The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women (21 page)

When Governor Arthur set the rules for solitary confinement, he had assumed that hunger would tame and temper a rebel like Agnes. In fact, malnutrition produced the opposite effect, rendering emotions more difficult to contain and increasing the likelihood that she would lash out with hostile confusion. Many girls and women imprisoned at Cascades broke under the stress and fell prey to the ills of depression, alcoholism, or madness.

Agnes turned more defiant with every return to the Female Factory. She and many of her cohorts quickly figured out the loopholes created by a high demand for maids and laborers. When she needed a break from service, she acted out, a pattern she would follow for her entire sentence. Seizing the upper hand and shifting the balance of power in her favor, she turned the tables on her captors. With every scrub of dirty drawers in the washtub, every mouthful of watery gruel, every chopping of her hair, Agnes McMillan willed herself to live for the day she walked free. Rather than breaking her, her captors made her stronger. Never remorseful yet ever hopeful, she remained open to what tomorrow would bring. At this point, there was little more they could take from her.

Agnes walked away from the assignment that followed Mr. Harvey’s. On December 7, 1838, she appeared before a now-familiar magistrate. He sentenced her to two months’ hard labor at the washtub and solitary confinement at night. Agnes would soon discover what a holiday blessing this proved to be. And her future would hold a series of surprising coincidences. As she glanced back toward the hills around Hobart Town, she had no way of knowing that, half a world away, someone she’d never met would influence both her life and Janet’s at the prison nursery on Liverpool Street.

6

Ludlow’s Choice

The Widow and the Barrister

Clickety-click, clickety-click. A slight matron, just over five feet tall, scurried across the cobblestone lane in the well-groomed residential neighborhood known as Bloomsbury.

On the first day of December 1838, Ludlow Tedder’s pursed lips bore her trademark press of determination. As London’s morning sun filtered through the “pea soup” fog, her wooden heels echoed off the tiny lane she now called home. The woman with hazel eyes and dark brown hair quickened her steps down Keppel Street and lifted her skirt, trying to avoid the gooey sludge splashing over her boots whenever a carriage passed. One hundred tons of horse manure dropped in the streets each day, and Mrs. Tedder didn’t want to clean one more thing.
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It was but nine o’clock in the morning, and she’d already scrubbed floors, cleaned grates, and polished furniture. The widow worked as a servant in the city’s chic center, where middle-class professionals lived in terraced Georgian town houses adorned with lacy grillwork.

Hours before sunup, the forty-five-year-old had swept soot from the front steps, lit the fireplaces, and prepared the daily soup for Fitzowen Skinner and his wife, Laura. At five thirty in the morning, the mother of four shook her nineteen-year-old awake from dreams of silk dresses and handsome suitors, pulling her sleepy frame upright onto the damp basement floor. Eliza, her adopted daughter from her husband’s unmarried sister, had been hired as a maid-of-all-work in the Skinner residence. Ludlow’s youngest, eight-year-old Arabella, could sleep a bit longer. It was best for her not to be underfoot with so much to be done. Besides, talking was not allowed below stairs, and sometimes Arabella needed reminding that they were to speak only in their “under voices.”

Already Arabella had been taught her place. There was no laughing permitted for those who lived belowground in the servants’ quarters. She and her mother shared a straw-stuffed mattress in the scullery adjoining the kitchen. Eliza slept on a quilt atop a wooden pallet, where mildew was a chronic problem. It invaded the tiny room in a constant assault on Ludlow’s bedding, on her hairbrush, and on the cotton apron tied around her waist. Yesterday’s grease clung to the stone walls like a sticky veneer. A single tallow candle shed a band of light, illuminating the relentless patrol of black beetles and cockroaches crawling over the walls and across the kitchen floor. Smoky coal fumes crept down the narrow stairs from the dining room, where Ludlow lit the first fire of the day.

The essence of Ludlow’s station was captured in the words of Eliza Lynn Linton, who also lived in nineteenth-century London and was among the first women to earn a living as a journalist: “When harshly spoken to she must have only the soft answers which are said to turn away wrath. When fretted, nervous, ill, in trouble, she must wear the same smooth manner, the same placid face. . . . She must abandon every personal affection and the outward show of all personal desires when she enters this cold stranger’s house.”
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The moment Ludlow accepted the position in the thirty-year-old barrister’s household, she surrendered her private life. The no-nonsense widow had grown accustomed to the strict demarcation drawn between employer and maid. Practical and clever, she quickly honed the skills required for the part of obedient servant, exhibiting just the right calibration of deference and devotion. Careful not to wake the master and mistress, mother and daughter plunged into their sixteen-hour day. As senior housekeeper, Ludlow was also Eliza’s supervisor and didn’t hesitate to remind her about lighting the kitchen stove and heating water for the barrister’s shave.

