Chapter 18 Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
Autumn/Winter 1790, S2E2-4
Autumn trees lost their leaves and soon became straggly skeletons of their former selves. The sea, though not yet in its January keening, beat upon cliffs and pounded shores, making water rush up the pump water channels.
Watt and Wedgwood, so easy and genial in their arrival left in cold, awkward haste, Thomas and Gregory not even having a chance to bid farewell to Jemima.
Worse still, Humphry was asked by Beddoes to return a week early to Bristol so he could make his presentation to Thomas Young of the Royal Institution. Jemima had arranged with her father for a few days with them to explore the Scillies again and had pinned her hopes on Davies.
But he also was to leave: he was to meet Dr. Young too, his paper on the Plutonian formation of rocks, with reference to rocks in the Cornish sub-landscape.
A sense of loss, felt in her stomach accompanied Jemima daily, with two consolations, the first was that they would return at Christmas, the second, the daily and perpetual consolitatory joy was the pumping engine.
Sir Francis has been right: more orders were taken, and she, Dick, and Edward - who stayed on and help.
"If Watt launches action, then he launches action!" Edward told her when an astonished Jemima saw him the day after the Statute fair, and went on to explain that mine owners were being won over because they did not need to buy new parts, whatever engines they had could be adapted, vastly reducing the costs.
Dick had not repeated what he had done the night Jemima had come to tell him she was putting her money into his locomotive engines. But for the occasional glances, when their eyes met, and he gave her a brief smile, it was like it had never happened.
Which was as it needed to be: Jemima's father could not know about this, and she suspected their work together would suffer. Edward's presence helped greatly, as did that of Drake Carne, who was needed to make parts that were needed when reassembling old Watt or Newcomen low pressure machines to be high pressure Cornish engines, the inlet valve recoil, the seocnd arm, another cog, an inlet valve casing.
Time flowed like the pumped water from the engines and soon the trio had fitted Fortune, Ishmaels, East and Treskilian of their own mines, from their own original pumping engines, and Leisure and Busy, with a start to be made on Grace.
"I thought Warleggan had ordered two engines," Edward asked one morning, as crisp cold clouds lay high in the sky.
"I spoke to Mr. Warleggan," William Wild told them, "And he wants a mine survey done first."
"He still wants the pump?" Dick asked.
"He says so," Wild told them, "And has asked for your father to come over too Grambler. I have said that we cannot spare him, our mines doing so well.
Jemima smiled inwardly, thinking about the offer Warleggan had made her. She had not gone to the Leisure installation but had listened as Edward told of their mine captain and workers who had not gone across to Grace, there were others of the Martin family, and the Lanyons, Rowes and Couches, all up from farming jobs, all happy to be at a profit-making mine, for copper was beginning to be lifted, just where Jemima had demonstrated it would lie.
She had been at Busy, though, Henry Harvey senior listening to her as she explained the principle of the Cornish engine design as Edward, Dick and Harvey's engineers of their once proud Newcomen as she was dismantled and refitted. Thankfully for Jemima, Jane was, "In Truro with your sisters and cousins," he told Dick, and Jemima supposed young women would be buying new dresses for the Christmas season.
It was telling how little she cared for clothes that it had taken until Captain Trevithick had discovered her wakes dress shortly after the 5th November Bonfire Night, and had returned it, wrapped in a linen bag, Mrs. Trevithick having laundered it for her.
His engine had had a test, hauled the head gear, and had brought up ten tonnes of coal from Falmouth. That was much more interesting than ribbons and laces. It was more lucrative, for a start.
Edward was returning to Brummigem after Christmas, to work with Gregory at Boulton's Soho works. He was under contract with Boulton and Watt and, being an orphan with few contacts saved those he knew from his work on Cornwall and even fewer options was going back to the Midlands.
"I'll write," he told Jemima, knowing her prodigious letter writing.
"I am sure I will visit. My uncle has written to say that Mr. Darby at Madeley wishes to extract his coal using steam…our Cornish pump might fit.". Except, of course, Abraham Darby might not be so confident in refusing to listen to James Watt's patent process.
