Carnegie’s Maid: A Novel

April 15, 1865

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The Scottish consular position sought by Mr. Carnegie did not come to fruition. My mistress was elated at the news, but only until her son made plain that he intended to leave Pittsburgh regardless. He never explained to her his need to flee, although I understood. And he knew it.

Mr. Carnegie continued to keep busy, away from Fairfield. On those few occasions he could not avoid me, I would feel his eyes on me as I served his mother, and quiet would overcome the previously gregarious Mr. Carnegie. Only on social occasions would he reenter the fray, turning back into the affable, confident industrialist. This transformation, striking in its quickness, often reminded me of a conversation he and I shared in a rare moment alone in the Fairfield parlor.

“What do you see in this room?” he had asked me.

The question had confused me at first. The answer seemed obvious, but I’d learned that nothing about Mr. Carnegie was ever obvious. I’d walked around the room, giving simple answers. “I see fine paintings hung one above another. Louis XV chairs upholstered in red silk fabric with long fringe and short, turned legs. A floor laid in parquet marble and covered with a red, flowered rug. Walls hung in crimson damask with a frieze of full-blooming roses painted above it. A Carrara marble fireplace topped by an onyx mantel clock and candelabra from France and porcelain vases from England. On the center table, a ewer and stand from Austria, a painted tile from Germany, and small ivory figurines from the Orient.”

He gawked at me. “That is a mightily impressive recitation, Miss Kelley. How on earth do you know such minute details about this room?”

I smiled, a slightly devilish grin. “I’ve heard your mother describe it often enough to her guests.”

“Of course you have. How silly of me to ask.” He laughed. “Would you like to know what other story this room tells?”

“Please.”

“This room is actually meant to be read like a book, with each object functioning like a word in a story.”

I stared around the parlor, trying the tease out the story in the room. Nothing came to me from the crowded, overstuffed, chaotic space. “I confess to ignorance. Will you read the room to me?”

“It would be my pleasure.” He walked over to my side, placing his hand against my elbow as he would to any lady visiting Fairfield. I felt like a guest instead of a servant.

Pointing with his free hand to the center table and the mantel, he said, “The specimens you’ve so perfectly described tell the ‘reader,’ or guest, that the family residing in this home is well and widely traveled.”

“I see.” I didn’t mention that the Carnegies had not traveled to the Orient as the figurines might suggest, but I understood how this “word” worked in the room’s narrative and how a family might manipulate those “words” to send particular messages to their guests.

Moving his hand from my elbow to my palm, he guided me to the wall most crammed with paintings. “This array of choice artwork demonstrates that the Fairfield inhabitants are steeped in culture.”

As he continued describing precisely what each painting would tell the observer about the family, I nodded, but I wasn’t truly listening. All I could think about was the warmth of his hand on mine. While I wanted him to clasp my hand more tightly, at the same time, I was more terrified that Hilda might enter the room and witness us in such a compromising position.

Delicately sliding my hand out of his, I asked, “What about the furnishings? And the silk walls? What part do they play in the story?”

“Ah, excellent question. They are sumptuous and expensive but not overdone. This tells Fairfield’s guests that its owners are well-to-do but not ostentatious. They are instead dignified and refined.” He described the varying fabrics on the walls and furniture of the room, and once again, I wasn’t listening. I had been struck by an insight about Mr. Carnegie.

The “book” about Fairfield was like the narrative of his life Mr. Carnegie was crafting. I sat back and watched him wield his “words” like a painter wields his brush, each a masterly stroke in the creation of a seamless whole. Except I was not witnessing the creation of an average painting, I realized. I was watching a masterpiece in progress.

Mrs. Carnegie had arranged a formal dinner for April 15 at Fairfield. The evening was meant as a joint celebration of the Civil War’s end, as General Lee had surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox, and the European trip Mr. Carnegie had planned in lieu of his Scottish consular position. The furor that raged over her elder son’s decision to leave Pittsburgh for a “grand European tour” with his friends Harry Phipps and John Vandevort at month’s end had abated. Once it became clear that he was determined to leave Pittsburgh, my mistress relinquished her resistance and began to enjoy the details of his journey, a “gentlemanly trip,” as she referred it to with the ladies of her social acquaintance. These ladies, as of late, did not include Miss Atkinson, to my great relief. Her recent engagement to a gentleman from the East End of Pittsburgh meant that she rarely frequented occasions where Mrs. Carnegie was in attendance. That worry, at least, had abated.

