The Tin Ticket_ The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women - Deborah J. Swiss [81]
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