A Liverpool Legacy (14 page)

Pete had called a meeting of the department heads once a month so everybody knew what was being planned and what progress had been made. Apart from Andrew, all of them had worked for the firm for twenty to thirty years and had kept the place running during the war. Tom Bedford ran the soap production, while Albert Lancaster was responsible for talcum powder. She dreaded the time when they’d want to retire and was grateful it was still a year or two off. Dan Quentin their sales manager was a little younger, very efficient and always smartly dressed, and their buyer was Billy Sankey. He was a bit of a maverick but they were all fond of him.

Pete had trusted the senior managers and they’d always done their best for him. They were continuing to work hard now and everything was running smoothly, but it was nearly four months since Pete had died.

Yesterday, she’d had a word with Tom Bedford. ‘James brought Marcus to the factory floor the other day,’ he told her. ‘When I approached them and asked if I could be of any help, they said no. They didn’t speak to anybody but they were taking notes as they walked round and peered into everything.’ Albert Lancaster told her much the same thing.

Millie had no idea how they spent their time in the office. As far as she could see, they were doing precious little.

Millie continued to find the diaries fascinating and was trying to read more of them, but the pages were so crammed with tiny writing which was hard to decipher that it was taking her a long time. There were little anecdotes about Pete and his brother, snippets of information about the Maynard business and information about the garden and their favourite recipes. Millie was totally hooked.

She’d decided it would take years to read them from beginning to end, and she was dipping first in one diary and then another in her search for facts about the family. She knew she must be more methodical, and began marking the passages she’d read.

She thought of giving one of the books to Sylvie and getting her help, but Sylvie was at last acting like a normal teenager wanting to be out and about all the time. What she needed was more sleep.

The diaries were heavy on her stomach in bed and Millie took to reading them at the roll-top desk on Sunday afternoons as well, and asked herself how much of his mother’s life Pete had known.

The diaries were in his desk drawers so it seemed likely he’d read them, but he’d been very open, talked about everything and he’d never mentioned them to her. She thought he’d have encouraged her to read them if he’d known what was in them. He’d been proud of what his father had achieved, and talked of him from time to time. Tonight Millie had come to bed early and was feeling drowsy until she read:

Freddie and I were invited by a business connection to a pheasant shoot on an estate in Wales. It was a clear sunny day but cold and we wives were taken up to the moor to join them for a picnic lunch in a specially erected tent. Our vehicle was pulled by four horses and also carried the food and the servants to serve it.

It was a substantial meal with hot soup and a casserole taken up in hay boxes and as the men had had a successful morning, they were in a jolly mood and spent rather too much time over it. The beaters were sent off promptly to drive the birds into position for the first afternoon shoot and when reminded, the men rather hurriedly picked up their guns to resume their sport. We ladies went for a short walk in the opposite direction to allow the servants time to repack the dishes and tidy up the brake for our return.

We heard a few shots and then agitated cries and calls, and knew something had gone wrong. We rushed back to the tent but the shooting brake had already gone racing past us and we heard that a serving woman had been accidently shot and was being taken to the doctor.

It was only when I saw Freddie sagging against a tent pole in great distress that I realised he was the one who had shot her. Everybody was kind to him, offering support, condolences and brandy, and agreeing that the woman had caused the accident. She had no reason to be in the place where it had happened. It made them lose interest in pheasant shooting and we all went back to the house.

Mrs Trott was a woman from the village, not one of our host’s servants, and had been hired for a few days to help with the shooting party. When the news reached us at dinner that she had died, poor Freddie was in a fever of remorse, made worse when we learned she was a widow of only a few months, her husband having been killed in a threshing accident at harvest time. Even worse was the news that she had a two-month-old son being cared for by a neighbour.

I have never seen Freddie so stricken. Some of the house guests left the next morning but we couldn’t go home. Freddie wished to make amends. Our host sought other relatives of the Trott family but none were to be found and the neighbour to whom the child had been entrusted already had seven children of her own and no wish for more.

As the child was an orphan, Freddie could see only one solution: we would add him to our family, a brother for our darling Peter. Both Freddie and I had been longing for another baby. What I really wanted was a little girl, but Freddie wanted sons to run his business when they were grown up. This baby boy, although dressed in rags, was quite handsome, and appeared well fed and healthy. Peter was now coming up to two and a half years old, so this baby would fit into our family very well.

We will bring him up in greater comfort than his mother could ever have done. He will receive a good education and will have a better life than he would otherwise have done, and at two months of age, he need never know that we are not his natural parents. Neither need Peter, he is not old enough to understand. The child had been named Sidney, but we had him christened William James.

