The Memories of Milo Morai Page 12

  Even armed with a sharp desk knife, getting the thoroughly sealed envelope open took some time. But finally, the thick sheaf of papers was spread out before the attorney. Lifting two smaller, sealed envelopes from among the papers, he held them where Milo could see the faces of them.

  “To be opened only by John T. Bannister, Esquire, Attorney-at-law and friend,” Milo silently read on each of them.

  While he was reading the two enclosures, Bannister frequently glanced up at Milo, and at one point he hissed between his teeth. At last, he laid them down atop the other papers, leaned back in his leather swivel chair and gazed at Milo for a moment before he began to speak.

  “Mr. Moray … no, I think we’d better start calling each other Milo and John, all things considered. Milo, Jethro was a very old-fashioned gentleman, in many ways; as such, he simply could not believe women to be at all capable of properly handling money, and the way his younger sister terribly mishandled her own inheritance did nothing to change his mind.

  “Early in 1945”—he tapped one of the folded letters—“he got together with a JAG type and changed his will; this is an original of that new will—all properly executed and witnessed and signed, and so fully legal and binding. You and Martine were legally married, the marriage has been recorded? Yes. Now, have you as yet instigated proceedings to adopt Jethro’s children?”

  “Why, no,” answered Milo. “Frankly, I’d not thought of it.”

  Bannister nodded. “Then you’d best start thinking of it, Milo, and getting it done, the sooner the better.”

  “But why?” demanded Milo. “I can’t remember ever having any children. I don’t even know what kind of a father I’d make.”

  “You’ll make a better father than no father at all, even I can tell you that. Hell, you’ll be the man who’s going to be raising them, anyway. So, if you have the game, you might as well have the name, too, is my way of thinking. Besides, you’ll stand to have a sight more than that, Milo. You see, according to the terms of this will, when Captain Milo Moray marries Martine Stiles and adopts her children by Brigadier General Jethro Stiles, he then inherits the entire Stiles fortune, outright—cash, accounts, stocks, bonds, se­curities, land, buildings, vehicles and equipment, ani­mals, furnishings, boats, leases, the whole damned shooting match.”

  Mind whirling madly, Milo just sat digesting the pronouncement for long minutes. Then he said, “But … but what if I’d been killed, too?”

  Bannister held up the second folded letter between manicured fingers. “Had that occurred, there were contingency plans, but it did not; you’re here and married to the former Mrs. Jethro Stiles. Now, you just adopt Jethro’s kids, and, buddy, you’re in like Flynn. As for me, I’m already in; another of these documents authorizes me to take over the management of the estate, all of it, until such a time as you become eligible. I guess Jethro surmised that if I made it through the war I’d have staff enough to take on the estate management, and he was right about that.

  “You’re living on that farm in Virginia, aren’t you? Yes. Well, Jethro had a local attorney on the outskirts of Washington to handle local affairs. His name is Dabney Randolph, I believe. I’ll have my girl out there jot down everything and I’ll give him a call myself later today. He can get the adoptions started … if that’s what you want to do, of course.”

  Milo regarded Bannister. “You just assume auto­matically that I intend to continue to retain you to run things?”

  Bannister grinned. “I sure as hell hope that’s your intention, Milo. I won’t come cheap, but then neither does the firm that has been managing the estate for so long and neither would any other reputable firm you engaged. If one did offer to work for you for peanuts, you’d be wise to retain another firm to keep track of just what the first one was up to. You’ll of course get regular statements from me that won’t be written in legalese, either. But I can’t give you an exact cost until I have time to examine the records of the other firm, talk to the bankers, the brokers, the accountants, the Treasury people, some men in Europe, South Amer­ica, South Africa, Australia and Canada. Give me thirty days, Milo, then I can give you a figure.”

  With his two granddaughters snuggled on his lap and his grandson sitting on the arm of the overstuffed chair with his head on one bony shoulder, Etienne Duron looked to be truly at peace with the world that had used him and most of his family and possessions so cruelly in the last decade.

