Chapter 2
TWO
Someone tapped Marian on the shoulder. ‘The plane has landed in Dubai,’ a voice said in her ear. ‘Time to get off if you want to catch your connecting flight to Dublin.’
Marian blinked and stared, bleary-eyed, at the flight attendant.
‘Oh. I must finally have fallen asleep.’ The seat beside her was empty and she saw that most of the passengers had already left the plane.
Marian started to gather up her bag and jacket and stood up, feeling both stiff and groggy.
‘Where’s the man who was sitting beside me?
’ she asked, looking among the last remaining passengers at the door of the aircraft.
‘He left very soon after we landed,’ the flight attendant replied. ‘He was in a hurry to catch his flight to London. Important meeting, he said.’
Marian nodded. ‘Okay. I just thought I’d say goodbye. We had a nice chat before I fell asleep.’
‘He asked me to say goodbye to you,’ the flight attendant said. ‘And to say thank you for a very interesting conversation.’
‘Interesting?’ Marian said. ‘I think I just blathered on about my family.’ She tried to remember exactly what she had said, but all she knew was that she had felt a lot better about everything and drifted off, finally getting the rest she had craved after all the upsets before she left Brisbane.
She had probably unloaded all her problems onto the poor man.
But she did have a feeling he had been very kind and listened to her woes without interrupting.
‘Maybe you’ll meet again?’ the flight attendant suggested.
‘I don’t think so,’ Marian said as she shuffled to the door in the wake of the last passenger. ‘It was a case of ships meeting in the night, never to cross paths again.’
‘Happens a lot on these long-haul flights,’ the flight attendant remarked.
‘I’m sure,’ Marian agreed. ‘Anyway, goodbye and thank you for all your help during the flight.’
The flight attendant smiled. ‘You’re welcome. Have a good trip home.’
‘Home,’ Marian said. ‘Yes, Ireland is home to me and always will be.’ She shot the flight attendant a tired smile and left the plane, thinking about where she was headed: a part of Ireland she had never been to.
But her family had originally come from Kerry and her sister, Claire, had gone there over a year ago to unite the two branches of the Fleury family that had been apart for a very long time.
Her darling sister, the baby of the family, had managed to do what generations of the family had failed: to find out about the feud that had caused such heartbreak.
What Claire had found had united them once more.
She had also fallen in love with a man who had helped her during her journey and now they were getting married.
Claire had been through a painful divorce from her first husband, from which it took her a long time to recover.
And now she was getting married again, to a man who seemed to be the complete opposite to her ex-husband: kind, caring and sweet.
‘Like a comfy armchair with a soft blanket to wrap around you,’ Claire had said with a laugh when they planned Marian’s trip through FaceTime.
‘Just wait till you meet Pierce. You’ll love him. ’
‘Will I tell him you said he’s like a comfy armchair?’ Marian had asked.
‘Well, maybe not,’ Claire had said with a giggle. ‘I’m not sure he’d like it.’
Then Marian had happily started to plan her trip, looking forward to meeting all the Fleurys of Magnolia Manor.
Theo had initially planned to go with Marian and even suggested that she stay for a few weeks after the wedding while he went back to Australia to look after the shop with the help of an additional assistant.
Marian had thought him very generous and understanding.
Until she found the letter. What it contained, along with his reaction to her homesickness and their subsequent row, made her realise that Theo wasn’t as committed to their marriage as she had thought.
The argument had mostly been about her failure to settle into life in Australia and his lack of understanding, which had been so upsetting.
Thirty-five years of happiness seemed to have suddenly gone up in smoke and Marian left for Ireland feeling as if part of her life was over.
Many hours later, after an uneventful flight to Dublin and a scramble to get onto the connecting flight to Farranfore, the airport that served south Kerry, Marian fell into Claire’s arms, laughing and crying at the same time.
‘I can’t believe I’m finally here with you,’ she sobbed, looking at her sister’s cute freckly face, the green eyes and the wild curly hair, so like her own, apart from the colour.
Claire’s hair was dark auburn, while Marian was a strawberry blonde.
‘It’s like a dream come true,’ Claire said, hugging her sister tight. ‘It’s been so long since we’ve been together.’
‘Far too long,’ Marian agreed, dabbing her eyes. ‘But now I’m here and will stay a long time.’
