Annie Moore: The Golden Dollar Girl E-Book

Eithne Loughrey

• Herausgeber: Mercier Press
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2000

Seitenzahl: 201

Beschreibung

This is the second book in the trilogy – it charts the further adventures of Cork-born Annie Moore, who was the first immigrant to land at Ellis Island, New York, in 1892. Four years later, Annie, now aged seventeen, has left her family in New York and moved out west to Nebraska. Life in the West is unlike anything she has experienced before but Annie soon adapts, and before long she has an admirer. Annie is confused – she is interested in Carl but can't get Mike Tierney, whom she first met on her voyage to America from Ireland, out of her mind. But does Mike feel the same way?

Leseprobe

Also in the Annie Moore Series:

Annie Moore, First In Line for America

Annie Moore, New York City Girl

MERCIER PRESS

3B Oak House, Bessboro Rd

Blackrock, Cork, Ireland.

www.mercierpress.ie

http://twitter.com/IrishPublisher

http://www.facebook.com/mercier.press

© Eithne Loughrey, 2000

ISBN: 978 1 85635 296 3

Epub ISBN: 978 1 85635 832 3

Mobi ISBN: 978 1 85635 833 0

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

For John

A travelling companion in a million and without whose help I’d never have made it to Nebraska.

1 – A New Life on Fifth Avenue

Annie awoke with a start. Hearing the clock on the third floor strike six o’clock, she jumped out of bed promptly. She had been dreaming that she was at home in Monroe Street and that Mother was calling her to get up. But of course she was in her own bed in the Van der Leutens’ on Fifth Avenue. She’d been working here now for over six months.

She looked around her with a certain amount of pride. She had made this little room very much her own. A narrow bed, a chair and a small chest of drawers were all it had in the way of furniture, but Annie had brightened it up with every little treasure she owned. She had even made a little pair of white muslin curtains to decorate the small attic window which looked out across Central Park. Now that it was spring, the tops of the trees looked as green as any field you’d see in Ireland.

Goodness! she thought. She should have been downstairs by now. Cook would have her guts for garters if she was late again. Luckily, she’d laid the covers in the breakfast room the night before, so at least she had a head start.

She washed quickly in the cold water she’d carried up the night before, scrambled into her black dress, grabbed a newly laundered white apron, and after brushing it out, she swept her hair up hurriedly under her cap and ran down the stairs as quickly and quietly as she could.

She had been warned not to thunder past the second floor where the family slept. Pausing on the first floor she took time to glance into the breakfast room to make sure all was in order. The fire wasn’t lit yet. She hoped Peggy hadn’t been late or there would really be murder. Peggy, the scullery maid, was obliged to get downstairs by half-past five in order to get the kitchen stove lit and well warmed before Cook started breakfast. But to Annie’s relief, all was in order. Peggy not only had the stove lighting but was on her way up to the breakfast room with a bucketful of coal when Annie came into the kitchen.

Poor Peggy. Annie pitied the girl, who was only fifteen and had already been two years working as a scullery maid. The dirtiest of all jobs fell to Peggy and she worked longer hours than anyone else in the household as far as Annie could see. She was always in trouble, but, while Annie felt sorry for her, she knew Peggy brought it on herself. She was the clumsiest girl she’d ever met and Annie felt it was because she never listened to what anyone was telling her. She was always daydreaming and then she’d try to make up for lost time by doing things in a hurry and getting all mixed up. She had been given her notice twice – once when she’d nearly set the drawing-room curtains alight by running to the window with a red-hot poker in her hand. She had been tending the fire when she’d heard the doorbell ring and had run to the window to see who was outside. On another occasion – before Annie’s time – she’d dropped a tray full of the Mistress’s best china and broken it all. But each time, she broke down in such a storm of tears about how her mother would kill her and how her family needed the money that the Mistress had relented and let her stay on as kitchen-maid. She was now on her last warning though, Annie heard the Mistress tell Cook.

‘Good morning, Mrs Parsons, Ma’am,’ said Annie in her politest tone to Cook, who was clattering about with pots and pans before cooking breakfast. Cook just sniffed and darted her a black look. You had to keep on the right side of Cook, especially in the mornings.

‘How about our breakfast, girl? I told you to have the covers laid here before you retired for the night.’

Annie had only remembered this morning and had hoped to beat Cook to the kitchen and have the table ready by the time she got up. ‘Beg pardon, Mrs Parsons.’ You had to apologise to Cook always or it would be the worse for you later. ‘I’ll not forget again.’

