The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women (22 page)

The day after the funeral, Ludlow, like so many grieving mothers, brought the tailor a light-colored dress to be dyed black. John wore a simple black armband. All but the destitute followed a prescribed period of mourning, one year for a child, two for a husband. Ludlow wore her black mourning dress every day well into 1824.

Six more years passed as the Tedders raised eleven-year-old Eliza and their two biological children: John Bulley, now seventeen, and Ludlow, now twelve. In September 1830, they were all quite surprised when new life entered the cottage with the birth of Arabella. Sadly, the youngest Tedder barely had a chance to know her father. She had just turned three when John passed away in November 1833. He was forty-two years old, about the average life expectancy for a man living in the country. Working-class city dwellers generally died even younger, before turning forty, many felled by epidemics. John passed away at a time when Chelmsford suffered a cholera outbreak, and that may well have killed him. Ludlow, a new widow and mother of four, buried her husband next to their departed daughter as the bells in the churchyard tolled a final farewell. They had been married for twenty years.

For the next two years, Arabella saw her mother dress only in black. Ludlow, like most widows, wore a bracelet she made from plaited strands of her husband’s hair. Gradually the recovering widow began to don a light-colored bonnet or scarf until she felt comfortable enough to put on a dress of grey or purple. Living in the country, Ludlow was offered more support than those in the city, who had fallen upon hard times. Villagers often took up collections to help widows who needed time to find work and figure out how to survive on their own. The mother of four rejected the prospect of moving into a workhouse. There she would be separated from her children, and they, too, would be conscripted into hard labor. As for the future, widows rarely remarried because of a shortage of eligible men, most of whom died earlier than their female counterparts.

Widow Tedder continued to pay her rent with the help of her two oldest children. Later on, when John Bulley and daughter Ludlow approached their twenties and started their own families, the widow had no choice but to move. Like nearly half of Britain’s population, she chose London, believing it offered the best prospects for steady work. Her ability to read job listings in a newspaper offered Ludlow a supreme advantage. Servants were hired by ads in the paper, through a servants’ registry office, or by word of mouth.

Ludlow had worked as a cook before her marriage, and in March 1838 she arrived at 25 Keppel Street with references in hand. Although well beyond the average age for new staff, the widow was hired because she could write a grocery list and maintain household accounts. Barrister Skinner compensated her with room and board along with a small allowance, from which he deducted the cost of feeding Arabella. Ludlow might not be able to get ahead on her wages, but she could at least count on food and shelter for herself and her two youngest children.

Despite working seven days a week, Ludlow’s pay was not enough to make ends meet. Even as an experienced cook, she earned only forty pence for every one hundred that a man took home, even though the work of female servants was often more physical. Like most cooks, Ludlow supplemented her earnings by selling leftover fat drippings. Tenement families spread it on bread or used it to flavor potatoes and provide extra calories for their children. Today she delivered a small tin to a stall vendor, who handed her a few pence in return. Still, Mrs. Tedder was caught short. Candles and soap, along with clothing and milk for Arabella, cost more than she earned.

Arabella needed leather shoes and a wool cap for the walk to school. She wore a pinafore to keep her one dress clean and a wool cloak that doubled as her blanket at night. Adherence to unwritten rules of modesty was expected from all classes save the homeless. Young girls were required to cover their legs with pantalettes should a gust of wind lift the skirt that fell just below her knees. Arabella’s were sewn from simple white linen, unlike the frilly silk versions worn by wealthy girls under dresses of velvet and lace.

Ludlow consistently practiced the eleventh commandment: Do whatever it takes to provide for your child. As her situation grew more desperate, she resorted to small dishonesties just to get by. Never had she expected to be a thief, and she convinced herself it was only temporary until she could get back on her feet. Like any mother, she had fears about her children’s future, alongside dreams of advancing their station. For the present, such dreams were cast aside in favor of the barrister’s needs.