Ludlow attacked the early-morning tasks in earnest. Down on all fours, she brushed the carpets by hand, cleaning a few inches at a time. Then it was back to the kitchen to awaken Arabella before kneading dough for the breakfast rolls she would later serve with jam and tea. Since Ludlow’s arrival in London nine months ago, the diligent head servant had acquired a knack for anticipating her twenty-nine-year-old mistress’s every need. From the second floor, a steady jingle of the bell alerted Ludlow to the family’s imminent arrival in the dining room.

While the Skinners sipped tea, Eliza toted hot water up two flights of stairs to their bedrooms. She retrieved their chamber pots and emptied them in a cesspit next to the garden. During the day, the pots were stored in a dining room sideboard. For the middle class, this was eminently superior to the single privy shared by more than a hundred people in London’s working-class neighborhoods.

Cleaning box tucked under her arm, Eliza trundled upstairs to scrub the barrister’s bedroom fireplace. After sweeping out ashes and cinders from the spent fire, any coal residue stuck to the grates had to be rubbed off with brick dust or sanded smooth with scouring paper. Finally, the fireplace was polished with oily black lead to prevent rust. Only after the hearth was properly prepared was Eliza allowed to run back down the stairs to the basement, fill the coal scuttle, and lug it up the two flights to the master’s bedroom. She would repeat this grungy process at the dining room hearth.

Arabella, too, was expected to pitch in with the interminable chores. Among other duties, she polished silverware, broke the lump sugar into small pieces, and folded the laundry. While living in Chelmsford, Ludlow had taught each of her children to read and write. Knowing her letters had proved an invaluable asset when her husband died. Her ability to read and keep household accounts had spared her the fate of mill-work. Still, even a literate widow had few options for employment. She certainly wanted more for Arabella.

Monday through Friday, the eight-year-old could attend a “Dame School.” Typically run by an elderly woman at a cost of three or four pennies a week, it was the cheapest education available to the working class. Students age two to fifteen were taught reading and writing in a crowded parlor. The youngest were enrolled primarily for child care while their parents worked, making for a rather disruptive classroom. Amid the chaos, Arabella could keep up with her reading as well as learn to sew and knit. Girls were taught these useful skills to make them employable by the time they turned nine or ten.

Ludlow considered little else than trying to make ends meet while she dusted rows and rows of porcelain bric-a-brac calling for her attention from their mahogany shelves. Next on the list was the boiling of the barrister’s shirts, pants, and drawers. Soap was not particularly effective in 1838, so scrubbing clothes in hot water was the only way to get them clean. On the heels of wringing out her master’s wool flannel drawers, she climbed up on a stool to wash coal grime from the stained-glass fanlight above the front door. The cleaning never seemed to end.

Ludlow did her best to maintain a tidy appearance, just as she had in her country home in Chelmsford. The prim matron washed her uniform in the kitchen sink at least once a week. She removed the heavy apron that protected her print dress and allowed herself a quick glance in the oversized mirror above the mantel. Eight months on the job and the maid’s collar still scratched annoyingly at her neck. The overstarched white doily stuck at permanent attention, tickling her chin as she finished with breakfast and prepared to go to market. For the sake of her youngest child, Mrs. Tedder tolerated the ridiculous rules of etiquette a proper maid was expected to obey. Thankfully, on this day she needn’t suffer the indignity of walking several paces behind her mistress or delivering misplaced items on a silver salver, the type of tray used to present objects before royalty.

Looking neat and clean wasn’t enough to disguise Ludlow’s station, despite her contrast to the unwashed figures skulking about in London’s underbelly. She was missing the accoutrements that would adorn an upper-class lady, including a feather-trimmed bonnet, satin muff, pink silk flounce sleeves, and fringed parasol. Furthermore, women of a certain means rarely wandered the metropolis unless accompanied by a gentleman chaperone.

The hardworking mother threw a shawl over her shoulders and ventured out into the December cold. With hair parted in the middle and pulled back in a severe bun, her high forehead and long face carried the imprint of family tragedy. Still, she looked much younger than her forty-five years. Her mahogany hair showed not a touch of grey, and her cheeks were covered with freckles. On this busy Saturday, she planned to squeeze in an additional stop. Ludlow needed to finish the Skinners’ shopping with all possible speed so that nothing would seem amiss.