"It is there I will be," Edward told her. "We know about the extraction problem, but the main problem the miners have is still firedamp and blackdamp."
Jemima shivered, and not from the brilliant cold of the morning. Though her father had bade to keep her away from the explosion at Netherton. The bodies of eighteen men were brought out burned from the back blast of the gas that had built up and exploded as they had held their naked candles forth.
Winter bore on and Christmas had meant the party given by Francis Bassett. Whether Jemima had even wondered if they would get an invitation or not, her mind was fixed on steam and machinery and engineering.
As Sir Francis had predicted, more mine owners had placed an order for a high pressure steam pump. Jemima returned very tired one evening and her father bade her bathe and dress.
"We are going somewhere?" she asked, when she reappeared in her wakes dress. Her father shook his head.
"We have been invited to Sir Francis's Christmas party," John Withering told her. He passed her the invitation. Blue ink spelled the words: "Pleasure Ball, While we Live Let us LIVE, Dr. and Miss Withering are requested to attend the ball at Sir Francis Bassett's house of Tehidy House on Tuesday 26th December to dine and dance."
"Oh, Jemima exclaimed. "Us both? That will be good, father." John Withering looked over the edge of Zoonomia, which had been on his teak table in the sitting room since Enys had returned it several months ago.
Edward and Dick had spoken about the party - they were going, and she had exclaimed that the three of them could go together and had put out her hands to them both. "I would not be happy unless you both accompanied me, we three are friends, are we not?"
Then the three of them discussed Murdoch's steam engine, and Dick confided in Edward that he planned to patent the locomotive engine and Jemima told Edward that she has invested her dividend from the Cornish engine into Trevithick's locomotives.
"1800, that is when Watt's patent expires," he told them. "I am glad for you, Dick, Jemima. I only wish I were to be here."
A thought had passed through Jemima's mind about whether the engine could be used by Abraham Darby, but Edward Bull, being downcast about leaving, it did not seem the right time to suggest that Dick could travel to Coalbrookdale, to Madeley, and demonstrate the machine. Hauling coal by a steam engine rather than horse would improve Darby's efficiency, and he would be able to make iron faster…cheaper…
They had agreed, and Jemima decided to make her wakes dress over with some of the lace from the dress that Mrs. Wedgwood had given to her.
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As a Christmas gift, Jemima had a shawl for Mrs. Vaughn, chosen from a stall when they were at Falmouth a few days ago, Scottish wool, lilacs and greens all intertwined. Her father's gift had taken more planning, and had involved Gregory Watt and a visit to the workshops of the Brummigem jewellers.
A delicate pocket watch had arrived just a few days ago, with Boulton clock mechanism within an engraved brass case, and Jemima had sent the young man a warm greeting and a warm necktie bought from the Scots trader from whom she had bought the shawl.
Gregory should appreciate it, she supposed, his father James Watt being from just across the border and, feeling she was onto a good thing, bought five others, one sent to Burslem, two to Bristol and two she would give to her friends on Christmas Eve.
"I have sewn my dress," she told him, to Dr. Withering's astonishment. And then told her father about her agreement to go with Edward and Dick.
"No, Jemima," John Withering told her. "You will not go with your friends, you will go with an escort."
"Yes father," Jemima told him obediently, her heart sinking. Of the two of them, it was an impossible choice, even if Dick had told her he loved her.
"You have had an offer," he told her, "The man came to see me, he would like the honour of escorting you."
"Oh? Oh." Jemima fell silent, thinking.
"I am sure Mr. Bull and Master Trevithick will be there." He smiled at her, and Jemima noticed a flicker. Of what? Pain?
"I do not feel that I could come," her father admitted. "I feel the need to rest of an evening - " he broke off and raised a hand. "I am the luckiest father that you wish to rush off to find another man of my profession to tend me," and put his hand over hers.
"Would you go to put on the dress you altered? I would see its quality."
It was a good alteration in Jemima's opinion, considering she had taken apart her wakes dress and fitted the dark green skirt of dress that Mrs Wedgwood had given her for the ball at Trentham where she had met William Smith. The brocade and lace sat well together across the bodice and the skirt hung well across her hips. It would do well as a dress for a party.
