Lucy's Book Club for the Lost and Found: A heartwarming feel good romance novel(16)

‘Just over sixty years, all told.’

‘A whole lifetime…’

‘And I never regretted one second of it, not even when our baby was taken from us. They wanted to tear us apart of course, but if anything it brought us closer. I loved my Mary so much – love her still, in fact. If I have any regrets at all it’s that we never got to share that love with our child. But it was not to be, and so we created a life of our own together, just the two of us.’

Lucy pushed the scissors to one side and reached out a hand towards him. ‘What happened?’ she asked gently.

A cloud passed across his face for an instant. ‘Our parents,’ he said. ‘People who thought they knew better. People who could never understand that we could love and look after a child at such a young age. Of course we didn’t mean for it to happen, but people didn’t talk about sex much in those days, and Mary and I loved one another; we never considered what we were doing was wrong.’

‘Oh Oscar, it wasn’t wrong.’

He met her eye. ‘No, it wasn’t, but in those days it was considered a sin. When Mary fell pregnant I wanted to marry her, but instead she was taken away from me to a place where her condition wouldn’t cast shame on the family. We had no say in the matter, and although I fought against it, there was nothing I could do. We weren’t even allowed contact and when Mary finally returned home the baby had already been adopted.’

‘But your parents thought they were doing their best for you?’

Oscar nodded. ‘No doubt,’ he said. ‘But we married anyway, soon after, against their wishes of course, and, unsurprisingly, were left pretty much on our own.’ His mouth settled into a grim line. ‘It was better that way.’

Lucy didn’t know what to say. The contrast between Oscar’s early years and her own was stark. Her parents had never been anything but supportive; even when she made the sudden decision to give up a career in teaching they had talked things through with her rationally. They might not have understood her choice – Lucy wasn’t sure she did herself – but they still allowed her to make up her own mind. Lucy was never in any doubt that she was loved and looked after. She couldn’t imagine what Oscar and Mary must have gone through in their lives; living with the constant ghost of what might have been, knowing that there was always something missing. Now that was something she definitely did understand, never quite feeling whole or fulfilled.

‘But didn’t you ever try and find your daughter?’ she blurted out, regretting her words the minute she had said them. She doubted very much whether she would ever have had the strength to do something like that.

Oscar twisted his ring as he thought how best to reply. ‘We did, from time to time… in the early days, at least. But then we thought how our little girl would feel. She would be settled – with good people, they had promised us that – and to her of course her parents were just her parents, the people who brought her up. How could we upturn all that and cause her so much distress? We agreed to put it behind us and trust that our daughter was loved and cared for. It was all we could do.’

‘And the potential pain in finding out was harder than the pain of letting her go?’

‘Something like that.’ Oscar smiled sadly, his face drawn by his emotions.

It was fear, that much Lucy recognised. The fear of the unknown, of opening Pandora’s box and never knowing what you were letting yourself in for. There was truth in that old saying, Let sleeping dogs lie, and if she wasn’t careful she was in very grave danger of waking Oscar’s up; she couldn’t do that to him, not after all these years of putting it to rest.

She dragged a smile onto her face. ‘You’re right, I’m sure she’s had a wonderful life. As have you, don’t you forget.’

Oscar visibly straightened. ‘I have,’ he said, a little of the old twinkle coming back. ‘And much to look forward to… After all, not many people get to sit and cut out pictures of boats with charming young ladies, do they? I consider myself very lucky indeed.’





Chapter Eight





Still reeling from her conversation with Oscar, it was half past three before Lucy really began to take in anything around her. It was only the sight of Hattie coming into the library with her daughter that snapped her out of the daze she’d been in for the past few hours. With Oscar’s help, Lucy had long since finished cutting out the shapes she needed for her display. She had even gone so far as to pin them to the board, adding a heading and the posters she had already made, but it wasn’t until she heard Poppy’s chattering voice and saw her hand in hand with her mum that Lucy took a step back and really looked at what she had been doing.

She sighed, and started to take down the pinned shapes. The display was a mess; she would have to start again. She collected the pieces of paper together and stared at the empty board. Perhaps today was not the right time; Oscar’s story had clearly affected her more than she thought. She looked across at Hattie, now sitting on the little sofa in the children’s section, her daughter on her knee. Did she really have the nerve to interfere all over again?

Time was against her on this one; if what she had planned was going to happen at all, she only had a few days left to make things work. It was a simple question and Hattie would either say yes or no. If she didn’t speak to her now, she might not get another chance before next week, and by then it would be too late. She looked at the poster in her hand, realising that it would give her just the excuse she needed. Her legs had already carried her halfway towards the children’s section before she realised she had even made up her mind.