say if he knew she stayed overnight at a house with two unmarried men?
"Miss Withering," George put in, quickly. "If you would permit me, I will see you home.". He strode to the door and made to open it. From the fireplace Cary Warleggan put his hands on his hips.
"George, just get a message to her father - "
"I am not Ross Poldark; I know how to be a gentleman! Uncle," he nodded then turned from chastising his uncle to smile at Jemima.
"Nephew," came Uncle Cary's reply.
"Goodbye, sir," Jemima bade to Cary Warleggan.
"If you stayed the night, Miss then it would be a good night!"
Jemima followed George out of the drawing room and along the passage down which had been previously forced. This time, they turned left instead of continuing, and ended up in a grand, tiled entrance hall on the same side as the drawing room, clearly, because the moon shone brilliantly. It also wasn't midnight yet, for the moon had not yet begun to set.
"Please excuse my uncle, and myself, for not having made my instruction clearer." He turned to face Jemima. "If I had ever thought my instruction to have you come to visit me could have been misinterpreted I - well," George dipped his head. "I will endeavour to make my instructions plainer."
He went to the door. The moonlight flooded the drive, and then over the sea at the very back of the view. At any other time Jemima might have thought the moonscape rather lovely.
"Would you wait here, please?" He asked, and left Jemima standing at the doorstep.
She looked at the moonscape again, and then a gentle breeze blew. She glanced to the right, where George had walked, then back to the moonlit parkland.
Just when Jemima thought that he was never coming back, a black shadow approached, the shape of a man upon it.
"Would you come up and ride beside me? Nothing untoward, I promise you," he added. He held out a hand. It would be the fastest way back, Jemima knew. She took it, and George helped her up and she sat side saddle.
"You seem cold, Miss Withering," he told her, as he leaned forward to take the reins.
"I will be warm at home," she told him sharply, although if she were honest, she wasn't too cold, and George Warleggan's body was warm enough.
"Here," she told him, as they got to Camborne and George Warleggan used the reins to slow down the horse to a trot.
"What will you tell your father?" He asked Jemima. She turned and leaned back a little looking to his face in the setting moon.
"I was late from work. I will say nothing of being brought to Cardew. I don't see why he should worry. Or why he would have any reason to say no should I wish to be your mine captain."
"My mine captain?" George repeated, taken aback.
"I would accept nothing less. Unless you don't believe in me after all."
"Let me attempt to make the working conditions suitable for you first, Miss Withering," he told her. "I appreciate your discretion with your father.
Jemima shut the door behind her and listened to the hooves of George's horse fade away before she locked the door and made her way upstairs. She stripped, and washed, before going to bed.
Where she dreamed of tin and copper, and coal and steam. A happy dream.
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"You were home late," John Withering said to her daughter. He was up a little later than usual, feeling a little weariness in his bones. But then, he had to go to Bodmin that morning to treat a hospital of patients who had fallen to his care, and whose institution
"You will not approve of where I was," Jemima told him. Dr. Withering's head raised, and he looked at her. Then nodded towards the window. "Anything to do with your young men waiting outside for you?"
Jemima felt a cold dread on her stomach. "The engineers?"
"They are not my young men, father," Jemima told him reprovingly.
"They have both asked me to accompany you to the fair," he told her, lowering his newspaper.
"We were in the churchyard," Jemima told him, and perched on a chair beside him. "Mr. Murdoch has made a steam carriage. But - " She stopped as her father out his hand on hers.
"I have seen it. And, I have advised the man to go to his employer. He is agent to Watt in Cornwall. Anything James thinks is an infringement he will stamp on mightily.". He kisses Jemima's forehead. "I can see your joy in the machine, daughter. It makes my heart happy to see you alive and content. And there's the wakes on Monday - and Davies and Humphry will be there. If they tease you that there are mystery people to be with them, know that they mean Gregory Watt and Thomas Wedgwood. Oh!" he exclaimed, as Jemima threw her arms around him. All her friends, together.
"And now to the ones waiting for you!" he reminded her, and Jemima found her jacket and bid him goodbye, looking for her two friends.
But Bull was not there beside Dick Trevithick, as he waited beside the door, smiling at her when she saw him.
"I will walk with you to and from the mines, and see you safely indoors next time," Dick told her as they walked with the sun on their back.
His right hand was red and a little swollen, bit Jemima didn't ask why. He was over six foot and twice her breadth and Jemima felt safe.
