Autumn 1790 S2 E2-4
The wakes were not to begin on Monday for Jemima. Indeed, her father it was Sunday morning, the last Sunday of September and the day before Michaelmas when a woman appeared at the front door.
"Father?" Jemima called, nodding to the young, redheaded woman who she vaguely recognised.
"You must be Miss Withering," the woman said, and danced a hand near her stomach.
She was expecting a baby, Jemima deduced, and took the basket from her hand.
"Yes, I'm Jemima Withering," she tells her. "And you are?"
"Demelza. Demelza Poldark. Yer father asked me to come over to cook the food? After the Michaelmas service?"
"Food?" Jemima turned her head back inside, looking to where the door had closed to the sitting room. "Mrs Vaughn?" But she had heard the woman go out that morning, for Sundays were her day off. "Do come in," she added, "opening the door wide. Nodding, Demelza Poldark stepped through, and into the wide, long passage that separated, like the equator, the northern rooms from the southern.
"Please, do come in, sit down," Jemima offered, but the woman shook her head.
"No, I thank ee," Demelza told her. "I fear'st that I will not get up again. My husband brought me over on the way back from Truro, and asks would your father be troubled to send me back by horse to my home?"
Just then, Jemima's father opened the door, and smiled between her and Demelza. Good, perhaps the mystery could be cleared up.
"Mistress Poldark asks whether you can spare our house to get her home," Jemima told him.
"Of course, of course!" John Withering told her. "Jemima, take what you need from the kitchen."
"Father?" Jemima asked.
"If…Miss Withering is reluctant to come with me we could stay here. Would your housekeeper be objectful if we were to stay here?"
"Father!" Jemima exclaimed. She was not expecting visitors, and had come to the door in her trousers and shirt. If she were going out, she would need to change. Going out to do what?
"I told Sir Francis that we would provide some of the food for the wakes tomorrow. Now," he raised his hands a little as if to ward off a potential protest, and then looked to Demelza Poldark. "My daughter is a little untrained in cooking, but she knows cakes and biscuits."
Jemima watched the woman nod, and felt affronted - it was true, she was reluctant to cook, and wasn't very good at it. But it wasn't what she was required to do, and even when she cooked, she hadn't the desire to learn more. Give her rocks and a means of extracting their substances - now that was a different type of cooking. And not one that was required to be edible on a wakes day.
"I would prefer to stay here," she told her father. "What are we to cook?" Dr. Withering smiled.
"No, no, go with Mistress Poldark, take a basket of things with you, there are people I must prepare for."
Jemima shook her head, a little cross. Why wasn't he listening? She didn't know she was supposed to be cooking for the wakes, let alone what, or that her father had arranged for help for her.
"Good, good," John Withering told his daughter. "You promised Mistress Poldark you would show her to make oatcakes and Eccles cakes, didn't you? And I thought, what better time to bring some of our home counties to the wakes here.". He gestured to the open door, towards the kitchen.
"Mrs. Vaughn has left now, so go into the kitchen and find the two bags she has put up. Then I'll ask Tredegar to bring the carriage round." He looked between his daughter and Demelza and smiled.
"Don't look so worried - Mistress Poldark will teach you much. You can go in your house clothes," he told her, meaning her trousers and shirt, "I have a new day dress for you for tomorrow."
"My apologies, Mistress Poldark," Jemima told her as she took the woman to Meadowsweet's kitchen. "My father clearly forgot to tell me I was expected to cook, and also," Jemima hesitated, "I promised you several years ago to show you my recipes."
Amongst the copper pans and jelly moulds that Mrs Vaughn liked to use were two bags that had once held flour. Jemima looked inside.
"Yes, these are those," she told Demelza. "Mr. Tredegar!" she called through the open window. "Can you bring the carriage by?"
Jemima really didn't want to cook here, not with Captain Poldark's wife, but she had promised her. And the woman seemed pleasant enough.
They left the kitchen and walked to the front of the house. Her father was waiting for them.
"Have a good morning, Jemima," he told her, and opened his arms. Jemima crossed to him, bags still in arms and wrapped them round him, lumpily, letting go when she realised what she had done. "I happened to speak to Captain Poldark this morning as they came from church - you don't mind, do you?"
"I will cook as best as I can for you, father," she told him. Smile through adversity, Jemima told herself, and cooking really was adversity.
"I don't doubt it, daughter," he smiled, thinking of the wonderful chaos that was about to descend on them, and watched the carriage leave. "Goodbye."
