Soldier's Valentine Read Free Page A

this as though I’m dead too, she thought, listening to their plans without comment. There again, I might just as well be. Edward is dead. I’m expecting his baby. My life is ruined.
    Her mother was adamant. ‘She can’t keep it of course. We’d never live down the shame of it.’
    ‘You mean give it up for adoption? I quite agree. Best for the child,’ stated her father, who was dipping in and out of a sermon he was writing, correcting the odd word, refilling his pen in the moments when he couldn’t think of anything to say or nothing in front of him to edit.
    Mary Anne heaved a big sigh. ‘We were going to get married.’
    She jumped when her father slapped his chair arms with his meaty hands.
    ‘Well, that’s not going to happen now. We have to make the best of things. We have to do what’s best for the child. Have you any idea how children with no fathers are picked on by children who have a normal father and mother?’
    Mary Anne wanted to say that she was a normal mother too, but she could see that their minds were made up.
    ‘The thing is,’ said her father, finally placing his pen down on his paperwork, ‘we have to insist for your own good that you put the child up for adoption. I know some very goodorganisations. The potential parents will be properly vetted and the child would be guaranteed to have a good home. It’s the only solution. If you refuse to go along with this …’ He paused, his bushy brows almost meeting with the severity of his frown. ‘Then you are no daughter of ours. You will be on your own.’
    Stunned at this statement, Mary Anne gasped. She even fancied the child inside her jumped in alarm.
    Having risen from her chair, her mother patted her shoulder.
    ‘It’s for the best, dear. Surely you must see that? Every child deserves a father and a mother. It’s what makes them grow up whole.’
    The baby was born on 14 February, St Valentine’s Day. Mary Anne cried. Today was the date Edward and her were to marry. No need for a pretty card and romantic poetry; their wedding would have been enough. They would have loved forever. She was sure of it.
    The nursing home was private and many miles away from prying eyes in rural Wales.
    Her heart almost broke in two at the sound of her child’s – her and Edward’s child’s – first cry. She half rose from the pillow, trying to peer at the small bundle being taken away from her. All she saw were two tiny hands waving as though saying goodbye. The baby was taken away.
    She wailed for it to be brought back to her, thrashing from side to side in her bed, until a nurse came and requested she be quiet.
    The moon shaped face of the matron hovered over her.
    ‘Your parents decided it better you knew nothing about the child and didn’t hold it. It’s best that way, otherwise you may get fond of it. They’ve dealt with the paperwork.’
    Mary Anne lay back, her head hot upon the pillow, her belly still pulsating. Was the baby a girl or a boy? Somehow she knew they wouldn’t tell her. The baby was no longer hers. He or she belonged to someone else.
    She looked towards the window. The bottom panes were whitewashed. She presumed this was to stop the expectant mothers looking out, or was it to stop the outside world looking in?
    Above the whitewashed panes the bare branches of trees, dripping with rain, swayed as though they were weeping. Mary Anne wept too.
    Her parents made sure that nobody knew the true reason for her being away. They’d let it be known that Mary Anne had gone travelling with one of her father’s aunts around Europe. It was well known in the local vicinity that her father came from well-to-do stock, who owned and farmed half of Lincolnshire – at least it sounded like that the way he told it. Itwas not beyond the bounds of disbelief that he really did have a rich aunt off travelling around Europe. Actually she lived in Norwich, over a hundred miles to the east but her mother was paranoid that nobody would ever know