A Liverpool Legacy by Anne Baker

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 going 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