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The coach trailed over the dusty road heading east. Camborne had passed and then Redruth, and Jemima fancied she saw a wisp of steam coming from the northern road, where William Murdoch's house lay.
Ahead of them was a small crossroads, Illogan one way, Sawle the next. It was only now that Jemima turned his head and looked at the woman's face. If she had been up for the Michaelmas service at Truro then she would be tired. It was odd her father hadn't called her to attend. But they would go to Redruth that evening for the Methodist service, she imagined.
"When do you have your baby?" Jemima asked, turning her eyes from the pink and yellow flowers scattered on the scrubby heathland.
"Not until the springtime," Demelza replied. "What?". Jemima sat back and glanced to the landscape, before looking back to the woman, realising she had been staring at her.
"I don't really like babies," Jemima told her.
"What do you like?"
"Machines. And mining. Your house is called Nampara, is it not?"
Demelza gasped. The realisation to her suddenly, though in truth, she should have known. This one, her thoughts reminded her and she put her hand to her stomach.
"You are she! The girl who did stand up to Ross!"
"Stand up? No. Tell the truth based on evidence, yes," she told Demelza. "I am sorry for him, for you, because I know you would have had a deal of money by now.". Demelza laughed.
"That's Ross, stubborn. Will you go back, if he would ask?"
"No," Jemima told her. "I have left it all in the hands of Captain Henshawe, but he's digging in the wrong place." The coach rounded the bend, the sea in front of them.
To her left, Wheal Leisure and Wheal Grace stood proudly out from the short grass and the light of the late autumn sun enhanced the stonework's pale red-grey bricks.
"And where should they be digging? Demelza asked, leaning past her. Jemima looked about them.
"Turn to face the midday sun," and the woman turned. Beside her, Demelza turned, and Jemima pointed a finger, "Go down forty fathoms and it's copper all the way to the other mine there."
"Grace?"
"Grace." Jemima confirmed.
"But we have begun Grace!" Jemima told her, smiling, "And the copper could be worked from Grace."
"If your husband decides to dig back towards Wheal Leisure," she told Demelza, her heart beating suddenly. Because Captain Poldark might be planning to do just that," she thought, and wondered whether George Warleggan's offer still stood. Because it would be a wound to her pride if, having rejected the scheme to her face, Ross Poldark got to it from the other direction.
"It all sounds so easy as you say it," Demelza told her as the coach tracked higher up a rise, the horses working at the effort.
"It is easy," Jemima told her. "My father taught me. I was an engineer before I even came here, the coal miners knew me, even as a child.". She glanced to Demelza's stomach. "Easier than babies."
The farmhouse was a little way off the track, and Demelza and Jemima got out.
"Yer father want me to come back later," Mr. Tredegar told Jemima. She nodded and took the bags with her. He'd be on the beach then, or a cove, fishing, she thought, and her mind drifted to Humphry, who would spend the rest of his life fishing, given the opportunity.
"Who be this then, maid?" A servant, a middle aged woman in a pinafore and hat, stood by the wall that demarked the outer barley fields and the house's yard, where the animals were. She told Demelza's basket and narrowed her eyes at Jemima.
"This is Miss Withering, Prudie," Mistress Poldark told the servant.
"This is Prudie, Jud," she nodded to another elderly servant, who equally grimaced to Jemima. Behind them, a mongrel dog padded out, whether through recognition of his mistress or the smell of the ingredients.
"This is Garrick - " the dog barked, "Crockery breaker, stealer of pies.". Jemima nodded to the dog. Even without the bags in her hands she wouldn't have fussed him, liking them as much as she liked babies.
"So, dully cake, you have ginger?" Jemima began, following Demelza into the house's kitchen. Smaller than Meadowsweet, it was a country farmhouse. But it seemed welcoming, almost familiar, like when a cobbler had made your boots just right.
Behind them the two servants hovered, watching the two women.
"I have saffron," Demelza told her.
"Is it a spice?" Demelza put on an apron and handed one to Jemima. They really were poor if the woman had to make do with repurposed clothes as aprons.
"So, the cake has currants in it, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, all in layers," Jemima continued, overlooking that the woman hadn't answews her question.
"There are three cakes…stacked atop another?" Demelza had turned, mid-firing of the range.
"Make the mixture, split it to three. Do you have three bowls?" Jemima shook her head slightly, wishing she was back at Meadowsweet - it was a well stocked kitchen at home. She sighed. Smile through adversity.