  Grief and long privation had prematurely aged the retired army officer to a marked degree, so that he appeared ten to fifteen years older than his actual fifty-three. But despite his emaciation, his patched shirt and his worn-shiny, threadbare suit, he was most distinguished-looking, Milo thought upon his initial introduction by Martine to her widowed father.

  Shortly, they sat down to a meal consisting of a boned and poached fish in aspic, a small bowl of beans, a loaf of cheap bread and a bare liter of sour vin ordinaire.

  With a sad smile, Grandpere Duron apologized, saying, “As one ages, the appetite goes and one forgets to buy food.” It was a patently lame excuse and Milo was quick to notice that the older man ate only a bit of bread and drank one glass of the terrible wine.

  To little Per’s loud plaint of being still hungry when no more food remained upon the table, Milo said, “It’s time for you and your sisters to go upstairs with Mathilde and have your nap. When you wake up, there will surely be some chocolates and marzipan waiting for you. Now all of you kiss your mother and go.”

  While Martine and her father were clearing the table, Milo went out and walked until he found a taxi. The prewar Austin looked to be held together only by rust, friction tape and prayer, but it did get him to one of the addresses given him by John Bannister. A brief conversation and the handing over of a letter of international credit and Milo was again being accorded the by now familiar royal treatment by the fawning bank staff.

  He stepped from the bank through the open rear door of a Rolls-Royce, but before he would allow the uniformed chauffeur to start the engine, he explained certain of his needs to the slim, handsome man.

  Wide-eyed, amazement tinged with something else in his voice, the driver turned to face Milo, saying, “You are the new son-in-law of Colonel Etienne Duron? Please pardon my impertinence, monsieur, but the order was for only one Monsieur Moray. Is monsieur by any chance a former capitaine of infantrie of the American Army, and is his Christian name Milo?”

  Puzzled, Milo just nodded. “Yes, my full name is Milo Moray, and yes, I was a captain of infantry for a while, though I retired in the rank of major. I’m just another civilian now.”

  The chauffeur stared at him, something approach­ing awe shining from his dark eyes. Then he turned, started the car, put it into gear and smoothly pulled out into the busy traffic, blithely, cutting off a huge, lumbering van with a body of corrugated metal, a battered taxi and a bus in his acceleration across three lanes of fast-moving vehicles.

  The man handled the car with flawless perfection, but drove at a breakneck pace and with gut-wrenching abandon, rounding traffic circles with a careless dis­regard of other vehicles of any size, somehow man­aging to avoid stationary obstacles when he zipped through right-angle turns into narrow side streets. Every so often, he would come to a full stop, apply the brake and get out with a murmured “Moment, s’il vous plait, M’sieu Moray. “

  The first stop was to speak with a one-legged boot­black, lead him over to the Rolls and let him look in at Milo. The next one was a gendarme, then there were assorted men and a few women, another gendarme, a score or more of taxi drivers and porters outside the main railway passenger terminal. Finally on their way to the main market, the chauffeur stopped only three times more—two women who looked to Milo like cheap streetwalkers and yet another gendarme.

  Bidding M’sieu Moray to remain in the car, the chauffeur sped off afoot into the crowded, bustling open-air market. He was nowhere in sight when, by ones and twos and three, men and women and even children began to slowly dribble
up to finally surround the Rolls, all of them staring in silence at Milo, whispering among themselves and pointing. Milo began to get a little edgy; he was carrying a fair sum of money now, in cash, and not a few of the crowd looked the part of hoodlums. He was a little relieved when a cassocked priest pushed through the crowd and walked up to the car, then tapped on the rolled-up window.

  Once the glass no longer separated them, the priest asked, “Is M’sieu then truly the kind and generous sometime-capitaine Milo Moray, he who was so unbe­lievably kind to a poor man he never did meet and to that poor man’s desperate young daughter?”

  “Father,” Milo asked his own question, “please, tell me, just what the devil is going on. From the moment I got into this car, the driver has been running it all over Paris and hopping out at odd times and places to drag people over to look at me as if I were some well-known dignitary or a two-headed calf.”

