Elizabeth Bishop - Prose

My expression must have changed. “Are those children making too much noise?” Mrs. Sennett demanded, a sort of wave going over her that might mark the beginning of her getting up out of her chair. I shook my head no, and gave her a little push on the shoulder to keep her seated. Mrs. Sennett was almost stone-deaf and had been for a long time, but she could read lips. You could talk to her without making any sound yourself, if you wanted to, and she more than kept up her side of the conversation in a loud, rusty voice that dropped weirdly every now and then into a whisper. She adored talking.

Finally, we had looked at all the pictures and she put the little green trunk containing the stereoscope and the cards back on the under shelf of the table.

“You wouldn’t think to look at me that I was of Spanish origin, would you?” she asked.

I assured her with my hands and eyebrows that I wouldn’t, expressing, I hoped, a polite amount of doubt, and eagerness to learn if she really were or not.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “My mother was of pure Spanish blood. Do you know what my first name is?”

I shook my head.

“Carmen. That’s Spanish. I was named after my mother.”

I said “ Pret -ty” as hard as I could. Mrs. Sennett was pleased and, looking down modestly, flicked a speck of dust off her large bosom. “Were you born in Spain, Mrs. Sennett?” I asked.

“No, not exactly. My father was on a ship and he brought my mother back to England with him. I was born there. Where were you born?”

I told her in Worcester.

“Isn’t that funny? The children’s uncle is the boxing commissioner there. Mr. Curley, their father’s brother.”

I nodded my knowledge of Mr. Curley.

“But you’d never think to look at me that I’m half Spanish, would you?”

Indeed, to look at Mrs. Sennett made me think more of eighteenth-century England and its literary figures. Her hair must have been sadly thin, because she always wore, indoors and out, either a hat or a sort of turban, and sometimes she wore both. Today the turban was of black silk with a white design here and there. Because of the rainy weather she also wore a white silk handkerchief around her throat; it gave the appearance of a poetically slovenly stock. Mrs. Sennett’s face was large and seemed, like the stereoscope cards, to be at two distances at the same time, as if fragments of a mask had been laid over a background face. The fragments were white, while the face around them was darker and the wrinkles looser. The rims of her eyes were dark; she looked very ill.

“They’re Catholic, you know,” she told me in her most grating whisper, lest she should offend the ears of the children in the dining room. “I’m not, but their father doesn’t mind. He had eleven housekeepers inside two and a half years, after their mother died when Xavier was born, and now I’ve been with them almost five years. I was the only one who could stand the noise and of course it doesn’t bother me any since I can’t even hear it. Some Catholics would never trust their children to a Protestant, but their father’s a broadminded man. The children worry, though. I get them dressed up and off to Mass every Sunday and they’re always tormenting me to come with them. Two Sundays ago, when they came back, Xavier was crying and crying. I kept asking him, ‘What’s the matter with you, Savey?’ but I couldn’t get anything out of him and finally Theresa said, ‘He’s crying because Francis told him you’d have to go to Hell when you died.’”

Xavier had come to the door and was listening to the story. He was the youngest of the children. First came the twins Francis and John, and after them, Mary and Theresa. They were all fair, pretty children. Mrs. Sennett dressed the boys in overalls and before starting off with them for the cottage every summer she had their heads shaved, so she wouldn’t have to bother about haircuts.

Seeing Xavier now, she said, “You bad, noisy children!” He came over and leaned against her chair, and she scrubbed her large hands over his bristly head. Then she told him that she had company, and he went back to the dining room, where Theresa was now reading old funny papers out loud to all of them.

Mrs. Sennett and I continued talking. We told each other that we loved the bay, and we extended our affection to the ocean, too. She said she really didn’t think she’d stay with the children another winter. Their father wanted her to, but it was too much for her. She wanted to stay right here in the cottage.

The afternoon was getting along, and I finally left because I knew that at four o’clock Mrs. Sennett’s “sit down” was over and she started to get supper. At six o’clock, from my nearby cottage, I saw Theresa coming through the rain with a shawl over her head. She was bringing me a six-inch-square piece of spice-cake, still hot from the oven and kept warm between two soup plates.

* * *

A few days later I learned from the twins, who brought over gifts of firewood and blackberries, that their father was coming the next morning, bringing their aunt and her husband and their cousin, also named Theresa, for a visit. Mrs. Sennett had promised to take them all on a picnic at the pond some pleasant day. They were going to cook outdoors and go swimming in fresh water, and they were going to take along cakes of Ivory soap, so that they could have baths at the same time. The men would walk to the pond, and a friend of Mrs. Sennett’s in the village had promised to drive the rest of them there in his car. Mrs. Sennett rarely moved beyond her house and yard, and I could imagine what an undertaking the guests and the picnic would be for her.

I saw the guests arrive the next day, walking from the station with their bags, and I saw Mr. Curley, a tall, still young-looking man, greet Mrs. Sennett with a kiss. Then I saw no more of them for two days; I had a guest myself, and we were driving around the Cape most of the time. On the fourth day, Xavier arrived with a note, folded over and over. It was from Mrs. Sennett, written in blue ink, in a large, serene, ornamented hand, on linen-finish paper:

My Dear Neighbor,

My Friend has disappointed me about the car. Tomorrow is the last day Mr. Curley has and the Children all wanted the Picnic so much. The Men can walk to the Pond but it is too far for the Children. I see your Friend has a car and I hate to ask this but could you possibly drive us to the Pond tomorrow morning? It is an awful load but I hate to have them miss the Picnic. We can all walk back if we just get there.

Very Sincerely Yours,

Carmen Sennett

The next morning my guest and I put them all in the car. Everybody seemed to be sitting on Mrs. Sennett. They were in beautifully high spirits. Mrs. Sennett was quite hoarse from asking the aunt if the children were making too much noise and, if she said they were, telling them to stop.

We brought them back that evening — the women and children, at least. Xavier carried an empty gin bottle that Mrs. Sennett said his father had given him. She leaned over to the front seat and shouted in my ear, “He likes his liquor. But he’s a good man.” The children’s hair shone with cleanliness and John told me that they had left soapsuds all over the pond.

After the picnic, Mrs. Sennett’s presents to me were numberless and I had to return empty dishes by the children several times a day. It was almost time for them to go back to school in South Boston. Mrs. Sennett insisted that she was not going; their father was coming down again to get them and she was just going to stay. He would have to get another housekeeper. She, Mrs. Sennett, was just going to stay right here and look at the bay all winter, and maybe her sister from Somerville would come to visit. She said this over and over to me, loudly, and her turbans and kerchiefs grew more and more distrait.