Because there was no refrigeration in 1838, Mrs. Tedder shopped for fresh provisions every day of the week. Today was no different. The din of the marketplace rose ever louder as Ludlow distanced herself further from Keppel Street and entered the gritty world where most Londoners dwelled. She jostled her way through the hanging carcasses of cattle, sheep, and pigs to make her purchases. Dogs barked and hawkers argued over the price of beef. Beggars pleaded for a copper halfpenny. Fishmonger carts rattled through the alley, clearing the path of pigeons, rats, and flies.

After selecting a mutton leg, beef filet, and larded sweetbreads for the Skinners, she purchased eggs, milk, and butter for the rice pudding she often served with dinner. In a few weeks, she’d be buying figs, almonds, and ribbon candy for the Skinners’ holiday guests and preparing the goose and the brandy pudding. On this Saturday, vendors hawked Christmas wares, especially the Advent candle wreaths families lit beginning the first Sunday in December. The wreaths were displayed on dining tables and illuminated with four candles, three purple and one pink, signifying the season’s hope and glory.

For the thrifty Ludlow, a fresh tallow candle might do. Gifts were rarely exchanged among the poor unless handmade. Children like Arabella didn’t expect a Christmas package and were delighted if they received a handknit scarf or a pair of gloves.

Even though it was only December 1, the pawnshops were already decorated with boughs of evergreen garland tied with red ribbon. Blurry images behind dingy glass displayed valuables from the rich, abandoned through bad luck or filched by the ragged. Silver boxes, gold watches, lace handkerchiefs, jeweled brooches, and silk scarves lay in loose disorder and out of place inside the musty storefront. Among the scattered finery lay treasures less grand, which had been given up by the laboring poor: a pair of children’s boots, a plain wedding ring, a man’s threadbare overcoat, a family Bible, and housewares of every sort. All matter of irretrievable ill fortune stocked the overfull shelves.

The economics of shop trade were painfully simple, as described in signs above the door: “Money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of property.”
⁶
London’s underground economy pulsed through the heavily trafficked pawnshops that marked the edge of a deep chasm between abundance and struggle.

Earlier that week, Ludlow had pocketed a few pence advanced for some spoons she’d left at John Wentworth’s pawnshop. Over the past few months, she supplemented her income by occasionally slipping a piece of silverware into her dress pocket. The petite cook didn’t expect to make much from the items she’d “borrowed” from the house on this Saturday morning. But it might be enough to cover family expenses, with perhaps a little left for a small bottle of gin for herself. Surely Barrister Skinner could do without a few spoons when there were so many he barely touched.

Mrs. Tedder was well familiar with the doorway marked by three hanging balls. She popped in from the fog and headed straight to the counter. Mr. Wentworth barely looked up to see what misfortune had blown through his door. He’d seen it all and never asked questions. Stepping up to the dusty display case, the determined widow pulled a little bundle from under her cape and unwrapped two spoons and a bread basket. Mr. Wentworth leaned over the countertop and examined what was brought to him. After a bit of polite bargaining, in contrast to transactions typically more heated or pleading, they settled on payment of a few shillings. Mr. Wentworth made out numbered tickets and issued her “duplicates,” as pawn slips were called. Lifting her chin in the air, Mrs. Tedder straightened her skirt, pivoted on her heels, and headed back toward Keppel Street.

Back in the smoky cellar kitchen, Ludlow set down her groceries and put the receipts in a glass storage jar, where they would stay dry for the weekly accounting. The position of cook offered tempting opportunities to skim a bit off household accounts. Tenuous loyalty offered ready justification for stealing from what was viewed as a master’s cornucopia of riches. An article in
Nineteenth Century
described the perspective of those who lived below stairs: “They are connected with the wealthier classes principally as ministering to their material well-being. . . . No people contemplate so frequently and so strikingly the unequal distribution of wealth: they fold up dresses whose price contains double the amount of their year’s wages; they pour out at dinner wine whose cost would have kept a poor family for weeks.”
⁷

For the present, Ludlow concentrated on carving gristle off the meats, peeling potatoes, and beating eggs for the boiled rice pudding. Pounding spices and stoning raisins were the next tasks awaiting her attention. Already eight hours on her feet, she was halfway through her shift. Not a minute was left idle. She mended linens and scrubbed the sheets white while pots simmered on the coal-fired stove.

