Catherine Comstock
spent one hour looking for the letter. Then spying the crumpled letter in her
delicate but wrinkled hand she asked herself aloud, “How did that get
there?” and then undertook another search for eyeglasses which sat on the top
of her head. And such was the way that Catherine Comstock, sole child of
the illustrious Admiral Johnson Comstock of the Maryland Comstock's, lived out
her days in the recent past years.
A half hour later she had located the glasses and then the doorbell rang.
“I am
exhausted,” she said as she sprawled out across the day sofa where she waited
for the day maid to answer the bell. After a third ring she remembered
she no longer employed a day maid and scurried through six rooms, half of the
rooms on the first floor of her home, to answer the door, calling out “Un
momento, por favor” even though she didn’t actually speak Spanish.
However, some decades before she had read Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” and
“For Whom the Bell Tolls”, and the works impressed her, so in a salute to the
writer’s efforts she sometimes shouted out things in Spanish, whether she
understood the meaning or not.
Opening
the extremely large, tall and heavy front door she found a postman holding a
piece of paper.
“Registered letter” he said.
“No young
man” she answered “I have no registered letter for you. If I did I would
have mailed it to you.”
“No
Ma’am” he answered politely “I have a registered letter for you.”
“Why?”
she asked pointedly.
“Why what?” he
responded.
Taking a breath
and releasing it with a deep sigh to show her disdain for his slowness she
said, “Why would you have a registered letter for me? I don’t even know you.”
“I’m with….” He
said before she interrupted him.
“You
didn’t have to write it down did you?” she asked. “And go through
all the trouble of registering the letter. You simply could have come
here and told me what you want. Now, what do you want?”
“I’m with the
post office, Miss” he explained. “Someone has sent you a registered letter and
you need to please sign for it so I can give it to you,” and he handed her the
letter, the receipt and a pen and pointed for the line she was to sign on.
She took
the contraptions but before signing asked, “And who gave this to you to bring
here?”
“I don’t
know Ma’am,” he replied.
Staring at him solemnly, she wagged a finger and lectured, “You should not be
so trusting, young fellow.”
“Yes
Ma’am” he said for he was a kind and a polite mailman.
“Always”
she continued “know from whom you are accepting things. What if there were
illegal narcotics in this envelope and the police stopped you and found the
illegal narcotics and arrested you?”
“Yes
Ma’am” he agreed. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Content that she had protected the working classes from themselves she nodded
and signed the envelope. He took the receipt and checked the appropriate boxes
for her and when he looked up again he saw the one dollar bill in the lady’s
hand.
“I
can’t take that Ma’am,” he said with a weak smile.
“Nonsense” she said and pushed the sole bill into his hand. “Use it to buy a
suit so you can get a job,” and then she closed the massive door. She paused
and tried to recall what she was doing before this distraction pillaged her
day.
Ah, yes, the letter from the editor.
She was
looking for the letter from the editor before that terribly confused man
arrived at her door. Twenty minutes later she found the letter where she
had left it, on the desk in the library.
Placing the certified letter down on the desk and picking up a month old letter
from the editor, she conducted a light search for her glasses, again, and
finding them on her head, again, she read the letter aloud.
Dear Miss
Comstock:
We
have received the envelope from you marked “The Life and Times of Admiral
Johnson Comstock As told by his daughter. Chapter One.” The envelope was
empty. Perhaps you could resend.
Kind
regards.
Jackson
Beauregard, Publisher
Sentential Publishing Company, New York New York
She
carefully refolded the letter and placed it back into its clean white envelope
and took a second letter from the desk, opened it and read it aloud.
Dear Miss
Comstock:
We
have received another envelope from you marked “The Life and Times of Admiral
Johnson Comstock. As told by his daughter. Chapter One.” This envelope was also
empty. When we suggested that you resend, we meant perhaps you could send
another envelope with the actual chapter within the envelope.
Kind regards.
Jackson
Beauregard, Publisher
Sentential Publishing Company, New York New York
“Why is
that poor man looking for things in empty envelopes?” she asked herself aloud.
“Perhaps I should telephone him.”
And
so she did. She dialed. The phone rang. A man answered.
“Hello?” asked the man’s voice.
“Yes,” she said, “I need to speak with Mister Beauregard.”
“Is this
Catherine?” the man asked.
“Oh good
heavens,” she said somewhat annoyed. “I don’t know who you are and why should I
guess? Catherine Comstock here. Is Mister Beauregard available to
speak on the telephone?
“Miss Comstock,
this is Jackson Beauregard,” said Jackson Beauregard. “I’m so….”
“Well you should have just said that from the beginning,” she said.
“Well I
just want to say how pleased….” he began.
“I don’t
have time for Tom Foolery, Mister Beauregard. I am not a New Yorker you know,”
she said. “My Father the Admiral always said, Chicago has no hills. It’s
completely flat.”
There was
a very long pause on the phone.
“Well
anyway,” Jackson Beauregard said, “I was about to give you a call myself.”
“On the
telephone?” Catherine asked. And there was another silence.
“Miss
Comstock” he said in a very business-like fashion “as you know, our firm has
paid you a very large advance for the biography you promised to write on your
father’s life. Your attorney, Mister Willoughby, assured us the books would be
completed.”
“That’s
correct” she said. “Good for you.”
“But that
was several years ago,” he continued “And now that Mister Willoughby….”
“Mister
Willoughby has died?” she asked.
“Yes” he
said.
“Well why
didn’t he tell me?” she asked.
“I don’t
know” he answered.
“Some people” she sighed “are so unreliable. As my father use to say
“Catherine, I don’t like new York.”
Here was
a long silence on the phone.
“Miss
Comstock,” Beauregard asked, “is there someone else?”
“Someone
else what?” she asked in return.
“Well
someone else we could speak to” he asked.
“My
goodness gracious, there must be millions of people you could speak to,” she
answered.
“I meant”
he said “Is there someone else we could speak to regarding the manuscript, a
new attorney, a relative of some sort? Someone who handles your finances?”
“Well
there is Miss Florence,” Catherine replied. “She’s here twice a week although I
have forgotten which weeks those are.”
“And she
is your accountant? Financial advisor?” he asked.
“No, no,
no dear. She cleans the house,” Catherine replied. “She has a grandson. His
name is Tupac. He’s doing ten years in Maryland, some sort of Doctorial work I
would think. Should you have a bill to be paid, send it here and I will see to
it that Miss Florence looks it over.”
“She
handles your finances?” he asked.
“Oh yes”
Catherine said sweetly. “Miss Florence has worked since she was 16 years
old. Isn’t that wonderful Catherine?”
“This is
Jackson Beauregard, Miss Comstock.”
“Oh, the
poor fellow with empty envelopes,” she answered. “I’ve been meaning to call
you. You have sent me some letters regarding the biography I plan to write on
my father. I finished the first chapter you know.”
“That’s
delightful, Miss Comstock” said Beauregard. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“My
father was a great man. He believed in us, in our greatness as a people. And he
believed in freedom, for everyone, everywhere because he held the individual,
each child of God, as a sacred thing. And he spent his life defending that principle.”
“That he
did, Miss Comstock, that he did,” said Jackson Beauregard. “We owe him much.”
“Now,
young man” Catherine said, “What is it that you have called me
about?”
There was a pause and then Jackson Beauregard, who was a good man, a decent man
said, “I guess I just wanted to say hello.”
“Oh” said
Catherine with surprise, “Well hello to you as well.”