Millie sat back feeling shocked. The Maynard family had secrets she’d never even suspected. Had Pete known about this? She was quite sure James did not, he’d been proud to say that he and his sons were of the Maynard bloodline, and superior to her who had only married into the family. Well, she could certainly put them in their place now, and wouldn’t it serve them right? She positively itched to do it.

They’d been more than rude to her, shown their dislike and their wish to put her out of the business. Next time they came to the lab trying to make trouble for her she would have all the ammunition she needed to silence them.

It was only when she’d thought it over that she asked herself if Pete would do that. He was a much kinder, more generous person than she was; she’d heard him say several times that he must not be unkind to James. James was his brother and allowances must be made if he did not feel up to coming to work.

Perhaps Pete had known and that was why he’d not told her about his mother’s diaries. It had been his parents’ secret too, and on further consideration she decided she must respect their wishes. She could not tell James or his sons that they’d been born into a background as lowly as hers. Pete wouldn’t want her to do that.

She was glad now that she hadn’t told Sylvie about the diaries. Goodness, she’d even thought of asking Valerie and Helen to read some of them, and would have done had they not always seemed so busy with their own families.

Millie was wide awake now and continued to read. Eleanor was comparing her two boys.

Peter is much the brighter. He’s more alert, into everything while James is quite bucolic and doesn’t seem to have Peter’s energy. Freddie believes nurture plays a greater part in a child’s development than nature and quotes the Jesuit saying, ‘Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.’

They’d both wanted to believe the upbringing he’d have would enable James to play a useful part in running the business.

Well, there would be no argument now. Pete had definitely turned out to be the more able person.

Chapter Fourteen

A few days later, Millie found a typed memo on her desk calling a staff meeting at ten o’clock that morning in James’s office, which was also used as their boardroom. ‘About time,’ she said aloud to Denis.

She set out promptly and met Andrew Worthington heading in the same direction. She’d hoped she could count on him as an ally against Marcus, but she’d been disappointed by his lack of interest in her problems. Except to say an occasional good morning, he’d barely spoken to her since that lunchtime when she’d asked for his help.

There was no one else within hearing and today his dark green eyes looked into hers as he asked diffidently, ‘How are you getting on? Did you decide how you were going to raise the money you needed for those legacies?’

‘Yes, it’s all sorted,’ she said cheerfully. ‘The family stepped in to handle it.’

‘Good, good,’ he said, with a look of surprise on his thin face.

Millie led the way to James’s office where Miss Franklin was placing a typed agenda in front of each chair. The heads of the departments were already assembling round the boardroom table. James was fussing around and she found that as well as Marcus, his elder son Nigel was here.

‘Hello, Nigel,’ she said, ‘I haven’t seen you for years. Welcome home.’ He’d really changed. He was more elegant than Marcus, with a pencil moustache and a deep tan.

‘Thanks. I’m glad to be back.’

‘When was it you went to India?’ she asked. ‘Nineteen thirty-six?’ He was wearing a well-cut suit with his pocket handkerchief showing just the right amount of corner protruding from his breast pocket. He’d taken great pains with his appearance.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was very sorry to hear about Uncle Peter. How are you?’

‘I’m managing, thank you.’ Millie saw Marcus was closing the door so she sat down and Andrew took the seat next to her.

Andrew Worthington opened the file he’d brought and said to Millie, ‘I’ve got the figures worked out for last year. I think you’ll be pleased, there’s a further increase in profits.’

He’d regularly attended Pete’s monthly staff meetings where they’d been greeted with cups of tea and if possible biscuits. He could see there would be no such comforts this morning.

James rapped on the table and called the meeting to attention. ‘I’d like to start by introducing my elder son Nigel to you,’ he said.

Nigel beamed round the table, looking fit and much slimmer than the rest of his family.

‘I’ve been waiting for him to be demobbed,’ James went on, ‘before I felt I could—’

The door opened and Dan Quentin and Albert Lancaster came noisily in to join them. ‘Are we late? Sorry, Mr Maynard.’

Into the silence that followed, Andrew heard Millie say, ‘Demobbed, Nigel? I didn’t know you were in the army, I understood you were working in the Colonial Service.’

‘I was,’ he said in the same rather lordly manner his brother had. ‘Everybody is being demobbed at the moment; that was a slip of Father’s tongue. I knew it was my duty to come home and join the forces but, try as I might, I couldn’t get a passage. But I was needed there in the Colonial Service.’

James rapped impatiently on the table. ‘As I was saying, I’ve been waiting for my sons to return home before I retired. I want you to know that I’ve decided to go at the end of the year. And starting in the New Year, Nigel and Marcus will take over from me and run the company.’

