A Liverpool Legacy Page 7

  He’d seen her breast-feeding her baby with a tranquil Madonna-like smile on her face and that would set any man’s emotions on fire. He wanted to marry her, make it all legal and above board, but she was a minor. She’d need permission from a parent or guardian before she could marry. She’d told him when and how she’d discovered she’d been an illegitimate baby. Millie had said she knew of no other relatives and sobbed that she was afraid her mother had been turned out of the family home when her pregnancy became noticeable, and how she wished she’d been able to talk about that with her. But by the time she knew about it her mother had been too ill to open her mind to her. That had wrung his heart.

  It seemed Millie’s mother had brought her up single-handed and he’d seen the close relationship they had, but now when Millie needed her permission to marry, she was no longer alive. She’d said she knew of no other relatives. Pete had no official status as her guardian though he’d inferred to Hattie and the girls that he was acting in that capacity, but that wouldn’t give him any legal rights and as he was thinking of marrying her himself he’d be laughed at. Perhaps also he’d be seen as taking advantage of a vulnerable young girl who had no one else to turn to.

  Pete told himself he was several sorts of an old fool, but yes, it was what he wanted. He wasn’t sure how it could be done or even if it could be done, but there must be some way. Millie seemed very sure of her feelings and he was too old to waste the years waiting until she was twenty-one.

  He gave the matter a good deal of thought over the next few days, and then in the office where Millie could not possibly overhear him he telephoned Alec Douglas, the solicitor who had acted for his family for years, and to whom he paid a fee to help with any legal problems that might arise in his business.

  ‘Alec,’ he said, ‘I need your advice on a personal matter.’ He outlined his problem.

  ‘Not a common problem,’ he was told. ‘More people have difficulties breaking up a marriage than putting one together. Well, I can’t deal with that myself, it’s not my field, but I can recommend somebody who can.’

  Peter rang the person whose name he’d been given. ‘Yes, it’s perfectly possible. The young lady will need to apply to the Court of Summary Jurisdiction for permission. I can handle that for her if you would make an appointment for her to come in, and she gives me the details.’

  ‘Is this permission easy to get?’

  ‘They’re unlikely to withhold it unless there’s good reason.’

  Pete sank back in his office chair. Now that the difficulties seemed surmountable, he felt he could seriously consider marrying for a second time. It was seven years since Esme had died and he’d been in emotional turmoil for several years after that, but it had been a happy marriage and once he was able to think of the future he’d wanted another wife. Hattie had sorted out his house and his family and was eminently suitable but they’d eventually decided not to settle for a marriage based on friendship.

  He was now forty-six and many would consider eighteen-year-old Millie to be less than suitable. He didn’t care, he loved her and she’d had enough guts to tell him she loved him. He’d been surprised at how tenaciously she’d talked about their feelings, it hadn’t seemed to embarrass her. She was his best chance of happiness now and he decided to grasp it. He’d talk to her tonight when he’d got the girls off to bed.

  Chapter Six

  It was Hattie’s last night with them and Pete had wanted an especially good dinner of four courses to say farewell. Millie had pushed Sylvie round the shops trying to buy extra food and had helped Hattie with the cooking. Pete opened a bottle of wine and gave the girls half a glass each as a taster. Millie knew he was in high good humour but put it down to the party spirit on Hattie’s last night.

  During most evenings while they ate, Sylvie dozed or kicked happily in her pram in the hallway but tonight the louder sounds of merriment made her howl to join them. It was Helen who picked her up and brought her to the table where she was passed round, wide-eyed and playful, smiling at them all.

  It was later than usual when they finished eating, and Millie then had to give Sylvie her last feed of the night. She carried her up to the nursery to do it and was surprised to find Pete was following her. She started by changing her napkin because Sylvie was usually half asleep when she’d had her feed.

  When she was ready to start she found Pete was standing at the door but making no move to go. She hesitated. ‘You don’t usually like watching me feed her, do you?’

  ‘I do, Millie, very much, too much. I’m staying because I have something to ask you.’

  ‘Oh, what is that?’ Breast-feeding had become a matter of routine to her, she got on with it.

  ‘Will you marry me, Millie?’

  She felt the blood rush up to her cheeks and jerked up so suddenly that the baby lost her grip on her breast and wailed in protest. ‘Marry you?’ She stared at him open-mouthed while she fumbled to settle her baby again. ‘I’d love to, you must know it would be a dream come true for me. Beyond my dreams really, but I thought you said I was too young. And there’s Sylvie, she’s another man’s child.’

  ‘I love you and I can love Sylvie because she’s yours. She’s a beautiful baby and less demanding of attention than my two ever were. I want you both close to me for the rest of my life. It can be arranged. Anything can be arranged so long as you love me.’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘How could I not love you? You’ve done so much for me.’

  ‘It’s not your gratitude I want, Millie, that’s not the same thing. It’s full-grown love I’m looking for.’

  ‘I love you very much. You know I do. Heart and soul.’ He came over to sit beside her on the sofa and tried to kiss her, but the feeding baby got in the way.