She hurried to the dresser and started to prepare the table for the staff in the large, basement kitchen. It wasn’t as if it was a leisurely meal. Heaven knows, you’d barely time to eat a bite before it was time to start carrying the heavy trays upstairs for the family’s breakfast. Annie would carry up the cold foods first – sliced meats, cheeses, breads – and then she would bring up the cooked dishes and place them under the chafing dishes to keep warm. Breakfast was the one meal Annie served on her own. Arthur, the Van der Leutens’ butler, would be in attendance at lunch and dinner.

Mr Van der Leuten, a tall, grey-haired, well-groomed man, a little stooped, was usually the first to come to breakfast. He liked to breakfast alone while reading the newspapers. He left the house early and was at business all day. If the family dined at home, he usually retired to the library the moment the meal was over. Sometimes he even did this if they had company. He seemed kind, Annie thought, but was so absent-minded and quiet in his ways that Annie wondered if he was aware of her presence at all. He lived in a world of his own and she had rarely even heard him speak. When he did, it was to his sons and it was always about business. When his wife was present, he just nodded and seemed happy to agree with everything she said.

The Mistress was a strange one. Occasionally she would smile at you if she met you on the staircase, Annie noticed, but mostly she just swept by as if you were a speck of dirt. ’Twas said she’d fire you if you looked crooked at her. It depended on the nature of the offence, according to Gertrude, the chambermaid.

‘How does Peggy get away with so much?’ Annie asked Gertrude once.

‘The Mistress pities Peggy, you can see that,’ replied Gertrude. ‘What angers the Mistress most is if the staff get too big for their boots or insolent.’ Annie had good reason before long to remember that conversation.

The sons of the family were a lively pair. They were like grown-up versions of her own brothers Anthony and Philip, Annie thought. You always knew when they were home, they made that much noise, especially Robert, the younger one. He was seventeen and a cadet at West Point. He only came home on holidays but invariably brought friends to stay and it would seem to Annie that the house was full, there was that much to do. Charles was in business with his father but was not at all like him in any way. He resembled his mother in looks and in lifestyle, leading a busy social life and dining out most of the time.

Annie still marvelled at the lives the Van der Leutens led. She had never seen anything like it. Even after two years in America, it was a shock to see how a wealthy family lived. She had not known such style existed. Situated on the fashionable end of Fifth Avenue near Central Park, the Van der Leutens lived in a large, imposing, brownstone house with steps up to the front door, which was used only by the family and company. There was a basement entrance used by Annie and the rest of the staff and a back entrance leading to the stables and coach house.

It was all a far cry from 32 Monroe Street in the Lower East Side, where Annie had started out in America and where her family still lived. Annie had been thrilled to start work for the Van der Leutens, and had been especially excited by the prospect of moving to a house where she would have a room of her own and good food to eat and fine surroundings from where she could see the gentry come and go. But she had underestimated how much she would miss family life – especially now that the family circle had been enlarged to include her beloved Auntie Norah and Uncle Charlie, who had come to America the year before to join them and indeed were not living far from her parents. Still, she managed to get home to see them all most Sunday afternoons. She had Thursday evenings off too but counted on those to get to a night class or to see her friends. She only occasionally got to see her first friend in America, Sophia Rostov, who would shortly qualify as a nurse at Bellevue Hospital but she saw quite a bit of Molly, who was training to be a kindergarten schoolteacher and was now walking out with Annie’s older brother, Tom. Annie suppressed a sigh of envy at the lives both these friends lived. They seemed so free compared to her.

However, for the umpteenth time she reminded herself how well off she was. Three dollars a week with full board and lodging and little opportunity to spend money meant she could now save quite a lot each week. Besides, it was a whole lot better than three dollars a week being slave-driven at the Phoenix Laundry. The mere thought of the laundry and all that had happened there – the long hours, the back-breaking work and finally, the fire which had claimed eleven lives – never failed to cure Annie’s feelings of loneliness and she soon realised how lucky she was even to be alive.

‘Annie, Annie, come quickly and braid my hair – you promised.’

Annie’s heart lightened at the sound of Amy, the Van der Leutens’ youngest child, petulantly calling her from the top of the back stairs as she returned to the kitchen.

‘Such a tarradiddle,’ snorted Cook. ‘That child ought to be able to braid her own hair at ten years of age. You have her rightly spoilt.’

