48 pages • 1 hour read
Marie BenedictCarnegie's Maid
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 28-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 28-30 Summary
On Clara’s way home from Slab Town, she stops at a Catholic church and sees “Missing” posters for Irish immigrants who never arrived or disappeared after landing in America. Although she is overwhelmed with despair by the fate of her countryfolk, Clara gets an inspiration. She thinks that internal change might further her aims better than external efforts. When she arrives back home, she finds Mr. Ford brooding at the kitchen table. He has just received word that his wife and daughter are not listed among the enslaved at the Francis Plantation. Having no other link to trace them, he believes that he will never find them.
By March, Clara is busy educating herself on the Carnegie business holdings. She makes charts and graphs to understand the entities’ complicated relationships to one another. She also amasses some valuable insider information by standing silently and listening during business conversations. All this information will be useful when she is in a position to invest small amounts of her savings. One day, while hard at work in the library, she is discovered by Andrew, who arrived home early from his European tour. He has now been gone for 10 months. He expresses keen interest in Clara’s business research and is impressed by what she has compiled. He offers to help her with her research and suggests that the information she overhears might also help him.
One evening in May, as Clara gets Mrs. Carnegie ready for bed, she is instructed to fetch a book for her mistress from the library. Andrew is having a business disagreement there with two partners over a bridge project, and Clara can’t help but overhear. She is taken aback by Andrew’s determination and refusal to back down. This is unlike her patient tutor, and Clara is once again uncertain of the man’s true character.
Chapters 31-33 Summary
The following day, Clara assists with Mrs. Carnegie’s tea and whist party for the neighborhood ladies. She listens to their gossip but pays special attention when one of them complains about the deplorable American telegraph service, which is privately run. It occurs to Clara that telegraph lines running next to railroad tracks would be easier to maintain. She shares this theory with Andrew, who is intrigued by the idea.
Later that afternoon, Clara runs across an old acquaintance. Miss Quinn, who was her traveling companion on her first day in America, is now a nanny in charge of a guest’s grandson. Miss Quinn is astonished at the change in Clara’s appearance and the respect she receives from members of the Carnegie household.
In June, the family holds a wedding celebration for Tom and his bride, Lucy. The match is advantageous because Lucy is the daughter of an iron tycoon. Clara observes the lavish feast from a different vantage point, seeing it as another way to telegraph the Carnegie family’s standing in the world. When the wedding cake is delayed, Clara goes to the kitchen to inquire about it. She finds Mr. Ford in a melancholy reverie, thinking about his own wedding and his lost family. Clara reassures Ford that Andrew has already asked the head of the Freedman’s Bureau to investigate the matter. Then, she hurriedly finishes decorating the cake to avert the wrath of Mrs. Carnegie.
Clara doesn’t get Mrs. Carnegie settled in bed that night until near dawn. The maid then sneaks down to the kitchen to check on Mr. Ford but encounters Andrew instead as he hunts for some leftover eclairs. He also has some exciting news about Clara’s telegraph idea. His business partners agreed that stringing telegraph poles along the rail lines is brilliant. Andrew was able to get 50 shares in the new telegraph company assigned to Clara as a reward. In addition, Pacific and Atlantic Telegraph got wind of the innovation and acquired the original company, which means that Clara’s stock shares are now worth $1,250. Clara is so excited that she hugs Andrew thinking about how “[t]his wondrous boon could rescue them. The absurd amount of money was more than enough to save my family” (235-36). He returns the embrace just as Mr. Ford walks into the room.
Chapters 34-36 Summary
During August, Andrew is away on government railroad business much of the time. When he returns, he proposes a fall season in New York for his mother. She resists the idea until she learns that this would be an opportunity to advance in high society. Andrew also hopes to court New York investors for his western railroad projects while in town. Of course, Clara is expected to go along, too. The absence of Andrew and his mother will give the newlyweds time to settle into the family home and make it their own.