But the celebratory tone of the dinner changed to one of mourning with the assassination of the beloved President Lincoln on April 14. The Carnegies decided not to cancel the event. Instead, they sent servants around to their guests’ homes with letters stating that the dinner would observe the rules of mourning and serve as a memorial meal in President Lincoln’s honor. The menu was tamped down from its prior extravagance of melons, consommé, salmon, sweetbreads with peas, filet chateaubriand, roast duck, and dessert. All the servants wore black mourning bands around our upper arms, and black curtains were draped around the home. The Carnegies donned funereal clothes, although the change was not terribly noticeable on my mistress, as she always wore black.

The guests were dressed accordingly, and a somber mood prevailed at the beginning of the evening. From my vantage point in the servants’ hallway, where I waited with my chatelaine as always, I heard eulogies for President Lincoln. Two gentlemen made various proclamations about the wonders of the late president and how he led the nation to victory.

Then the elder Mr. Carnegie began to speak. “During my time as the head of the telegraph department under then Assistant Secretary of War Scott, I had the great fortune of meeting President Lincoln on several occasions when he awaited information. His eyes and speech bore a plainspoken intelligence I’ve never since had the honor to encounter. Yet the most striking and admirable quality of the esteemed man was not his intellect or even the bravery of his convictions, but the perfect democracy of his everyday actions. He treated every man and woman he encountered with the same deference and respect, no matter their station. We should all aspire to his great example.”

“Hear, hear,” the dinner guests called out, clinking their glasses.

After every remaining gentleman made their tribute, well wishes to Messrs. Carnegie, Phipps, and Vandevort were offered. The clinking of crystal lasted close to an hour, and the mood of the dinner guests lightened with each sound. It seemed strange that they would be celebrating and mourning in the same breath.

A chair’s legs scraped across the floorboards, and suddenly Mr. Carnegie was standing before me. His eyes had a glaze I’d never seen in them before, although I recognized it well enough from my occasional visits to Galway pubs with my family. Mr. Carnegie was inebriated, an oddity, since he usually abstained from alcohol.

We were alone in the back hallway. Drawing so near to my face that I could smell the whisky on his breath, he took my free hand in his. He said, “Forgive me, Miss Kelley, for taking liberties. But given the impending date of my departure, I’m left with little time to speak my mind. And it’s been torturous having you near but not being able to talk with you.”

Did I dare to speak authentically? I was sick of lies and pretending and burying my feelings, and I wanted to admit the truth. Just once. “For me as well, Mr. Carnegie.”

“You do understand that is the reason I’m leaving, don’t you? That you have decided we should not share each other’s company? And that we should not speak of any mutual affection?”

“I do,” I confessed, looking at the floor.

“One word from you, and I will not go.” He tilted my chin up so I would meet his gaze. His eyes searched mine, as if he might find the word stay there if he couldn’t find it on my lips.

I had missed him terribly, and I was sorely tempted to do as he asked. “I wish I could ask you to stay, Mr. Carnegie. I truly do. But I cannot. My duty to my family comes before all else, which means I must earn my wage and send it to them.”

“I could help with your family. I certainly have the means.”

I heard a note of pleading in his voice.

I paused, trying to understand what he was really offering. Was he proposing that we simply continue our covert meetings and that he would help my family financially? I did not hear him offering something more formal. What would happen if he tired of me or his mother finally discovered us and objected? Given his intense loyalty to his own family, I’d likely lose my job along with the hope of securing any other comparable one—Mrs. Carnegie would surely carry a vendetta—and my family would be lost. No, I could not afford to indulge my feelings. I must stay the course, but respectfully, so as not to alienate him.

I could not risk meeting his gaze. I might soften. Keeping my eyes averted from his, I shook my head.

He removed his hand from my chin but kept the other wrapped around my hand. “I understand, and I admire your selfless duty to your family. Will you do me one favor before I leave?”

A knot formed in my stomach. What was he going to ask of me? I had always perceived Mr. Carnegie as above the sorts of antics I’d heard about other masters. Perhaps I had been wrong.

“Please call me Andrew, not Mr. Carnegie. I need to hear you say my name out loud before I go. Grant me that wish at least.”

It was a small enough request. “Andrew,” I whispered to him, and I felt my resolve soften.

He pulled me closer to him, and as I looked into his eyes, a jarring call sounded out from the dining room. “Andra.”

“Andra!” The voice grew louder. “What are you doing near the kitchen?”

It was his mother. My mistress. And whatever chance remained at that moment was lost.