Annie knew that Amy could braid her own hair but she was so hurried going out to Miss Merrington’s Academy of a morning that she would look like a haystack if she didn’t have someone to help her. She also knew that Amy loved to have Annie fuss over her as her Mama was much too preoccupied to have time for that kind of nonsense.

‘Go on up, you, and eat your breakfast and I’ll be with you by and by. You know I’m busy,’ called Annie, smiling at the sight of young Amy, with her pinafore askew, her shoes unbuckled and her hair all over her face. Annie, who had no sisters, greatly enjoyed the Van der Leutens’ youngest child, which was just as well, as she had been given special responsibility for her and had to see to her when she came in from school and escort her wherever she went.

Although Amy had been quite indulged and Annie marvelled at the privileged life she led, she could see that, for all that, Amy was quite a lonely child. Although often cossetted, Annie couldn’t help getting the impression that she was something of an encumbrance to the family, especially to her mother, whose hectic social life seemed to take precedence over everything else. Amy’s existence seem to go almost unnoticed by her parents apart from the occasional pat on the head from her father and the rather formal greetings and leave-takings which seemed to be a large part of the communication between mother and daughter. Certainly, she was indulged by her brothers but they weren’t often around. Amy adored Robert and lived for the holidays, when he was more often at home. But in the meantime, Annie was the one who really looked after her.

Annie looked upon Amy as a godsend who helped to fill the loneliness she often experienced since she’d come to work here. To come from the heart of a loving family who lived as close as peas in a pod to the splendid and spacious house on Fifth Avenue was an experience that had made Annie really value her family life. She missed the rough and tumble of her two younger brothers and the easily shown affection of her parents and noticed that her employers, of upright Dutch stock, were not prone to displays of affection of any kind.

As soon as breakfast was over and Amy had left for Miss Merrington’s, Annie settled down determinedly to her chores. Thursday was one of her toughest days. There were extra weekly tasks to be done on a Thursday and they had to be completed before she could escape for her one evening out in the week. But she was in luck today.

‘Annie, the Mistress says we don’t need to clean the windows today as someone is coming to work on the front of the house and they would soon be soiled again. She says to do it next week.’ Gertrude looked as pleased as punch about this. But then Gertrude always looked pleased. Annie liked her. She was about twenty-five, quite plump, with flaxen hair braided tightly around her head. Of Swedish family, she had come from Nebraska two years previously to find work in New York. But Gertrude was a country girl at heart and told Annie that when she had saved just a little more money, she intended returning to Nebraska for good. She had a sweetheart there, she confided, and they would be married on her return.

Gertrude reminded Annie of Ellen King, her Irish friend whom she’d met on the ship on the way to America and with whom she still corresponded. Ellen had been bound for Nebraska and was now married to an Irishman she’d met there and was expecting her first child.

In the dining room, Annie settled down to cleaning the silver, which had to be polished in readiness for Mrs Van der Leuten’s At Home on the following evening. Down in the kitchen the atmosphere was already becoming heated in every sense of the word as Cook prepared some of the food in advance. She and Gertrude exchanged grimaces outside the kitchen door as they heard Cook shouting angrily at poor Peggy who, as usual, couldn’t do anything right.

‘Clean is it? Clean indeed! I’ll give you clean, you stupid girl! There, wash those plates again I tell you. They’ll not do for the Mistress’s guests.’

Peggy was in tears and no wonder, thought Annie, stuck as she was in the kitchen all day struggling to meet Cook’s high standards. The poor girl wouldn’t even be taken with the family and the rest of the staff to Newport in Rhode Island, where the Van der Leutens had a summer home and where they would be moving in a few weeks’ time to spend the summer months. Peggy would be left, at the mercy of Cook, along with the coachman and the gardener to look after the upkeep of the town house.

‘Please God I get away in time for I’ve to meet Molly after my class this evening,’ Annie confided to Gertrude as they carried the Turkish rugs out to the garden together to brush and air them.

‘Don’t fret, Annie. I will be here if the Mistress is looking for something to be done this evening,’ soothed Gertrude, who seldom went out and liked nothing better than to sew samplers in her little room of an evening. ‘For my trousseau,’ she’d told Annie once.

‘Thank you, Gertrude,’ Annie replied, knowing, however, that if the Mistress got it into her head to give Annie work to do this evening, she would do so and that would be that. It had happened before, making Annie feel more like a prisoner than ever. She could never depend on having her time off. It was at the Mistress’s whim and she had had to get used to that.

