A Liverpool Legacy by Anne Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

he told her. ‘Valerie is only two years younger than you and Helen is almost four years younger.’ They each put out a hand to shake hers.
    Millie’s first impression was that they were still children and years younger than her. They were strong, healthy looking girls, Valerie resembled her father and Helen was especially pretty. Both were innocent, fresh-faced and beautifully dressed and she could see the Maynard family was on close terms. That he’d brought them to her house embarrassed Millie all over again, but she felt she had to ask them into her dismal living room.
    ‘I want you to start packing,’ Mr Maynard said. ‘I’ve booked your mother into the St Winifred’s Nursing Home and they’ll send an ambulance to pick her up at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. I really do think that’s the best thing for her.’
    Millie nodded with gratitude. She couldn’t fight him over this, couldn’t fight any longer. ‘You’re very kind, but I don’t know where St Winifred’s is.’
    ‘It’s in Mossley Hill, a short walk from where I live. It might be difficult for you to reach from here. Probably it would mean taking a couple of buses in each direction. I thought perhaps I could find you better rooms nearby, but there’s such a shortage of accommodation after the bombing that it looks impossible. When I asked my daughters what I could do about it, they suggested we give you a room in our house while your mother’s there, so you can walk down and spend time with her whenever you want to.’
    Millie could hardly take it in. ‘We’ll look after you,’ Valerie said. ‘Dad said I must be sure to tell you that.’
    ‘We have a biggish house,’ Helen added, ‘with several guest rooms. You won’t be any trouble.’
    ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Millie faltered. She could hardly take it in, that all her difficulties were being eased so rapidly.
    ‘You don’t have to say anything. It’ll do you good to have a change and a rest from here. I suggest you pack a bag for yourself as well as your mother and go in the ambulance with her. It’s Saturday tomorrow so the girls won’t be at school, they can pick you up from St Winifred’s after your mother has been made comfortable.’
    Everything turned out as Mr Maynard had said it would, and Millie felt there was no kinder man in the world. She had never felt so grateful and wished he was her father. There was an aura of peace about St Winifred’s and her mother settled almost at once. Millie sat in the bright airy room with her until her eyes were closing.
    Then it seemed the nuns had telephoned the Maynard house and Valerie and Helen came to collect her. Mossley Hill was an old, well-established and genteel suburb of Liverpool. They walked along two residential roads with large houses half hidden by walls and trees.
    ‘This is ours,’ Helen said and led the way through a high wrought-iron gate with the name Beechwood on it. The garden was vast with manicured lawns and lovely flowers, and the house looked as though it had been home to several generations of the Maynard family. It was large and had been freshly painted and had gleaming brasses on the front door.
    ‘Our great-grandfather had this built in eighteen eighty-seven,’ Valerie said. ‘There’s the date over the front door.’
    Once inside, Millie was led from one enormous room to another. Everywhere sparkled with cleanliness and order. ‘This is our sitting room,’ Helen told her, ‘and this is the drawing room but we don’t use it much. This is our dining room,’ a large table took up much of the room, ‘we all have our meals here together, including Mrs Brunt and the gardener if they’re here working.’
    ‘Later you’ll meet Mrs Brunt, she comes on weekday mornings to do the heavy work and Mungo is a nice old man who takes care of the garden,’ Valerie explained, as she hurried her on. ‘The kitchen is this way,’ it seemed to be a whole suite of rooms, ‘this is the pantry, this