  It was after midnight when Pete and Millie went downstairs again and found that Hattie and the girls had washed up, reset the table for the morning and gone to bed. Millie had never felt less like sleep, she was excited and it seemed Pete felt the same. He found the unfinished bottle of wine and poured what remained into two glasses.

  ‘We’ve made the big decision,’ he said, ‘but there’s a lot of practicalities to decide. I want you to know that I’ll legally adopt Sylvie. I’ll be her adoptive father if not her natural one, so you’ll know I’ll always have her interests at heart. She’ll know no different.’

  Millie nodded. ‘She’ll have a much better life, here with you.’

  ‘I want you to have a better life with me too. I want to do the right thing for you. I want you to be happy. I want our love to last. Hattie has shown you how she thinks this house should run, but as my wife I’ll expect you to change things you think might make it easier or better.’

  ‘Pete, the more I see of you, the more I trust you. You always do the right thing for other people.’

  ‘You’ll need a year or so to settle down as a wife and mother, but you also made a good start in our perfume lab, and if you decide later that you’d prefer that to being a full-time homemaker, that would be fine by me. Is there anything else?’

  She couldn’t suppress a giggle. ‘The thought of becoming stepmother to Valerie and Helen scares me.’

  ‘It needn’t. They’re good girls,’ he said, ‘they’ve got their feet on the ground and we’re all getting along very well together already. I shall make it a prime aim to see that things continue in the same way.’

  Millie got up early the next morning to feed Sylvie and set about making tea and frying bacon for breakfast and very soon the family was all round her chattering like birds.

  Pete smiled his understanding across the table to her as he announced, ‘Millie and I have some news for you. We are going to be married.’

  Valerie and Helen screamed with excitement. ‘How marvellous! Can we be bridesmaids?’

  ‘No,’ Pete said. ‘Due to my advanced years, it isn’t goi
ng to be a wedding like that. It’ll be a very quiet wedding.’

  Valerie gasped. ‘Millie, you mustn’t let Dad talk you out of a white bridal gown and veil.’

  ‘He hasn’t. I’ve grown up too fast, left all that behind.’

  ‘You must.’

  ‘No, a white gown and a big celebration is not what we want. I’ve got Sylvie, you see. It’ll be in church, but just for the family.’

  ‘Millie, you’ll be our stepmother!’ Helen pulled a face.

  ‘I’ll try not to be a wicked stepmother to you.’ Millie tried to smile.

  ‘They aren’t scared, Millie, they already know you. And they know you aren’t going to change.’

  Hattie laughed. ‘I could see this was about to happen.’

  The wedding took place at ten o’clock one morning just as Pete had planned, in the nearby church the Maynard family had traditionally attended. Only Hattie and his two daughters were present to witness it. Millie carried a bunch of flowers from the garden and they went home to lunch afterwards. There was no music, no marriage pageantry, but it was legal, and Millie set about being a wife and a homemaker. She’d never been happier and knew Pete felt the same, though it took her a while to feel at ease housekeeping on the scale he required for his family. He doted on his daughters, and Millie learned to love them as much as he did and miraculously they seemed to meld into a happy family.

  ‘We Maynards were brought up to believe that the family was very important,’ Pete had explained to her. ‘We support each other and stick together. William, my grandfather, started the business in eighteen forty-nine and it proved profitable. He had ten children and as his family grew he expanded his company, with the intention of giving all his progeny and kinsmen a means of supporting themselves in perpetuity. Every boy born to the family after that has been given the name William to honour him. My father was William Alfred, I’m William Peter, and my brother is William James. Grandfather took a long-term view and we heirs should all show our appreciation of that.’

  The years passed, Sylvie started school and Valerie and Helen grew up and went to college. Millie decided that she’d like to go back to work and do the training course Arthur Knowles had once recommended. She took time off to have her babies, and worked part time while Simon and Kenny were young. Pete encouraged her, saying she needed to reach her full potential to be truly happy.

  Arthur Knowles was still running the perfume department when she returned. He’d worked there all his life and told her she needed to learn more about the science behind the making of perfumes. He lent her books and recommended others, and she went regularly to night school classes for years. Pete took her to Grasse to see the fields filled with flowers grown entirely for the production of perfume. Then he’d taken her to the French perfume houses where the flowers were distilled for their scent and from whom they bought it to use to manufacture their soaps and talcum powder.

  Maynards had made little profit during the Depression of the 1930s and even less during the war, though they’d kept the factory working using the employees who were too old to fight. Their products had been reduced to utility standard; much plainer with minimum packaging.

  Sadly, Arthur Knowles was killed early on in the war, and Millie had had to run the laboratory on her own after that. When at last peace came, the firm had used up its financial resources. The same could be said of Britain as a whole.

  The population was exhausted but factories had to change immediately from making munitions to earning a living again. With so many of the ingredients in short supply, it had taken superhuman effort on Pete’s part to recommence making the luxurious soaps and talcum powders they’d once found so profitable. But he had turned the company round, the profits were increasing.