Mrs Vaughn, coming down the hall, looked Jemima up and down as she descended the stairs.
"Let's see?" her father told her, who had come to the door. He looked at Jemima, her hair still up in pins from that afternoon's work. "Your handiwork does you credit."
"He is here," Mrs. Vaughn told Dr. Withering.
"Who?"
The who was not long before the "who" became apparent. George Warleggan was standing in the drawing room, looking as neat and put together as always.
"Dr. Withering, Miss Withering," he greeted them. His eyes followed Jemima as she bobbed before him. What did Warleggan want?
Jemima still hadn't really got it when Mr. Warleggan excused the time, praised Jemima's health and asked her to accompany him to Sir Francis's party.
It wasn't as if she were a girl waiting with bated breath at the touch of a hand and a closeness of a body. Dick had told her he loved her, but it wasn't like that with them. Not like she felt in the company of -
But she smiled and obediently agreed.
"I would be most honoured to, Mr. Warleggan."
And after he had left, declining canary port and a bite of supper, Jemima worked something out.
"I can't go in this dress now, can I?" she told her father. He smiled.
"No indeed," Dr. Withering replied, hand to her back and escorting her to the dining room.
"Father!" Jemima sighed, as he kissed her cheek. "Why did you ask Mr. Warleggan?"
"He asked me if he could ask you," John Withering told her. "I think he wants to charm you into accepting work at Wheal Leisure. Mining captain, he said."
"I'll have to think about it," Jemima told him.
"Yes,yes, your beloved steam engine," he replied, shaking out his serviette. "As for your dress, I rarely get to treat you Tom anything, my daughter, you wouldn't stop me for spoiling you, would you?"
"No father."
"And you will no doubt see Mr. Bull and Master Trevithick at the party. Although, you see them every day.
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Christmas morning arrived, first to Jemima's ears as the church bells heralded the morning and then her nose as a waft of goose came to her nose.
"I'll be leaving ye the goose.". There was a rattling in the kitchen just below Jemima's window.
She got blearily to her feet and slipped on her hand sewn dress.
"Daughter, is that you?"
"Yes, father." The reason she was so sleepy was because she had gone with Dick and Edward and Mr. Trevithick to the Red Lion in Truro.
Memories of that day, when she nearly won the shareholders of Wheal Leisure money from copper ore, only to be thwarted.
"Small beer, Miss Withering, since it's Christmas?" The mine was to be closed for two days and the mine captains had been given money for the workers and engineers.
Outside the miners were in full voice, songs of the chapel filled the streets: "Lift up thine voice to the Lord…" "The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want…"
"They do not mind," said Mr. Trevithick, smiling broadly when Jemima declined on account of being Methodist.
"Jemima likes milk, or boiled water when he's come with us to the Swan or the Oak," Dick told his father.
"Oh, it's Jemima now, lad?" He told Dick, nudging him and laughing. "All right now Miss Withering," he told her, "Jan-boy, a jar of milk for Miss Withering - " he turned and looked at the three of them, "- compliments of Sir Francis!"
They walked along Camborne coast as the sun sank before them.
"Do you have to go to Coalbrookdale?". Jemima asked of Edward. They had worked so hard, so complicit, one would say one thing, another would try it. Dick would climb to the top, Jemima would hand him a spanner, Edward would reposition. And they would try again.
Day after day, until the coal consumption had been dropped to a third and they could pump out water four times the depth than the misassembled Watt engine could.
"Stay here? There is nothing that I could do here that would pay as much as Darby will, Jemima," He told her. "If I had money - Dick - " he turned round to look to his friend, " - if I had money, you could have your own engine house and not work at Ting Tong…and I will be with Gregory, and might be in a position to dissuade Mr. Watt not to pursue action against Mr. Wild."
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He would be going, a third of their development team, and life would be different. Exciting, yes, but different. A wave broke on the beach. Six sets of prints emerged as the water washed backwards.
"And you will come to visit?" Edward asked her. Of the three of them, he was always the most light-hearted, carefree. Always the one with a positive word or a happy story. "You've never been to the Midlands, Dick?"
"Never been further than Bodmin, Edward. Are there dragons?"