Demelza had provided two deepish trays rather than bowls which appeared on the kitchen table as she unpacked the flour bags. "Mix the first cinnamon - " A spoon to her hand, Jemima demonstrated, "Then let it rest in the tin. A sprinkle of flour, then - she found currants in one of the bags.
"Flour next?" Demelza asked. Jemima nodded. "Then the third layer…the cake may mingle a little, Mistress Poldark," Jemima told her, "But the layers should be more or less like this."
It went in, and Jemima looked at the ingredients left over.
"Do you have enough mixture for Eccles cakes?". There was still some of the mixture left in one of the trays. "My father does like Eccles cakes. We will need the sugar." Jemima placed the tin on the table, and saw Demelza's eyes turn to it. "And, tradition says that we need to eat one before we serve them to others."
"Do it? I like that tradition," Demelza smiled. It wasn't, as far as Jemima knew. But Mistress Poldark seemed to have the manner of someone mimicking the ways of a different class to her own, including table manners.
Still, Demelza Poldark did not wish to indulge immediately for she asked Jemima, "Show me oatcakes first?" And she was surprised that, instead of dainty biscuits she imagined, these were like pancakes as Jemima explained what they were.
She crossed to the range, on top of which was an ironplate used for slowcooking broths. It was currently raised, so Jemima used one of the coarse cotton flour bags around her hand and moved it over the range.
"You need a hot griddle, even hotter than you have."
"We only have wood," Demelza told her. Jemima smiled and reached into her pocket out of which tumbled some black rocks of coke. "The best my county can offer."
And, as Mrs. Wedgwood's housekeeper had taught her, Jemima lifted the dully cake from the oven, Demelza taking it from her and upending it onto a wire rack. Jemima banked the fire and closed the flue. The heat radiated from the cooker and Jemima added the coke, and it got hotter still.
"Do you have fat?"
"Here, Miss," said the servant, and handed her a tub, in which a little animal grease sat. Jemima ran a metal slice over the ironplate and dropped the fat onto it, which sizzled. And then the oatcakes batter - oats, flour and egg, with a touch of soda powder. The mixture bubbled and squirmed on the hot plate.
Shortly after Jemima she used the slice and landed it on a plate, and repeated the process, another and another. Demelza's eyes sparkled - a new recipe.
"They can be eaten with anything, meat, cheese, fish. The potters in Burslem wrap their food in them."
"Like in the mines here, with pasties," Demelza remarked, looking back to the table and the ingredients left.
They made Eccles cakes next, and Jemima explained that they were like the shrewbread placed upon the altar of the Temple by the Hebrews, and were taken to church in summer when Derbyshire churches had their wakes.
"Eccles cakes should be shining and moist inside with a glossy, sticky outside," she told Demelza, and showed her the dried, sugared orange peel and nutmeg, which Demelza had never seen.
"Make the pastry first - oh - " Jemima exclaimed, as the mixture turned sticky in her hands.
"No, 'tis like this!" Demelza gently scolded and, flouring her hands, used her fingertips to pinch the flour into the fat. "Shall I do 'em?". Demelza asked, shrewdly. Jemima nodded.
"Roll the pastry thinly and cut into circles - Mrs. Slade used a knife to oh - " she broke off as she watched Mistress Poldark place the lid of the sugar onto the pastry and used a knife tip to cut round them. Undeterred, Jemima mixed the ingredients into one of the bowls and placed them on the rounds with the spoon.
"Then, dampen the edges and gather together," Jemima told herz needlessly, because Demelza had already done three before she had even stopped speaking.
"Use the knife, put a little V on the top with the knife point and then some water on top, sprinkle it with sugar." She watched as Demelza, with deft fingers, seemed to know what needed to be done
"Why, these are just like Saffron cakes!" , so together they made the same pastry circles and filled them instead with fruit. On top, a tiny few strands of yellow, " - little bit from the crocus plant!"
"I am glad you will be able to bring these on the morrow," Demelza told her, as Jemima pressed into an Eccles cake and they honoured the non-existent tradition.
"Oh no, these are not mine - they were made in your kitchen - you need to take them!" Whether it was the right thing to say, Jemima didn't care. The woman smiled a smile that was as brilliant as the sun at midsummer.
It dimmed a little as the door opened, switching back to Mistress of the house in less than a second.