  The first morning she was back home in Liverpool, Millie slept late and felt she was jerked violently back to the loss and grief of the present, and the dreadful prospect of telling Simon and Kenneth that they would never see their father again.

  The boys were weekly boarders at Heathfield, a preparatory school in Woolton. She couldn’t bear to tell them the news over the telephone, so she waited. On Friday, she tried to ring the headmaster because she thought he ought to know, but he was teaching. His secretary made an appointment for her to see him before she picked the boys up at the end of the school day. She drove over to collect them that afternoon as she usually did, and had a quiet word with the headmaster first.

  She took away two small boys with happy, innocent faces wearing their smart school uniforms. Simon was very like his father to look at, and the first thing he said was, ‘How did Dad’s birthday trip go?’ That threw her a little, but she was non-committal and soon the boys were telling her about a sports match at the school.

  Millie had spent days trying to think of the best way to tell them, but like Helen she’d come to the conclusion there was no best way. She’d made up her mind to say nothing in the car where her attention had to be on driving; instead she planned to get them home first and had set out an afternoon tea of sponge cake and scones on the dining-room table in readiness. Sylvie met them at the front door with a face ravaged by tears.

  Simon could see there was something wrong and said, ‘What’s happened? What’s the matter?’

  They sat on hard dining chairs, one on each side of her, and she put an arm across each of their shoulders to pull them close. They all wept for Pete, Sylvie too, though in truth she’d never stopped. Millie had never missed him more, he was so much better at explaining away their problems than she was.

  Later that evening when she’d quietened them down a little, the phone rang. She was glad to hear Valerie’s voice. ‘I’m arranging for Dad’s body to be brought to Liverpool,’ she said. ‘The police haven’t officially released it yet though they say there will be no trouble about that. I’m told there’ll have to be an inquest but it was described to me as routine. All the same, Millie, you’ll be called to give evidence because you were with Dad at the time.’

  Millie had been expecting it, but the prospect made her shudder all the same.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. The police tell me that the findings at the post-mortem mean Dad’s death will almost certainly be found to be an accident. There won’t be any difficulty.’

  ‘What about Sylvie? Will they want her to give evidence too?’

  ‘I’m afraid they might. I’ve given them your home address, you’ll hear direct about that. How is Sylvie?’

  ‘Taking it badly, she can’t stop crying. The boys are coping better with the bad news. I’m going to take them all out for the day tomorrow to try and take their minds off it.’

  ‘By the way, I’ve rung Uncle James again and he says he’ll make the funeral arrangements, and would you let him know what hymns you would like in the service, and whether there’s anything special you want.’

  ‘I must go and see him,’ Millie said. ‘Pete and I should have gone back to work on Wednesday.’

  ‘Uncle James won’t expect you yet,’ Valerie tried to soothe. ‘Don’t go back until after the funeral.’

  ‘You’re probably right, I’ll leave it a bit longer but it’s my responsibility to make sure there’s enough perfume on hand to keep the factory working, and I’m sure the sooner Sylvie has something to occupy her, the sooner she’ll feel better and more her normal self.’

  Millie was worried about her changed financial position. She was suddenly head of her household and responsible for three children, though Sylvie considered herself grown-up now that she had started to earn. The problem as Millie saw it was that she wouldn’t have Pete’s salary.

  He’d always spoken freely about their income, but he’d believed in enjoying life and she knew they’d lived up to the hilt on it. He’d encouraged her and Sylvie to spend their earnings on themselves. She knew he had life assurance and had made a will in her favour when they were married
. He’d shown her a copy at the time but it was so long ago she’d forgotten the details. She knew where he kept important personal documents so she looked it out.

  The sum assured on his life now seemed quite small. His will gave a legacy of three thousand pounds to Sylvie and to each of his older daughters, and a codicil added at a later date left the same to each of his sons. Millie could see that he’d left her the residue of his estate, comprising the family home on which there was no mortgage, all his goods and chattels as well as his half share of the business. It was more or less what she’d expected.

  Pete had been a good provider and had taken his responsibilities seriously. She was comforted. She’d have her own salary and a share of the business profits and it all seemed manageable, she had no reason to worry. She rang Pete’s solicitor to tell him about the accident and his words of condolence made her weep again after she’d put the phone down.

  William James Cornelius Maynard had been in bed when his niece Valerie had telephoned; he rarely felt able to get up before eleven o’clock these days. His man Dando had had to help him into his dressing gown and slippers so he could speak to her, as his phone was downstairs in the hall. It had given him a nasty shock to hear of Peter’s terrible accident. He’d felt quite faint and had had to go back to lie on his bed for half an hour.

  He was sorry about Peter, of course he was. He’d not had a lot in common with his brother, but Peter had stood by him and supported him in his periods of illness. It was unfortunate that he couldn’t run the business in his brother’s place, but he was afraid his bad back would no longer allow him to spend long days in that office.