  The priest did not smile, just nodded with sol­emnity. “You are most well known, m’sieu, but by name and charitable deeds only. Those who fought les Boches in Paris and her environs, those of the Resistance, we all have honored your name for more than three years, now. After the untimely demise of the brave Henri Gallion—he never, ever fully re­covered from the unmentionable things that the Gestapo did to him, and despite the warmth and food and comforts and medicines that your unparalleled generosity afforded his last few months of life, he died of pneumonia in July of 1945—his daughter, Nicole, and a prostitute named Angelique Laroux spreawd your fame far and wide within the circle of the Resistance. We tried many times to find you, and we did find your former battalion and company, only to discover that you had been seconded to another unit, but when we tried to find that unit, we always struck a blank wall, for some reason. Frankly, after all this time, we had despaired of ever finding you alive.

  “Now, to suddenly find that you not only still live and are in Paris and even are married to a French­woman, the daughter of a most distinguished, deco­rated, retired French army officer, this all your chauf­feur, Marcel Noyes, found so exciting that he could not but share with his fellow Resistance friends the rare honor of actually seeing you. I, too, am most honored, M’sieu Moray. I would be the more so could I shake your hand in the American fashion. I am Father Arsenne Mullineaux.” The hand extended through the window was a bit grubby, but his clasp was firm.

  Upon seeing the handclasp, the people moved in closer, and a big, burly bear of a man pushed forward out of the crowd. As he came in closer, Milo thought that he looked a little like the common conception of a pirate, with his flapping eyepatch, his scar-laced face and his rolling gait. The husky man’s bearing marked him as a leader, and the priest instinctively moved a little to the side for him, thus confirming his status.

  “It is really him, then, Father Arsenne?” he asked. “Marcel told the whole truth for a change, then, and we at last have found Milo Moray?” His voice matched his size, a basso growl.

  Upon being assured that this gentleman in the back seat of the Rolls was the one, only and original Monsieur le Capitaine Milo Moray, he said shyly, “M’sieu, this sight of you is the God-sent answer to many a prayer. When you could not be found, after Germany capitulated, it was feared by many that les Boches had killed you and that you lay somewhere in an unmarked grave.

  “I am Rene Febvre, called 1’Petit. I have done many bad things in my forty years, but still I would shake the hand of a true saint, if he would permit me … ?”

  At Milo’s acquiescence, the hand that came through the window was at least as large as that of a mountain gorilla and almost as hairy. There was the clear hint of enormous strength in the hand, but also of gentleness.

  Before the car at last left the market area, Milo knew that he had shaken at least two hundred hands, and many of the shakers, the women in particular, had also kissed his hand. And when leave they did, the spacious interior of the Rolls was solidly packed with foodstuffs and wine, cognac and cordials. Nor had Milo been allowed to pay a single franc for any of it.

  When he had begun to try to stuff bills into the pockets of those who were loading the best of their wares into the car, the hulking Rene Febvre had gently taken his arm and led him back toward the car, rumbling softly, “M’sieu Moray, please do not embarrass these men and women. You did so very much for a man and a girl who are heroes to us of the Resistance, your generous gift can never ever be repaid, but please let us try in our own small ways.”

  They were only a short distance from their destination when Milo suddenly remembered his promise to Per, his adopted son. “Marcel, if there is anyplace left in this car to stow it, I promised to bring my children some bonbons, chocolats and pates d’amandes, perhaps. Could we stop at a shop that sells them?”

  The chauffeur did not speak a word, just made a U-turn that sent piles of foodstuffs toppling through­out the car’s interior, came within bare centimeters of clipping a war-worn GI jeep with the unit markings painted over and a crate of guinea fowl in the back. The jeep driver took a hand off the wheel long enough to shake a clenched fist and shout spluttering curses. At the next turn, the Rolls came within millimeters of taking out a gendarme, but the chauffeur drove serenely on, seeming to not even hear the whistle shrilling angrily behind him.