" - and when I get back I'll be straight over to Tehidy - " The man looked at the table, " - and with the feast…" he looked to his wife abs his tone hardened. "Where did you get the means for this?" And to Jemima, "And help?"
"Captain Poldark, your wife, as you know, came to Meadowsweet to show me her baking, my father wished me to bake here for the comfort of your wife."
"It looks like you have. But my wife does not need instruction, Miss Withering." Keep it down, Jemima told herself.
"It was yourself that reminded me of the promise I made to her," Jemima replied. "So I have taught her dully cake, oatcakes, Eccles cakes." Poldark nodded at the table then looked to Demelza. She was waiting for a word of approval. She wasn't to get it.
"With all that cake she will be as fat as Prudie," Poldark commented.
"And you yourself are going to Tehidy, to look at the steam engine tomorrow?" Jemima nearly said "my steam engine".
Poldark nodded - it was clear that he hadn't expected her, and even clearer that he didn't want Jemima there. "We abode at night with Sir Francis Bassett and make a judgment about the Watt engine." He made to stalk past them but Jemima couldn't stop herself replying.
"It is not a Watt engine you will see, Captain," Jemima told him. "My colleagues, Bull and Trevithick have rebuilt the faulty engine sent from Mr Boulton in Brummigem and have made it suitable for Cornish mines, we tested it to forty fathoms at Dolcoath."
"You…? I'll believe it when I see it.". Poldark made to go.
"And if you see it," Jemima replied, "Will you allow logic to dictate your business this time?"
Ross Poldark froze, not expecting a retort, and certainly not off a girl.
"I'll…consider my options. Now - " He looked at the table and then between his wife and his former mine surveyor. "How is this to get to Boskednan?" Demelza looked at her too, her shoulders sinking.
"My father sent us in the Reverend Giddy's carriage," she told him, "And he goes by it in the morning. I can take it with me now and he will ensure Mistress Poldark gets it in the morning."
How will Mistress Poldark get there was a question Jemima wanted to ask, but her suggestion had made the woman smile again.
Poldark looked as if he wanted to say something else, but instead nodded and strode out of the door.
"Do ee look like someone to you?" Prudie asked Jud, as Demelza watched the carriage leave.
"No, not that I see." Jud bit into the leftover oatcake.
"See better, yer wizlin worm," Prudie scolded. "She be the image of…now oo, d'yer think?" She watched Demelza cross to horses with the fruit scraps.
"Dunno, leave me wumman, I be enjoying me piece."
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"What are you doing here?!" It was as much as Jemima could do not to leap on her friend as she came from the kitchen, having stowed the baked goods away in the pantry.
"It's not just me!" Humphry Davy replied, in as excited a tone as Jemima. "I'm staying here with you and your father; Davies is at Tredrea, and Gregory, and Thomas! And Mr. Watt and Mr. Wedgwood are coming tomorrow!
Her father was out across at Tredrea, Jemima found out, and she took Humphry all over the house and the small garden that led to the lane, and her experiments and his experiments and her time at the Poldark house that morning and her leaving her job at Wheal Leisure.
"But that's preposterous!" Humphry declared. "Not just because you are my friend, Jemima, but it makes no sense, digging where there is little chance of copper instead of a bigger chance?"
"There are decisions made here because of things that cannot be seen, you of all people know that," Jemima told him, as they walked back.
She meant Dunkin, and Humphry told her that, as well as Poldark's near miss acquittal, " - that was against logic too, but I am glad of it," he told Jemima. And they talked of Bristol and the many Tong Tong mines, and wakes in Derbyshire, " - they are held in May or June, and the wells are dressed with flowers!"
And Humphry told her of a water spring where that was also done in the spring, " - it's in a village in the east, near the Devon border, near the grave of King Doniert…we stayed near there when my father was alive - "
…and so on, an accelerated tennis of information batted between the two friends until -
" - Dr. Withering!" And Humphry was not on his feet and certainly not alone with Jemima in the sitting room.
When he has greeted him, Dr. Withering said, "Master Davy, we are to church, come you with us?". Humphry smiled widely.
"We were there this morning with Reverend Giddy, oh, you mean to Redruth?" John Withering nodded.
"Yes, I will! And Jemima, Miss Withering, I mean for you to show me this engine you have made - " be looked back to his friend, "But oh, hasn't Mr. Watt some words to say about it…?"
And later, when Jemima changed for chapel, "Oh but I say, when were you last in a dress? I would like us to go down to St. Michael's and out into a boat, as we used to, would you like that?"
