The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook

than they have since become, and so I knew that whatever my feelings for Sarah might be, they would always have to be carefully guarded. For unlike the other deadly sins, lust is sometimes joined to love, and such a prospect would no doubt have met with stern disapproval from my mother. And so, up until that day, I’d allowed myself only those hidden thoughts and secret glances that were within my sphere, thinking of Sarah at night, but by day returning her to the status of a servant girl.
    “And hello to you, sir,” she said as she approachedme, the Irish lilt now striking me as somewhat thrilling and exotic.
    I nodded. “Hi, Sarah.”
    She smiled brightly, but seemed unsure of what to do next. “Well, should I sit with you, then?” she asked.
    “Sure,” I said casually, as if the nearness of her body meant no more to me than that of the lamppost a block away.
    She sat down and looked out over the water. I did the same, careful to conceal the fact that all I could think of was her skin, the color of milk, her hair black as coal, the mysteries of her body infinitely enticing.
    As to her history, I knew only the broad details. But from the bits and pieces of conversation I’d overheard as I roamed the house on Myrtle Street, I’d learned of her mother’s early death in Limerick and had some picture of the bleak coastal village she’d grown up in after that. She’d had three brothers, two killed in the Great War, one an aimless drifter who’d disappeared into the dreary slums of East London. As to her father, he’d died of tuberculosis five years before, leaving her with only enough money to book passage to America. I’d heard my father speak grimly of that passage, the horrors of the steerage, the way the men had leered at her in the dank quarters of the ship’s belly, the stale bread and dried beef that alone had sustained her until she’d finally disembarked at the Port of Boston.
    After that Sarah had fallen upon the mercy of the Irish Immigrant Aid Society, who’d fed, clothed, and given her shelter until she’d landed a job as a serving girl in a great Boston house. It was there she’d met my father three years later, told him how much she longed for village life again, particularly if the village happened to be located near the sea. By all accounts she had spoken to my father with great earnestness, and my father, never one to remain deaf to such heartfelt solicitations, had first cleared it with her employer, then offered her a place in our house at Chatham, one she’d taken withouta moment’s further thought and performed dutifully ever since.
    But as I looked at her that morning nearly two years later, she seemed not altogether pleased with her earlier decision. There was a melancholy wistfulness in her eyes, a deep dissatisfaction.
    “Something’s bothering you,” I said bluntly, my own intense restlessness now spilling over into a general sense of radical impatience.
    Her eyes shot over to me, as if I’d accused her of stealing the silverware. “Now, why do you say that?” she asked in a sharp, defensive tone.
    I gave her a knowing look.
    She turned her head away, touched her cheek. “I’ve nothing to complain about. I’ll not be thought of as a whiner.”
    I was too consumed with my own complaint to feel much tenderness toward Sarah’s, so I said nothing more.
    This seemed to jar her. “Well I want you to know that I don’t at all regret coming to Chatham. Not at all, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t ever want your father to think I wasn’t grateful for what he’s done for me. It’s just that I didn’t come to America to be a serving girl. I’m after more than that. I want to better myself, to break away from the cleaning and cooking. To be something, don’t you know. Not just a serving girl … like I am now.” She shook her head violently. “It’s no good, feeling like I do. Like I’m all tied up in ropes.”
    I could see it in her face, a vast, billowing need to leap