Carnegie’s Maid: A Novel

September 26, 1866

New York, New York

The train slowed as it approached New York City’s Thirtieth Street Station. Unlike our other stops over the six days it had taken us to get from Pittsburgh to the nation’s largest city with over eight hundred thousand people, we were disembarking. Our bags were packed and ready for the porter, and we wore our traveling clothes. Even though I played my usual role of subservient lady’s maid, my nerves fluttered at alighting in Manhattan.

From my position at Mrs. Carnegie’s side, I craned my neck to witness the train pulling into the maze of rails that made up the back portion of the station. Even through the railcar’s window, I saw smothering smoke, soot, and cinders reminiscent of Pittsburgh, a similarity I hadn’t anticipated. I expected that the station would be immaculate and opulent, befitting the city.

When the train chugged into its final destination, I learned that I was wrong. The tracks all led to a nondescript redbrick building that looked like one of the vast warehouses near St. Patrick Church in Pittsburgh. It was smudged inside and out with the indelible mark of industrialization.

“Surprisingly plain for the terminus of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroads,” my mistress sniffed in disdain.

“Especially since Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt is the president of the railroad line and the richest man in America,” Andrew retorted. “Mr. Thomson would never allow the hub of the Pennsylvania Railroad to appear so plain.”

“I suppose there is no accounting for taste,” Mrs. Carnegie pronounced, as if she, a recent immigrant from Scotland who arrived without a penny in her purse and who wore outdated fashions, was the arbiter of taste. I almost laughed aloud at the irony.

As we squeezed down the Silver Palace hallway to the exit doors, Andrew said, “Did you know that President Lincoln’s funeral train pulled into this very station when it made its way up the Eastern Seaboard? Imagine his coffin passing through this building.”

“That’s rather macabre, don’t you think?” my mistress said.

“It’s not morbid if it’s history, Mother,” Andrew responded.

Glancing over at him, I wondered how he could make such a statement. History often produced the grisliest of results. Simply because those events were past did not make them any more palatable. I wondered what he would say about the horrific facts Patrick and Maeve told me about the Irish immigrants in New York City for the past decade. What would he think of the fact that my people were living nine people to a room in the Five Points slums and paying four dollars—nearly one week’s pay—for the pleasure of a single room with no windows or indoor plumbing but plenty of rats? Would he downplay the fact that my own family was living four to a room in my aunt’s damp, candlelit attic with the closest outhouse a quarter mile away?

Had Andrew forgotten who he was and from where he came? He was an immigrant, no different from the thousands of impoverished immigrants inhabiting this country but for his recent success. I chastised myself as soon as the censorious thought entered my conscious. Who was I to criticize? I was in no position to judge him, as I enjoyed the benefits that came from working for and traveling with him. Not to mention I helped him further his business interests and served his family while pretending to be someone I was not. Who was the one who had forgotten him or herself? My dependence on his money caused me to forsake my own immigrant story.

A man in a uniform resplendent with gleaming brass buttons approached us. Hesitantly, he asked, “Sir, are you Mr. Carnegie?”

“I am.”

“Then please allow me to show you to your livery.”

We exited the station at the corner of Tenth Avenue and Thirtieth Streets, and after the porter loaded the Carnegies’ trunks and my paltry bag onto the carriage, we stepped inside. The livery headed south toward the St. Nicholas Hotel, jolting down the uneven cobblestone streets pocked with holes. The city sprawled out before us, and I strained to capture a view of the sights before the livery sped by them. Tall, elegant buildings stood alongside empty lots covered with hardscrabble wooden shacks. Men and women with pushcarts hawking clams and flowers and chestnuts and exotic foodstuffs competed with striped-awning storefronts displaying the latest in ladies’ hats and gloves. Cows and goats roamed in open fields next to elegantly outfitted men and women strolling down the paved sidewalks. The smells wafting in the open livery window were a scintillating mix of perfumes, roasted nuts, factory smoke, and animal dung. I could not wait to send a letter to my family describing the curious mixture that composed New York City. Perhaps it would take their focus off their troubles.