They walked to Redruth to the Methodist chapel. She supposed that the reason so many people were also walking there and filling the building so much was that there were a lot of people here for the wakes and hiring day, when they would show the world the steam engine.
But Jemima did catch sight of a face she knew. Henshawe had turned and was talking to another man she recognised, Mr. Harvey, who had a boat building business at Hayle. Her heart beat a little faster as they walked home.
"Of course we will be with you, Davies and I will take you to the wakes! Thomas and Gregory both tell me when you went Derbyshire, with cakes and Staffordshire with the deer horns!"
They were discussing the next day as they got home and Jemima turned to her father, "Will you be coming?"
Dr. Withering paused at the door, hand on the handle. "To the wakes, yes, for a short while - I have patients in the morning who will expect me. The mines day? Yes. I will be especially looking to hire myself a new medical assistant." His tone was now lighter and she saw the corner of his eyes crinkle with mirth.
Jemima turned to Humphry, who looked too excited to tease it out with her father. "What, Humphry?"
"I am staying! For a while, anyway! Dr. Beddoes has given me leave, how wonderful it is, Jemima! Mr. Dunkin was released from debtor's jail and is living with his sister. He has made it up with me, for I said I would work in Cornwall for a little time! But Dr. Beddoes does want me back - a man from the Royal Institution came to see me, Thomas Young, - I made some metal, like your metal, Jemima, I used a generator like yours. He wishes me to go to London to continue!"
And Jemima's heart soared. "Oh, Humphry, that's wonderful news!". She refrained from jumping on him as they would used to - she was older now, but evidently Humphry had not got the same sentiment, for he threw his arms around her neck.
John Withering just smiled, and nodded to his daughter, "Look now, daughter, Master Davy is your height now!". Humphry broke off and instead held the door of Meadowsweet open.
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Morning, daybreak and there was a knock on her bedroom door. Jemima opened her eyes and blinked several times and spied her dress. Knocking came again.
Green, not as rich green as the malachite of South Wales or Anglesey. But the pale green of the ore knew to be in the south tunnel of Wheal Leisure.
"Jemima!" came the exclamation at her door, and further knocking. She got to her feet. But before she could say anything, the door opened.
In her undershirt and under trousers, Jemima turned. "Time to get up, are you ready?" Humphry stood there for a moment, as he realised Jemima was not. The door closed again and Humphry was still talking.
"Davies will be on his way, he might even be here!" His voice was muffled as he spoke through the door. "He is looking forward to seeing you, and Gregory, and Thomas - they are coming with his father!"
"Ah-a," Jemima agreed, as she shimmied into the dress. As she got the bodice over her shirt, she heard a sound below her window. Davies wasn't there.
But Dick was, as was Edward Bull. Oh no. After all the excitement of Humphry and Davies being there, how could she forget she had already arranged to go with her work colleagues, her work friends.
"Can you ask Mrs Vaughn to come up?" Jemima conceded. And the housekeeper came and laced up the back and bid her a good day.
So it was to her surprise that, as Humphry bounded through the side door to the path beneath her window that Davies Giddy, her dearest friend, who had written to her to warn her of Dick Trevithick was now conversing with him as if they were friends of old!
Gilbert Watt, of course, knew Edward from his time in Warwickshire under his father and they discussed developments in the Midlands as Davies spoke to Humphry, extolling the virtues of Master Trevithick, steam master.
"My father is furious," Gilbert Watt told them, "He sent his best machines, but all the mine owners have changed them in one way or another - oh, I don't believe that he will cross words with you, Master Trevithick, not unless you have patented your invention, eh?"
"Good to see you, Jemima," Edward enthused. "Daybreak, sunrise! And the trick is to stay awake to see off the devilish enemy."
"James Watt?" asked Dick Trevithick. Everyone laughed. Which was a good thing, Jemima thought, because, unknown to Edward, Dick had patented it for them all - he has told her so when they had walked back together on Saturday night.
He glanced down to Jemima and gave her a smile, which she returned. However she could see unresolvable trouble and fought to push that to the back of her mind.
Six friends walked that day from Camborne to Boskednan and then on to Tehidy, for the wakes festival.
And after the next day Statute Day, when men were hired and marriages were undertaken, Geese give
Mn as tithes had been given back, cooked, to the people who had brought them, everything would change and the world for Jemima would be different.
Forever.