  Completely blocking a short, narrow street, Marcel double-parked before a tiny shop with the legend CONFISERIE painted on its front. Ignoring the bills in Milo’s outstretched hand—there being no way that Milo could have easily gotten out of the overstuffed car himself—the black-suited man got out of the vehicle and entered the shop, shortly emerging with a box that looked to hold at least two kilos and followed by an elderly woman and a younger man who both peered in at Milo for the length of time that it took Marcel to get going again.

  Close to Etienne Duron’s house, Marcel stopped once more to engage two men in conversation, then proceeded the remainder of the distance much more slowly, with the two men standing on the running boards and clinging to the roof pillars while staring at Milo with looks of dumb adoration.

  As the chauffeur and his two assistants began the job of unloading the well-loaded car into the kitchen and pantry of the house, Martine took Milo’s arm and protested, “Mon Dieu, husband, you bought far too much. My father has no refrigeration here, as we have in America, so most of this all will rot before it can be used. And what must have been the cost of all this, this … ?”

  “Much less than one would think, my dear,” said Milo dryly, adding, “In point of pure fact, nothing, not a single franc.”

  The woman just stared at him. “Milo, have you been drinking, perhaps?”

  Marcel, who had overheard the exchange, chose that moment to say, “Madame does not know, then, M’sieu Moray? Of course not, she does not sound to have lived in France for some years, and m’sieu is clearly a man of surpassing modesty, as regards his charity.”

  Turning to Martine, he said solemnly, “Madame Moray, it is your great honor to be the wife of a very good and most saintly man. For long years we all thought him killed by les Boches, mourned his death, made the repose of his compassionate soul the object of thousands of masses, tens of thousands of candles and millions of heartfelt prayers.

  “It was I, Marcel Eudes Noyes, who first discovered today that the saintly Capitaine Milo Moray still lives. Soon all of Paris will know and rejoice, then all of France.”

  Colonel Duron had been seated, looking rather stunned as the three grunting, groaning men bore the vast quantities of comestibles and beverages into his house. Overhearing, his head swiveled on his bony, loose-skinned neck. “But of course,” he pronounced slowly, “my poor memory is failing me; that is why your name sounded so very familiar when first Martine wrote to me of you. To think, I greeted you this day, ate across the same table from you … yet, in my fast-encroaching senility, I failed to connect facts.”

  Martine just looked helplessly from Marcel to Milo to her father. “What in the world are you two babbling about? Tell me, please!”

  Du
ron took his daughter’s hand and drew her down on the bench at his side. “Martine, do you have memory of a man named Henri Gallion? No, you probably would not, you were very young when last you might have heard that name. Henri was badly wounded at the Marne in the Great War; nonetheless, he recovered sufficiently to become a most successful businessman, despite all of the economic problems. But because of his wounds, he was not called to fight les Boches in 1940, though his son was and that young man died trying to hold a line in Flanders. His wife suffered a seizure when the news reached them and she, too, died shortly thereafter.

  “His young daughter, Nicole, left the convent school then, to care for her bereaved father. She stood at his side, then led him home weeping after they had watched the arrogant German army march into Paris. But unlike far too many French men and French women, those two would not let matters so rest, would not lower themselves to passive collaboration with the occupying enemy. They carried on the war in their own quiet ways.”

  “Henri Gailion sat high in the council of the Resistance, Madame Moray,” put in Marcel Noyes, “and his brave daughter became a courier, her care­fully cultivated appearance of youth, modesty and utter innocence saving her in many times and places as she did her most dangerous work for France.”

  Duron nodded and continued his recital. “For almost five years, Henri Gailion and Nicole were able to hoodwink les Boches, leading an overt life and a covert life simultaneously. Then, only a month or less before the liberation of Paris, both father and daughter were taken away by S$ men and Gestapo agents. Poor Gailion himself was savagely tortured, maimed, deliberately crippled.”

  Martine paled perceptibly as Marcel interjected, “Les Boches did not ever know just how big a fish they had netted in Henri Gailion. Had either he or little Nicole broken under the questionings and the mis­treatments, I shudder to think what might then have chanced, madame, for me and thousands of other loyal French men and women.