Millie straightened in her seat. Andrew could see she didn’t like that but he thought under the circumstances she should have expected that Peter and James would be replaced by younger family members.

James went on in a strong, dictatorial voice, ‘Nigel and Marcus will bring new energy into the company. They have a great many plans and they’re going to reorganise everything to take the business into the future. As you know, it’s a changing world and if this company is to be as successful as we all hope, then we will all have to change with it. It’s going to take a lot of hard work but I know you’ll all be behind the fourth generation of Maynards, helping them to achieve it.’

That seemed to Andrew like a lot of hot air meant to motivate them to work harder, but a not unusual way to open the meeting. The men were all nodding their agreement.

Millie asked with frigid politeness, ‘Do we need new plans?’

‘Of course we do, Millie, we have to progress. A business can never stand still. Either it drives forward or it starts to fall back.’

Andrew rustled his documents. He believed James knew exactly how good their progress had been since the war ended.

Millie spoke up again. ‘May we know what new plans Nigel and Marcus have?’ There was a moment’s silence. James’s antipathy was evident, Millie’s interruption was unwelcome.

Marcus took over from his father. ‘I’m sure you’ll all agree we need new lines. The company has launched nothing new on the market since before the war and we have only light floral perfumes.’

‘We three have discussed it,’ Nigel said, ‘and we believe a stronger perfume might be more attractive to today’s customers.’

James took over again. ‘We need a change of emphasis on what we produce, a perfume with more general appeal so we can increase our customer base. I’m sure you all agree with that.’

‘No,’ Millie said firmly. ‘I’m not sure that I do.’

But James took no notice. His face was glowing with enthusiasm. ‘Look how popular “Evening in Paris” is proving to be. The sales have grown overnight. We need to get away from flowers and use something stronger, woodland spices perhaps. If we forge ahead with the work now we could get it launched on the market in time for the Christmas trade.’

‘That would be quite impossible,’ she said quietly.

Andrew heard a snigger that was quickly changed to a cough. He could see that the three experienced department chiefs were taken aback by James’s announcement. Since Millie would own half the company once probate was granted, he thought she was right to speak up.

Marcus rounded on her to demand, ‘Why not, if we’re all prepared to put our backs into it?’

‘I can’t believe that you and your father know so little about the business your company is in,’ she said. Andrew could see that the men were ready to applaud that. ‘There are two very definite reasons. Firstly, we are slowly growing our customer base, but it takes time because we make luxury products that sell at high prices that not everybody can afford.’

‘Of course.’ Marcus was getting angry. ‘We all understand that.’

‘We can’t compete in the mass market for toiletries. Lever Brothers make a superb range which they can sell at very reasonable prices because they operate on a huge scale. What our customers are looking for is something that is different, more top of the market. Their tastes are different.

‘Secondly, it takes at least one year and sometimes much longer to develop a new scent and put it into soap and talc. The perfume has to be stabilised so the soap we make today smells exactly like the soap we made last month, or last year come to that.’

‘Obviously,’ James growled. ‘That’s common sense.’

‘The finer the perfume, the longer it takes to develop,’ Millie went on furiously, ‘and we also have to be sure that the soap still holds the scent while it is being used. Don’t forget it can be in the soap dish on the side of the bath for a month or longer.

‘And thirdly, Billy Sankey has to make sure he can obtain a steady supply of the essential oils and fixatives and anything else we put into a new perfume.’ She paused for breath. ‘Where is Billy? Is he not in this morning?’

‘Yes, he is,’ several voices assured her. Billy Sankey was their buyer.

‘Why isn’t he here?’ She looked from James to Marcus. ‘Did you ask him to come?’

‘Er . . .’ Father and son were looking at each other. Andrew smiled behind his hand, he guessed they hadn’t rated Billy highly enough to ask him to a senior staff meeting. He was a bit of a rough diamond but he was reputed to be very efficient at his job.

‘We can’t do anything without Billy,’ Millie said firmly. ‘Not while so many things are in short supply. He draws up the contracts with our suppliers. There’s also the new wrappers for the soap to be printed and the tins for the talc to be made and contracts drawn up for them to ensure we don’t run—’

‘Hold on, Millie,’ James interrupted. ‘We’ve heard enough of your opinions.’

She carried straight on. ‘There’s another very important thing I haven’t said yet. We don’t need new lines at this time as we can sell everything we make ten times over. Isn’t that so, Mr Quentin?’

‘It is.’ Dan Quentin was their sales manager who had fought in the war and returned when it finished. He looked like a polished country gentleman and exuded charm. ‘It’s never been easier to sell because the country has been starved of everything for six years. A good deal of our production is going for export and we could sell twice the volume being made.’