But in feeling safety with Dick beside her, it also meant she had felt fear, fear for the first time in her life in the county in which she was born. It would not be the first time, but for now, Dick Trevithick was by her side, faithfully, doggedly, as if knowing that if he may not be, she hay not come to Dolcoath again.
They talked, of the morning's work, and the adaptations they had made with the condenser.
"We are to make a show of the engine for prospective mine owners. Two days after the wakes."
"So soon?"
"Why not? We are lever, a screw, a nut away, Miss Withering!" Dick Trevithick exclaimed, with a laugh. "Come on! Look! There's Edward! We'll test out the fortieth today, and we'll soon see!"
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"Your mother was with child about…oh, sixteen, seventeen years ago," Cary Warleggan told his nephew when he returned from the north of the county. "Babe died, she died. Child came afore its time." He took a big drink of sherry. It was barely eight in the morning. But then, he had yet to go to bed. "Buried them together. But I do believe she was here, at home."
George Warleggan looked to his uncle for some time. Then he said, "You can't possibly believe - ". He shook his head, and rubbed his eyes.
"I know your mother's family wanted her buried quickly. The Lashbrooks were papists, or so we believed. She was ever such a pretty thing, too good for Nicholas."
George shook his head. He was tired, and needed some sleep. And he knew Cary had been behind Tom Harry lifting a woman from her home.
"Someone will know, and to be honest, uncle, I don't care. She knows about rock and ore and did her best, a very good job, talking to the shareholders and getting the idea across. God damn Poldark, who just went back to the Trevorgie idea and found precisely nothing. Even if she had been wrong, Leisure would be in exactly the same position."
Beside his uncle's hand was the sherry bottle. One drink - he needed to be witful in order to do his best to part Harry Blewett from his shares.
"And you believe her to be right?"
"I believe in her, yes. Sir Francis Bassett has told me that the engine Master Trevithick and Mr. Bull have spent the last eight months on is now all but finished, because he has employed her. He had been asking her father to come to work for him."
"Don't be hasty, George," Cary told him. He had seen the way his nephew had pressed himself to the body of the girl as they left on his best horse. "Don't put the tart before the horse. Wash, shave, new clothes. If you want your empire of mines, we have a Mr. Blewett to call loans in on. And then…" Cary Warleggan glanced down at the desk, "A Mr. Richard Dunkin."
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"What say you?". They looked at the harvest, got in and barned. Francis was a changed man since the trial, Ross thought. It was as if he himself was on trial - for what crime, Ross could not possibly fathom.
"I have money put by," Francis told him, "I want to mine again. I have a feeling in my bones to hunt for metal! So I say - yes. Wheal Grace. I have begun to open her, Paul Daniel…Zacky Martin…Will Henshawe…we have all made a start."
"Start?"
"I'm opening Wheal Grace."
"You don't mean it?"
"Yes."
"That's cheerful news!"
"Henshawe and I have ready been down. The lower level's flooded, we need an engine. But we reckon there's enough ore in the shallows to get us through."
"Oh?" Francis picked up a glass. Since the ancient call on the harvest, in his fields, with his workers, with Elizabeth and Geoffrey Charles, life has tilted back to a new levelness. Life felt good, and opportunity had found a way to evade George Warleggan. "Has the floodwater subsided?"
"Not in the least, so be careful," Ross advised. "Next week, we will be looking at an engine for pumping it all out. Then we can get to the good stuff!"
"Who's investing the money?"
"I have sold half my shares in Wheal Leisure, demanded the very best price. I've realised £600…you've told me more than once you have money put by."
So they agreed. But one thing, Francis would not proceed without discussing past business.
"If it's past, I don't want to hear it."
"I don't want to say it."
"Well then! To the Poldarks! Back in the mining business! Wheal Grace!".
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It was Saturday. Tomorrow, her father wished her to go to chapel. Today, with tin still coming up from the south west end of Ishmaels as a result of stratification and a working steam engine that could drain at least to the fortieth fathom.
It was better than a Watt engine could be in the granite of Cornwall - their engine!
"Come on up, Miss Withering, there is little you can do now!". That was Edward, thought Jemima. All their work, all their efforts, their bruises and burns, and now an engine that steamed half of its water to make high pressure, to get to lower levels. Watt couldn't do that - there was no need in coal.
"I am just looking at her, wondering how much she will be worth to people, to extend jobs, to keep mines going in Cornwall, how much copper is down there."
"We'll know soon enough - Wild will have his men work overnight, go to church and come back until the wakes on Monday.
"Truly?" Jemima sat beside Dick at the wide open edge of the Dolcoath minehead. Edward climbed back up and sat on the other side of her.
