Carnegie’s Maid: A Novel

April 18, 1864

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The day of service had been long, and I was weary. Still, I slid my sister’s letter out from between the pages of my green, embossed leather copy of Aurora Leigh where I placed it for safekeeping. I wanted to reread her strangely stilted words to see if a second reading would leave me with the same unsettled feeling. Her letter was short on personal information and long on questions about our cousin, my situation, anything but home. This was peculiar for Eliza, who knew me as well as she knew herself and would understand how desperately I craved news from Tuam. What was Eliza keeping from me?

When the letter failed to give me comfort, I endeavored to secure answers.

Dearest Eliza,

Your last letter was woefully reticent on details about home, dear Sister, and heavy on the questions about this strange American land. While I know this country holds a natural curiosity for you, I sense a withholding on your part. Am I wrong to intuit this? I will indulge you, but only if you promise to spare nothing on every facet of life at home in your reply, especially Dad’s dealings with Lord Martyn.

You ask about the similarity of the American people to our own. They share our language and certain of our customs, but there, the commonalities stop. The American people, all of whose ancestors, of course, hail from elsewhere, save the Indians, are cruder, plainer speaking than our own kind. At first, I found their manner brusque and off-putting, without any of the softness, nuance, and humor of our fellow Irish folk. Once I grew accustomed to it, however, I embraced its rough honesty, its lack of mystery about one’s standing. I have also come to appreciate the directness of the American people’s ambition. We Irish assume our status is immoveable and therefore bristle at any effort to climb above one’s natural-born station. There is no such assumption in America, and in fact, ambition is not only encouraged but rewarded. For men, I mean.

This quality of ambition is abundant in droves in my masters and mistress, about whom you have peppered me with questions. Their ambition to succeed in business is, in fact, so intense that, but for their Scottish accents, I would not be able to distinguish them from the American born. The elder son of my mistress, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, is a natural leader and charismatic in his way, caring for his younger brother in an almost paternal manner. He also bears an innate kindness and sense of justice that I admire, although he was quick to shirk his responsibilities to fight in the American Civil War. He actually paid for some poor Irish immigrant to take his place in battle. Can you imagine Dad or Daniel paying someone to take their place in a war for democratic ideals? What does this say about the man?

I paused in writing. I wanted to share more about Mr. Carnegie with Eliza, the sort of secrets we would share alone at bedtime. But I knew that Mum, Dad, and Cecelia would be reading this letter as well and stopped myself.

Mrs. Carnegie is fierce and intelligent, nearly her son’s business partner in truth, but stingy with her affection. Only the elder Mr. Carnegie receives her unstinting love. I find her confusing, but I respect her. Together with her elder son, she means to change the American business landscape, and she will use this war that the northern part of America conducts with the south for this end.

No, I have not made any friends among the staff. They hold me in strange regard. I am not the first Irish they’ve encountered, but I am perhaps the only educated Irish they have met. They are used to rural Irish like ourselves working in kitchens and as maids, but they are unaccustomed to domestics with the sort of rigorous education Father gave us. And they are suspicious of the freedom Irish women have to immigrate alone. They cannot understand how our menfolk allow us to travel so far from home unattended. They do not understand that, though we are far from our homeland, the tether binding us to our families and our values remains strong. Our duty never wavers.

Please, in your next letter, tell me of home. Tell me of Mum, Dad, Cecelia, and the farm. Tell me of Daniel and your wedding plans. Tell me all the village gossip, no matter how trivial. Please tell me that your reticence does not mean something is wrong.

Your loving sister,

Clara