In late September, the Carnegie party boards a luxury train car for New York. Before her departure, Clara receives a lecture from Mr. Ford about her growing intimacy with Andrew. He warns that such liaisons never work to the servant’s benefit. During the train trip, Clara has a conversation with Andrew about competition from the Pullman Company for the Union Pacific luxury train car franchise. Clara comes up with an idea to force Pullman into a merger or face a lawsuit for patent infringement on railcar designs. Andrew is delighted with her solution.
When the Carnegie party arrives in New York, Clara is impressed with the sumptuous St. Nicholas Hotel where they will be staying. In contrast to her mistress’s luxurious suite, she is given a small room in the servant’s quarters on the top floor.
Chapters 28-36 Analysis
This segment of the book features Clara and Andrew crossing the boundaries of their assigned roles as they spend more time together. Again, the themes of The Class System and Roles and Identities come to the fore. Clara begins to change as she uses the library to do personal research. She maps the Carnegie business holdings to help her understand the family’s larger world. In doing so, she steps outside the class system and the place that a lady’s maid should occupy. To some degree, she is also defying gender assumptions about appropriate knowledge for a female. In this way, the novel illustrates not only the way class and education intersect, but how those social categories are also impacted by gender.
For his part, Andrew doesn’t seem shocked that Clara moves beyond her role as a maid or by the fact that she exhibits a good head for business. His own mother also exhibits the same acumen, so he finds Clara’s interest in his companies to be useful. Further, Clara is able to solve two problems that Andrew’s associates could not. Her outsider status allows her to perceive novel solutions that don’t occur to others. Clara exploits her role as an outsider as she acts as a silent witness to overhear conversations that have a bearing on business. In this way, Clara illustrates how her class status enables her to operate within the world of high society undetected: “I learned that invisibility had distinct benefits. By playing the part of perfect servant, by definition deaf and blind to the events occurring before me, I was present for the most confidential of conversations” (204). As those of higher class treat Clara only according to her, they fail to recognize that her identity is far more complex and capably beyond her servant role.
In one instance, she overhears complaints about slow telegraph service. Then, she uses this information to find a way to improve the region’s telegraph lines while simultaneously helping Andrew’s railroad enterprises. Later, she eliminates Andrew’s competition for the luxury train car franchise. He is delighted with her solution to both problems and says, “Clara, I have at least ten professional advisers working on this Pullman matter, and you—my mother’s lady’s maid—have arrived at the solution. In less than a minute. You are a genius” (250). Although Andrew represents the necessity of formal education to wealth—primarily through the symbolism of the library—Clara highlights how formal education says very little about one’s intelligence. In the case of Andrew’s “professional advisers,” wealth loses some of its power to indicate smarts.
Clara is rewarded for her ideas by receiving stock shares in the new telegraph company. The stock will eventually be worth the princely sum of $1,250, which would be valued at approximately $25,000 today. This money will allow Clara to relocate her entire family to America. Her rising status in social life becomes apparent because Miss Quinn, who recalls the bedraggled Clara of their carriage ride together, is struck by the change in her traveling companion.
Just as Clara is emerging from the role of lady’s maid, Andrew’s role is changing too. While Clara generally views him as her benign mentor and potential suitor, she sees his negative side when Andrew gets into a heated argument with two of his business partners. His ruthlessness is on full display, as is his determination to win at all costs. This aggression disturbs Clara even more than his earlier manipulation of his mother and brother. In these moments, The Purpose of Wealth seems to be wealth itself.
On a more positive note, Andrew is unafraid to pursue a romance with Clara. However, this romance challenges the social hierarchy, and Clara must walk a tightrope. While she feels genuine affection for Andrew, her family’s livelihood is at stake. She can’t afford to indulge in improper conduct that might tarnish her reputation or cause Mrs. Carnegie to dismiss her. The class system generally allows superiors to exploit their servants sexually without any repercussions, but the reverse is never true. Mr. Ford tells Clara as much: “I hope you’ll take a word of caution from a tired, old man who’s seen too many masters and servants crossing the boundaries between them. It never ends well for the servant” (247).
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