"We need to show the mine owners what she can do. Captain Trevithick has marked where the water line was and installed hanging ladders ready for next Wednesday. We will show the mine owners the potential of the Cornish steam pump."
Jemima linked her arms around Edward's and Dick's for a moment.
"Thank you," she told them, for being my friends, my colleagues. Not many would accept a woman - I should know, I've been patronised by the best."
"And you will be able to help with the construction? And any other advances?"
"Other advances?" she asked of Dick.
"There will be," he told her, "I can imagine, in the future, we could adapt them, put them on wheels like the steam carriage, take them to different mines - as you said once, Miss Withering," he told her, and squeezed her arm.
He'd remembered? It must have been five months ago when she had told Dick that. A spark of hope played in her mind. She might be wanted, and if so, she would have money from the steam engine sales to be able to put into anything Dick Trevithick put his mind to.
A moveable engine on rails would be favourite, to save the poor horses and even poorer children pushing and hauling wagons of ore around the levels.
"See you at dawn on Monday," a happy Edward Bull bade them. It was getting dark, and in a moment, Jemima would be glad to know that it had. He pulled her to him and put a kiss on her cheek. "We couldn't have done it without you. Truly." Then stepped away, waving a hand.
"No kiss for you, then," Jemima teased, and Dick Trevithick laughed heartily. "It is true, we could not have done it without you Miss Withering. Shall we - " he broke off, and looked from her over trousers and back to her face.
"Miss Withering…Jemima…" he ventured. "I'll just walk very close behind you, and we will go to the cove, yes?"
"Yes?" Jemima was confused. And then she felt it, like a mechanism, contracting in her stomach, a flesh and blood version of the steam engine - literally. Damn Enys. He couldn't have come sooner? She had hoped she had seen the end of this. More moisture welled in her groin, and she knew some of it would be being soaked up by her breeches.
"Keep walking, Miss Withering, just beyond Dolcoath - there's no-one there now."
He was right, but it was very uncomfortable. She thanked the stars in heaven that it was Dick in whom she had confided, and it was as if he were reading her mind when he added, "I have six sisters, remember?"
"Where are we going?" she hissed, as a couple of miners from West mine touched their caps as they came the other way. One took a backwards look, and Dick stepped closer to her.
"I you can bathe privately."
The water was still warm, even though September brought a more abrupt end to the summer in Cornwall than it did in the Midlands.
Once Jemima had watched, in a pool created by the incoming tide, all four sides walled by cliffs, she wondered about her clothes. She had rinsed them as best as she could but they were still wet. Dick had an answer, however.
"Here," he told her, and placed on a rock a pair of trousers and a shirt. They were far too big for her, being Dick's size. "Mother always sends a spare set. You can wear them - they are freshly laundered."
"And won't she miss them?" Dick shook his head.
"I'll tell her I left them at the mine, it's mostly true," he added. "This is Tehidy land."
But Jemima still needed some bindings, so she decided to use her undershirt, which was now a little drier from being on the rock. She emerged from the water, absolutely aware that, should Dick turn round, though it was near darkness, he would still see her nakedness.
Nothing to be done, and the water fell from Jemima's body. She saw the young man move at the sound, but did not turn, not even when she stood by him with his clothes on her body.
"I…need your help, Dick - I am not your size!" It was true, or she would be walking with handfuls of clothes in her hands and risked falling over.
"You're decent now? As decent as you can be?"
"Yes."
With hands that must have practised dressing smaller figures, like a brother helping a sister, Dick folded the shirt and made a knot, so it hung past her navel. He folded the breeches at the waist, then crouched and folded up each trouser leg.
"You'll do, til you get home. God help you if your father sees you like this!" But he walked her eight to the door and waited for her to go in, so pointedly that Jemima wondered whether he had been there the night Tom Harry had abducted her.
"Wait by the window!" She pointed to the floor above - her room, and then let ehrself into the parlour.
Putting the clothes she had worn to soak and making a mental note to speak to Mrs. Vaighn, she locked the kitchen door on the way through, and went upstairs, undressing and slipping on a nightgown.
"Dick?"
"Jemima!"
"I'm throwing them down - unless you want me to wash them before I give them back to you?"
"Best give them back, I can make an excuse." She opened the window, her long black hair playing in the breeze. A waning gibbous moon was on the rise. Jemima bundled up Dick Trevithick's; clothes and threw them down to him. He caught them with one swift movement.
"Night Jemima," Dick called.
"Night, Dick." And Jemima Withering watched the dark shadow of her colleague and friend until he disappeared into the darkness.