"Huge, fire-breathing monsters that make the sky red from dusk to dawn."
"We'll come!" Jemima told Edward, "Won't we, Dick? Because Mr. Darby might want - " She felt a hand at her back.
"Jemima," Edward said to her, his hand warm. She stopped walking and looked at him. "Before we walk you home, Dick and I have something to tell you: I don't just have work for Darby. He is…not obliged to follow Watt's patents, Darby is independent of Boulton and Watt. He wants our steam engine - your engine. The one on wheels…to shunt coal, to deliver it."
Jemima stopped walking, and turned to them both, and suddenly to their hands.
"1800?" she asked, "We need to wait ten years?"
"No," Edward to her. "What you have made, Dick…Jemima…that's new technology. Watt can't touch you on what you have built. And neither can he touch Darby."
"So Mr. Darby has said he wants to see the engine," Dick told her.
"What? You can't take a whole engine…like Murdoch's? Like the Falmouth one…you can't take it up to Shropshire."
"No, but we can rebuild it.". There was a twinkle in his eye, the setting sun illuminating his blue eyes. "He can make iron, can he not?" The merriment was unusual in Dick's face, moreso now he had included Edward in the game.
"That's marvellous!" Jemima told them. "Truly!". And she took a hand each of theirs and squeezed them.
"Promise me you'll write, Edward?"
"Of course. If I write to Dick I will never get a reply."
"Edward, that's the best news!". Jemima hugged him and then Dick, and gave each their neckties.
So while she arrived early, the thought was buzzing in her mind, even that morning, and she dressed in her work clothes.
"Open it," her father encouraged. The gift was a necklace in silver with Bluejohn stone set in the centre.
"It's beautiful!" she exclaimed and reached to the locket from Dick which she hid beneath her shirts
"Wear it with your dress tomorrow, you haven't ordered anything have you?"
"No, father. You said you wanted to." How was it some women knew to do things like that? It hadn't even crossed her mind.
"And you, father?" The watch was in a similar box and he smoothed the leather skin with his fingers over it, before sliding the catch.
"It is beautiful, daughter," he told her. "On days like this I wish your brother and mother were still with us - your brother was apprenticing to be a clockmaker, did you know?"
Jemima shook her head, then noticed her father looked to say something to her. But it was then her father noticed something.
"You're not going out, surely? On Christmas morning?"
"I'll be back for luncheon, father, and chapel. Trevithick is with his family at St. Teilio's and Bull has gone by carriage up to Exeter. I want to make sure the engine is sound, for it will not be in use for two days and Dick and I can make repairs and replacements. I said I would start by auditing her."
John Withering kissed Jemima's head and whispered, "Merry Christmas, daughter," before sitting back down in the drawing room and watching her walk across the crisp heathland grass. Then, he took out the letter, in French, which he had lodged in,."Zoonomia" and read it once more.
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"This be for Master Trevithick, I told ee - " The boy looked past her, as if he might find Dick Trevithick just behind her, even though he hadn't seen anyone else except for Jemima. "I was sent for him and only him. So you must tell me where he is."
"St. Teilio's" Jemima told him. "Who is sending for him?"
"Wheal Grace. They do say for Master Trevithick to come over to Grace - coach had been sent, Miss. Tis urgent."
"Wait," Jemima instructed him, smoothing a clip joint across her thigh, then hooked it back over the joint between the cross bar and one of the pumping shafts, tightening it with a spanner.
"Is Dick…Master Trevithick…to return today, sir?" she asked Trevailon, the mine captain of East.
"Not here," said the men. "At service at Truro, prob'ly," he told her.
"There," Jemima told the boy, "Not here." And, as his face fell dejectedly, Jemima added, "So come on!"
Before the boy had time to object, and before she had time to change her own mind, Jemima was sitting in the carriage opposite him.
Knowing Dick, he would have been up all night with the locomotive engine anyway. Edward had been there two night ago, they had told her about what they had done to make the crank shaft move slower. Late nights then caused him to be even less talkative and more surly. Jemima hoped it wouldn't get worse when there would only be the two of them.