As the maid-of-all-work, daughter Eliza was charged with emptying Master Skinner’s spittoon and polishing his boots. Mixing turpentine and wax, she made her own polishes. After her mother served the meals, she plunged her arms into hot greasy water and scoured the pots and dishes piled high from lunch and dinner. Harsh washing soda stung her hands and reddened them beyond their nineteen years. Arabella was tasked with wiping the dinnerware dry and stacking it neatly in the china closet.

In London, one-third of young women between fifteen and twenty worked in domestic service.
⁸
Marriage offered the preferred route of escape from the basement servant quarters. Officially excluded from social interaction, other than opening the door for the occasional delivery, Eliza faced scant opportunity to meet potential suitors. Servants were allowed no visitors and were rarely given a day off. If a young lass somehow managed an admirer, she would have met him in secret, slipping out of the house as the others slept.

In her magazine article “On the Side of the Maids,” Eliza Lynn Linton describes the lonely frustration girls like Eliza Tedder experienced: “No friends in the kitchen, no laughing to be heard above stairs, no romping for young girls to whom romping is an instinct all the same as with lambs and kittens . . . moping in the dreary kitchen on the afternoon of her Sunday in. All grinding work claustral monotony, with the world seen only through the gratings of the area window as the holiday folks flock to and fro . . .”
⁹

The end of the day was finally nearing for the downstairs staff. On her hands and knees, an exhausted Eliza scoured the sticky mix of grease and soot stuck to the kitchen floor. When the upstairs hall clock chimed eleven, mother and daughter bedded down next to the scullery sink, where Arabella lay fast asleep. Ludlow recounted the coins received from Mr. Wentworth and tucked them into a small pouch pinned to the inside of her bodice.

The Case of the Missing Plate

After his three-course dinner Saturday evening, Master Skinner walked to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of port. Perhaps he was suspicious of his staff, because it was not uncommon for servants to pilfer from their employers. For whatever reason, this was the night he noticed forks and spoons missing from his silver drawer. In the household hierarchy, the maid-of-all-work was responsible for care of utensils and plates. Early Sunday morning, the agitated Barrister rang for Eliza and asked the whereabouts of the missing silverware. At this time, the nineteen-year-old may not have known her mother was the culprit.

Eliza must have felt desperate. She knew that a conviction for theft meant gaol at best and more probably transport to the other side of the world. When pressed by the barrister, she didn’t even try to cover for the mother who had adopted her and who had unintentionally put her in great peril. Perhaps she felt frustration over her lot in life and miserable job, or anger with her mother for drawing her into this entanglement. Given her daunting workload, she might have lost hold of reason and simply lashed out at a supervisor who was also her parent. Whatever Eliza’s motivation for informing on her mother, a furious Fitzowen Skinner confronted his cook. Ludlow immediately confessed her transgression, handed him the duplicates, and offered to retrieve the pawned cutlery from Mr. Wentworth first thing Monday morning. The barrister’s response was clear as he uttered the words, “Justice must take its course.”
¹⁰
A sense of dread permeated the remainder of the Sabbath.

When she found free moments, Ludlow had scanned the barrister’s discarded newspapers that lay scattered across the upstairs parlor. The
Times
and the
Morning Herald
posted accounts about women convicted of stealing household items who were punished with transport to Van Diemen’s Land. The worried mother knew it wasn’t just her own future at stake. She shuddered at the thought of Arabella in a London orphanage. Who would care for her? But staying together meant gaol for her little girl, or possibly transport. Could they even survive the sea voyage?

Ludlow had lost her gamble, and she couldn’t blame Eliza. At least the poor girl was old enough to be on her own. Sometime during the morning of Monday, December 3, 1838, a distraught Ludlow crept out of the maid’s quarters at 25 Keppel Street, fearing an imminent arrest. With Arabella in tow, she hustled through the gardens in fashionable Russell Square. With Christmas barely three weeks away, Bloomsbury town houses were adorned with spruce boughs draped above the doorway and around the railings. Pine cone wreaths, decorated with scarlet holly berries and dried fruit, hung from ribbons on the front doors.