The Bells of Chelmsford

Ludlow’s slim frame carefully maneuvered the mist as she made her way through London’s yellowish haze. This infamous soup came from coal fires mixed with the stinging residue from paper mills, tanneries, and breweries. Everyone around her was coughing, and no matter how tightly she held her breath, she could not stop herself from hacking up the coal dust lodged in her throat. Water might have soothed her were it not for its brown tinge and rancid taste from overflowing privies and factory waste. Her mob cap, the small gathered muslin hat worn by servants, would not stay white for long. On the streets of London, anything light-colored turned shades of grey within minutes. At this time of year, the thick pollution caused such low visibility that lamps were lit inside homes during the day.

With barely an hour to complete her errands, Ludlow slipped through the fog. Visibility was often so poor that she could stretch her arms out and not see her fingertips.
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She kept close to the stone buildings and counted the gas lamps, making her way toward the butcher shop to purchase a mutton chop, sweetbreads, bacon, and beef. Despite an increased availability of fruits and vegetables, meat was the preferred food for most Victorians and filled several courses for the evening meal.

Though she had no time off, save two or three hours on Sunday, errands allowed the dedicated mother to steal a few moments for herself. These past five years, she’d done little more than scrimp and save, trying to preserve a semblance of her former family life. After her husband, John, died, she’d worked in vain to hold on to their little cottage on Slades Lane in Chelmsford, just thirty-two miles northeast of London. Now it seemed a world away.

Ludlow and John had married twenty-five years before on May 14, 1813, at the All Saints Church in Maldon, a small town ten miles east of Chelmsford. Just twenty on her wedding day, the young bride walked through the church’s arched stone entrance and stood beside her future husband. John’s siblings had sprinkled the tiles with spring blossoms to ensure a happy union. Ribbons of gold, sapphire, purple, and deep green shone through the stained-glass window in the Friday morning light. As Ludlow and John joined hands under the ornately carved oak choir screen, five bells tolled from the church’s seven-hundred-year-old unique triangular tower.

Rather than spending earnings on elaborate nuptials, the working class put aside funds for proper funerals. A bride did not always wear white, choosing instead a Sunday frock in pastel pink or blue, crowned with a wreath of wildflowers. Grooms wore a frock coat of mulberry or claret, often borrowed, with a flower in the lapel. Following the ceremony, family members served the couple a breakfast of fruitcake covered in white frosting. After the celebratory repast, the groom usually went to work to avoid losing a day’s pay.

There was a pressing reason the young couple had decided to marry. Four months later on September 22, John and Ludlow returned to the All Saints Church to baptize a son, John Bulley. Daughter Frances was born in 1816, followed by namesake baby Ludlow in 1818. The Tedders expanded their brood to four when they adopted their niece Eliza from John’s sister, who had fallen on hard times. Life was about as stable as it could be for a working-class family. They’d moved to Chelmsford, a prosperous market town, situated on two transport rivers, with well-stocked shops and busy taverns. Like Ludlow, John was literate and held a steady job as an ostler who groomed horses at an inn. His wife, born Ludlow Stammers on July 28, 1793, grew up in a working-class family in Southminster, Essex. Her parents were ahead of their time and ensured that their daughter was literate. Ludlow, in turn, did her best to pass this skill on to each of her children.

After ten years of comfortable family life, tragedy struck the Tedder clan. At age seven, oldest daughter Frances fell ill. She likely suffered from measles or scarlet fever. The illness quickly overwhelmed the little girl, who passed away on August 10, 1823. The grieving parents prepared to bury their daughter in the village plot. On a warm August Sunday, the bells in the All Saints Church tolled thirteen times for their beloved Frances. In rural communities, “passing bells” were rung for those close to death, six times for females and nine for men, with an additional peal for each year lived. The hollow sound of the death knell reverberated across the village green. As people started to count, the brevity of peals alerted the town that it had lost another child.
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During the first half of the nineteenth century, nearly half of Britain’s children died before their tenth birthday.

Nothing was more important than a proper church burial, even if it depleted a family’s savings. As was tradition, their daughter’s body was kept at home until it was time to bury her. The Tedders drew their curtains closed, and family members gathered around for an informal wake and prayer. A neighbor’s wagon slowed to a stop by their front door, and the family tied white “love ribbons” along its sides.
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John held Frances’s coffin steady for the solemn ride to the cemetery. Frances would be laid to rest in an elm casket painted white. She wore a white dress and was covered in a white shroud. The family, too, dressed in white, including ten-year-old John Bulley, five-year-old Ludlow, and four-year-old Eliza. At the end of the service, the church bells tolled one last time for Frances, alerting the parish that she had been laid safely to rest.