When they arrived at Wheal Grace, Jemima found that it was as deserted as Ding Dong. She thanked the driver and put a sixpence into his hand and penny into the boy's, who ran off happily.
She should have known that one person who had no other family on Christmas Day would be here, doing the same job at Grace as Jemima had been doing at Dolcoath.
A figure stood in the shadow of the engine house.
"Do you know what's urgent?" The voice called. A thin whisp of smoke came from the man's pipe. "Who sent for me?" Jemima reiterated.
"The engineer, Mr. Bettys," the man told. "Grambler's old mine captain. A gasket has come loose; we are losing pressure."
Jemima had not fitted Grace's engine and there were a few differences she could see from even outside. She should think it would be a quick fix and get back to Camborne in time for that evening.
"Hello?" She called again when the man had said nothing. And then he turned, and Jemima saw who it was.
"Mr Henshawe?"
"Miss Withering!" He took steps towards her as if greeting an old friend, then stopped and cleared his throat.
"I was expecting Master Trevithick."
"At church this morning, of course."
"Of course," he replied, evenly. "I'll show you?"
It took less than an hour to mend what had broken, a piston rod, and Henshawe thanked her.
"May I walk with you, Miss Withering? I have business in Redruth this afternoon, as well as chapel. You are walking home now?
"I am, Mr. Henshawe," Jemima agreed. And it was the old days again, where they took in Sawle, Henshawe pausing awhile to be beside a particular gravestone, Jemima by the one with the mother and the child with Jemima's own birthday on it.
Their conversation loosened a little as they talked of the wakes fair and the Bonfire night, where bonfires were lit in all directions and someone thought it was beacons telling them of an invasion attempt by the French.
She told him of the locomotive engine, and what it might achieve and what it already had, and he congratulated her in his warm, honest manners to which Jemima was so drawn.
"You made that?" he asked,. Henshawe asked, when Jemima detailed the process of refitting the defective Watt engines.
"Not only that, imagine an engine on wheels, that can do all you need of it, and can be taken on wheels to where it's needed. A third of the size of a stationary engine."
"You think such a thing can be made?". Will Henshawe stopped walking and looked at Jemima.
"I know such a thing has already been made, and already has done a journey. I made that journey."
"And you had this for Christmas?" Henshawe made to reach to her neck, but pulled his hand back halfway.
"This? Oh no, it's from a friend...a gift." Jemima pulled at her neck. The locket glimmered in all its non-silvery glory. But it was not her locket but the necklace from her father. She took it off and showed it to him.
"This is Bluejohn, a rock from Derbyshire, it's very rare." She handed it to Will Henshawe and bade him hold it to the light.
"It glimmers mightily," he told her, before handing it back to her. Three times Jemima tried to clip it back on and three times she failed.
"Would you…?" Jemima asked? She turned round and moved her hair.
At first, Jemima thought maybe Henshawe has not heard her and was about to turn back when she felt his hands at her neck. Warm, light fingers trailed over her collarbones as the necklace followed into place, and he fastened it.
"My thanks," Jemima told him. And they walked further, beyond Illogan until, at Redruth, Henshawe turned at a gate. Beyond was a manor house, and he made a quick farewell.
"It is so good to see you, Captain," Jemima told him.
"Will," he told her.
"Will," she told him, "Merry Christmas."
"And to you," he replied and turned to go into the house.
Jemima was nearly at Meadowsweet when Will Henshawe caught her up, surprising her.
"Does your father have a carriage? I should be back at Grace until Bettys comes."
But John Withering would not hear of Henshawe leaving so soon and Jemima had reappeared in her wakes dress to be told that Will Henshawe would be staying to dinner and attending chapel with them.
"His wife is worse," Dr. Withering told her, as they made their farewells in Redruth outside the chapel gate. "He could only stop for a short while - any longer and it upsets her fragile state of mind. We should pray for people like Henshawe. While we have lost mama, he has no-one, no-one this Christmas night."
So as well as steam engines and a potential return to Shropshire in the year to come, Jemima's heart felt pity, pity for Wheal Grace's poor wifeless mine captain and distate for her own attraction to him. She would know very well how to behave in the company of Will Henshawe in the future.
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