Carnegie's Maid

By February 1864, Clara has succeeded in learning the intricate routine of managing all aspects of Mrs. Carnegie’s appearance and maintaining her bedchamber and wardrobe. She has succeeded in pleasing her exacting mistress and has finally earned her first day off after 150 days of uninterrupted service. Clara will use her spare hours to visit distant family relatives who live in a deprived area near Allegheny City. Their shack is little more than a sooty lean-to in a neighborhood known as Slab Town. Cousin Patrick Lamb works in an iron foundry while his wife Maeve cares for their five small children. Clara is evasive when her cousins question her about the Carnegies. No one knows that she received the job of lady’s maid through subterfuge. They think she is a lowly scullery maid. Seeing her poverty-stricken relatives, Clara thinks, “No matter the precariousness of Patrick’s work, their life was inestimably better than what they would have faced in Galway, where the famine ravaged entire families” (77).

As she travels home later on a streetcar, Clara begins to weep at the thought of her family’s plight and her limited options. A man seated next to her starts a conversation.