Meeting Molly was Annie’s lifeline to the real world and tonight Molly had something special to discuss with her. Annie was dying to know what it was about. Molly also kept Annie informed about Mike Tierney, whom Annie saw little of these days. Molly, like Annie’s older brother Tom, was active in politics and often went to meetings and talks at Tammany Hall, where Mike spent most of his free time. Mike was a tailor by profession but his main passion was politics. Annie had first met him on her voyage from Ireland to America two years ago. He had since become a very special friend to her and to the family. He had been a great support to Annie when the laundry had closed down. He had managed to get her some piecework from his business to keep her going before she had been hired by the Van der Leutens.

Although she had never confided it to anyone, Annie nurtured the hope that one day they would come to mean more to one another. But she knew that while Mike was fond of her he regarded her much as he would a younger sister. He was about seven years older than her and when they had first met she had only just turned fifteen. ‘Miss Golden Dollar Girl’, he always called her, referring to Annie’s one moment of fame – the day she’d arrived in America and had been the first passenger to step on to American soil at Ellis Island. She’d been presented with a ten dollar gold piece by the official welcoming committee – a mighty honour – and it had all happened on her fifteenth birthday. But she was seventeen now and had yet to make her own way.

One of Annie’s afternoon duties was to answer the door to company. However, the hour between when lunch was over and the Mistress was either out or had retired for a rest was generally quiet and was Annie’s favourite part of the day. Very occasionally, if she had time to spare, Annie would steal into the large drawing room, where the family’s grand piano stood proudly at one end. She would sit down on the stool, lift the lid and gaze longingly at the highly polished black and white keys, wishing she was allowed to play. Sometimes, if she was sure no one was about, she would play very quietly, just one or two little tunes to keep her hand in. What a fine sound it made, even when she barely touched it.

She would daydream that she was back in Cork in the Donohues’ house, accompanying her friend Julia as she sang one of Moore’s lovely melodies at a family party. She would play very softly, glorying in the smooth, shiny keys and the beautiful tone of this piano and smile as she recalled the Donohues’ ancient walnut upright, with the keys all yellowed with age and overuse.

A little later she would walk the two blocks down Fifth Avenue to fetch Amy from school. It was one of Annie’s few opportunities to see what was happening in the world outside the Van der Leutens. To see people going busily about their lives and the fine carriages passing up and down helped remind her that life was out there waiting for her. She enjoyed seeing the most fashionable of New York’s society ladies calling on each other. Afternoon was the best time as that was the high social point of the day. She would watch these elegantly attired women step out of their hansom cabs and private broughams and sweep up the steps of houses like the Van der Leutens’ to leave their calling cards. She would invariably wait a moment to see if they were admitted or refused. She had many times had to refuse admittance herself if the Mistress was out or wasn’t receiving, in which case she was instructed to say the Mistress was ‘indisposed’. That covered a multitude, apparently.

Annie loved to imagine what kind of people these ladies really were and what kind of lives they led. Their lives were rather like that of the Mistress, she supposed – arranging parties and planning their wardrobes for the season. Often she thought their existence empty and useless and reflected that if she were that rich she should be bored to tears doing such things. She would travel, she thought, and see the world in style or be someone famous who was admired and written about in the journals and newspapers.

2 – Playing Truant

Molly was waiting at the entrance to the night school where Annie took a weekly stenography and typewriting class. It had been Molly’s idea to encourage her friend to acquire a skill that would give her possibilities to get out of domestic service at a later stage. Molly – who was now nineteen and coming to the end of her second year at teacher-training college – knew that Annie was very smart and would not want to stay in service for very long. She had not had much choice, of course. After the fire had destroyed the laundry the only other job Annie could have found would have been as an ill-paid factory worker. Molly knew that Annie’s only way to some kind of independence at that point was to take the opportunity to go into service, where she would be able to save some money.

Molly, from an Irish background herself, was sympathetic to the plight of Annie’s family, who, like most immigrants, had a hard struggle to get on in the United States. But now at long last, they were beginning to succeed. Matt Moore, Annie’s father, had been promoted again in the past year, which was just as well as his wife Mary Moore now had little Patrick to look after as well as the two older boys Anthony and Philip, and she found little enough time to take in the sewing work that the family had partly depended on a few years back.

Tom, Annie’s older brother, was doing well too. Having started as a bellhop in the Excelsior Hotel, he had now worked his way up to the position of head porter. His main interest in life now, however, was politics and like Molly he belonged to the local branch of the Democrats. He had confided to Molly that he would like one day to run for election.