‘There you are,’ Millie said. ‘Those of us who have been involved in running this company are agreed that our strategy must be to increase production over the next year or two. We can take our time over preparing new lines. They aren’t needed at this time. Ask any of the staff here.’ Andrew noticed that the men’s smiles disappeared at that invitation.

James rapped on the table and said in icy tones, ‘We need to keep to the agenda or this meeting will drag on all day.’

‘I quite agree,’ Millie said, picking up her notebook and pencil and getting to her feet. ‘James, you haven’t really made plans at all, those were just vague ideas from the top of your head.’ She looked from Marcus to Nigel. ‘You both need to learn something about this business and how the company functions before you can run it successfully.’ Then she strode out, closing the door quietly behind her.

Andrew’s jaw dropped. Millie had more guts than he’d given her credit for but she’d lost her temper with them. That had been a mistake and it had really got their backs up. That was not the way he’d have done it.

There were a few moments of silent embarrassment; both Nigel and Marcus looked more than a little put out by Millie’s outburst. It was left to James to pick up the agenda and carry on. The meeting broke up some ten minutes later, having floundered and run out of impetus.

Andrew went back to his office, slumped into his chair and absent-mindedly took a sip from the cup he’d left on his desk. The tea had long since gone cold; he crashed it back on its saucer and considered what he’d learned at the meeting.

It had been very noticeable that the other side of the family had talked brashly about their big plans for the perfume department without ever discussing them with Millie. As she owned half the company he could understand why she’d been a bit miffed, but she’d shown up their incompetence in front of all the senior staff. Nobody likes to have their mistakes pointed out to them in public and James and his sons seemed particularly needy about being thought to be in control. They would have hated that.

Nobody had taken to Marcus. He might be Pete’s nephew but he didn’t have his charisma. The general opinion was that he was snooty, that he treated everybody as though they were inferior beings and, worse, that he was quite sure he could help them do their jobs more effectively. Andrew knew they laughed about Marcus behind their hands and said he had an overblown ego. They would have enjoyed seeing Millie lay into them. None of them knew anything about Nigel.

But the joint owners of this company had had a very public fight. James and his sons looked set to do their utmost to force Millie out. Andrew reckoned she’d be lucky to hold out against them. He was afraid she might have a big fight on her hands.

Millie was livid as she went back to the laboratory to busy herself with routine tasks, hoping the work would calm her down. Half an hour later the phone on her desk rang. Denis answered it and called, ‘It’s for you. It’s Mr Douglas, your solicitor.’

Millie hurried to talk to him. ‘I’ve received probate for your husband’s will,’ he told her. ‘I can now settle his estate. Could you come in and see me this week?’

‘What about tomorrow?’ Millie made the appointment feeling glad it would soon be settled.

Moments later the door flew open, and James followed by Marcus stormed in. ‘Out,’ James he said to Denis, waving him towards the door. ‘Take an early lunch.’

‘No,’ Millie protested, ‘he’s helping me. Why are you ordering my staff about?’ But Denis had disappeared. ‘What’s the matter?’

James was angry. ‘To take that confrontational attitude to us in front of the staff was totally uncalled for.’

‘Yes, I know, I’m sorry.’

‘It was unforgivable, Millie,’ James blustered. ‘I’m glad you realise you mustn’t say things like that. It lets the side down, does the firm no good, and it’s very bad manners.’

‘I apologise. I should have chosen my words more carefully.’

‘You tried to make a fool of Marcus.’

Millie was not going to have that. ‘Oh no, Marcus made a fool of himself.’ She swung round to him. ‘You made yourself look a complete ass.’

‘Millie, you can’t—’

‘Just for once hear me out.’ Millie was getting angry. ‘Pete got this company going again after the doldrums of the war years. Now it’s being run by the senior staff without Pete, but they’re doing all right. And today, without knowing the first thing about it, you burst in and give them a wake-up homily about working harder and getting new products out by Christmas. I had to point out why it wouldn’t be possible. They’d have thought me pathetic if I’d gone along with that.’

James looked fit to burst, his face was puce.

‘All right, Father,’ Marcus said, ‘let me handle this.’ He turned to Millie. ‘Obviously we’re not going to find it easy to work together. We seem to be temperamentally unsuited.’

She said as patiently as she could, ‘Perhaps if we tried, we could find a way.’

‘You’ll have to find a way,’ James thundered. ‘You’ve got to work together.’

Marcus said in a more amicable tone, ‘I understand you’re going to inherit Uncle Peter’s half share of the company. Father says you’re considering selling it back to the family.’

‘No,’ Millie said.

‘You haven’t made up your mind yet, have you?’ James’s furious gaze levelled with hers. ‘You said you wanted time to think it over.’