Too soon, we pulled up to the entrance of the St. Nicholas Hotel on Broadway at Broome Street. En route, Andrew had informed his mother that the hotel was so lavish, the first building to cost over one million dollars to construct, that it ended the Astor House’s status at the city’s leading hotel. I had grown used to his excited hyperbole but soon realized his pronouncement was justified.

After only one step through the white marble facade topped with flying American flags into the hotel’s lobby, Mrs. Carnegie and I surmised for ourselves the hotel’s opulence. From the white oak staircase leading to the upper floors, to the elaborate crystal chandelier illuminating the first-floor landing, to the Dutch painting presiding over the lobby, to the mahogany-and-walnut inlaid paneling etched with gold paint, the St. Nicholas felt more like a castle than a hotel. What I imagined a modern-day castle to look like anyway.

As a hotel concierge ushered the Carnegies to the front desk to check into their suite, I waited against a Romanesque column with Mrs. Carnegie’s personal belongings. The parade of well-heeled hotel guests mesmerized: ladies dressed in striped gowns so fashionable, I didn’t know what to call the designs, men with ties and pocket scarves of vivid colors, and children wearing outfits rivaling wedding attire. I was so engrossed that Mrs. Carnegie claimed she had to say my name three times before I heard her call. While she often exaggerated when it came to flaws in my service, I tended to believe her on this occasion.

Hotel porters laden with trunks trailed us as we followed a concierge to the suite, consisting of two parlors, two bedrooms, and two dressing rooms, each with their own bathroom. The black-suited gentleman stepped back to permit our entrance into the rooms with wide windows looking out onto Broadway and framed with gold-trimmed curtains. Modern gaslights and mirrors hung on the walls, and I spied a bathtub cased in walnut in the background. From the call system connecting guests with the front desk to the central heating, every modern convenience was supplied.

For all her pretending to be the jaded sophisticate, when she stepped into the hotel room, my mistress cried out, “Oh, Andra, I wish your father had lived to see this.”

The reference to the late Mr. Carnegie startled me. No one ever mentioned him. He was like a specter, at once looming omnisciently and invisibly.

“I wish he could have seen this too, Mother.” Andrew reached over to squeeze his mother’s hand. “You deserve the best,” he said, looking at me as well.

After the porters unloaded the trunks into the designated rooms, one of the men held out my small travel bag and asked, “Where does this belong, madam?”

“That belongs to my lady’s maid.” Mrs. Carnegie pointed in my direction.

“Where shall we place it, madam?”

“In the servants’ quarters.”

The porter asked me, “Would you like to follow me there, ma’am? That way, you will know where to find your belongings and your lodgings.”

“May I, Mrs. Carnegie?” I asked, curious about the servants’ lodgings. Surely, our rooms must be unusually nice, if the luxurious decor of the hotel was any indicator.

“Yes, Clara, but hurry back so you can begin the unpacking.”

I curtsied and followed the porter to an unremarkable door at the end of hallway. The dark stairs inside were made of unadorned, simple pine, a far cry from the lobby’s grand staircase. They led to the top floor of the hotel, which contained row after row of servants’ bedrooms. Clean but sparsely decorated with a single bed each, a washstand, a small, three-drawer dresser, and a narrow armoire, the room resembled my own at Fairfield.

Was this what Andrew meant when he looked at me and said I deserve the best? Not that a lady’s maid should expect more, I reminded myself. But the contrast between Andrew’s lodgings and my own caused thoughts of Mr. Ford’s admonitions about masters and servants to creep into my mind. Even though I kept telling myself that my situation with Andrew was different, that I didn’t need to worry, I said a little prayer to Mary that Mr. Ford’s prediction about the servant’s fate would be untrue. Because if I tumbled, I didn’t tumble alone. I took my family down along with me.