Claire pulled away and looked at Marian. ‘How long?’
‘I’m not sure, but I’d like to stay for a while,’ Marian said.
‘You can stay as long as you like. But what about Theo?’ Claire asked, looking worried. ‘Won’t he miss you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Marian said, fiddling with her handbag to avoid looking at Claire. ‘We’re going through – something. I’ll tell you later. Right now, all I want to do is sleep.’
‘Of course,’ Claire said. ‘You must be horribly jetlagged. Come on, let’s get going. My car is not far away. I’ll soon have you tucked up in bed in my little flat. Just wait till you see it.’
‘I’m so excited,’ Marian said. ‘Oh, to be at Magnolia Manor at last. What a treat.’
‘We’ll be a bit squashed in my part of the house,’ Claire said with a laugh. ‘The place is tiny. A one-bedroom flat in the attic that feels quite separate from the manor. But I just got a sofa bed for the living room and you will sleep in the bedroom.’
‘No,’ Marian protested. ‘I’ll take the sofa bed.’
‘You will not,’ Claire argued when they had reached the car.
‘I’ll be grand in the sofa bed. You have to take the bed the first few nights and then we’ll take turns.
In any case, it’s only two weeks until the wedding and then you can have the flat all to yourself as long as you want.
Pierce and I have bought the cutest little bungalow near Ventry.
I can’t wait to show it to you once it’s been done up. ’
‘Lovely. I’m so looking forward to meeting Pierce,’ Marian said and then got into the car and fell asleep as soon as Claire had left the car park.
She slept all the way past Killarney and only woke up an hour later when they were driving down a street along a harbour lined with houses painted all the colours of the rainbow.
‘This is wonderful,’ she exclaimed. ‘Where are we?’
‘Dingle town,’ Claire said. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
‘Amazing,’ Marian said and rolled down the window to get the full effect of this gorgeous little seaside town.
She breathed in the air from the sea laced with the smell of salt and seaweed and felt the soft wind on her face.
This was so different to the seaside of Australia with its harsh sun and tropical heat.
Here the sunlight felt warm and soothing and the wind fresh.
The ocean sparkled in the sunlight and seagulls glided above them letting out a screech now and then. ‘I love it already,’ she said.
‘Wait till you get to Magnolia Manor,’ Claire said. ‘It’s even better than here.’
‘Oh, I can’t wait to see it.’ Marian stared out the window as they left the town and drove across a little bridge and down a country lane until they reached a set of tall iron gates with a lovely little gatehouse standing just inside it.
‘Cousin Vi and her husband, Jack, live here,’ Claire said. ‘I think they went to the beach with their boys today as it’s Saturday, but you’ll meet them at Sylvia’s Sunday lunch tomorrow.’
Marian thought of Sylvia Fleury, who had been married to her grandfather’s first cousin Liam, and the stories she’d heard from Claire about the impressive old woman: the way she’d led her three granddaughters, Lily, Rose and Violet, through such difficult times.
‘I can’t wait to meet the famous Fleury matriarch,’ Marian said.
‘She’ll be excited to meet you too,’ Claire said. ‘In fact, you’ll be introduced to everyone then. I hope it won’t be too scary but they all want to get to know you.’
‘I’m sure I’ll cope with that after a night’s sleep,’ Marian said with a huge yawn. ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing them all in real life, actually. I’ve heard so much about them and seen all the photos you sent, so I feel I know them already.’
‘I still can’t believe the family is together at last,’ Claire said.
‘Neither can I,’ Marian said. ‘I remember how we thought they were so glamorous when we were growing up.’ Marian cast her mind back to the old days, when they had not been told why or how the two families split apart after a long-ago row.
The Dublin Fleurys never met the Kerry Fleurys until Claire had found out that their great-grandfathers had been twins and had had a huge row, splitting the two sides of the family tree across the country.
And that Claire and Marian’s great-grandfather was the one who should have inherited Magnolia Manor all those years ago, a secret that had been kept within the family ever since, never to be told.
They pulled up in front of a large building that Marian recognised from photos.
She looked up at the imposing Georgian facade, the many windows that glinted in the late-evening sun, the massive double entrance doors and the huge magnolia tree beside the front steps.
She couldn’t believe she was here at last, at the manor house that had been built by one of her ancestors over two hundred years ago. ‘A dream come true,’ she whispered.