Chapter 1 #2
‘Yes, he did,’ Marian said with a smile as she remembered Theo arriving out of the blue after three weeks’ separation.
‘We missed each other so much when I had to go back to college so he decided to come to Ireland. And then, when I met him at the airport, he got down on one knee and proposed. Talk about a whirlwind romance. We were married three months after that. And then Theo got a job with a plumbing firm that was just starting up and I got pregnant very soon after our wedding.’
‘So you stayed on in Ireland?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Theo liked Ireland a lot and he had a good job as a qualified plumber. Then my parents died in a car crash and I had to look after my sister, who is five years younger than me, so that was an added reason to stay.’
‘How terrible,’ Sean said. ‘You’ve had a lot of sadness.’
‘Yes, I have,’ Marian agreed, trying not to let her sorrow show.
‘But I wasn’t alone. My sister and I were very close which helped a lot.
And then we had our auntie Rachel who was always there for us.
And, of course, Theo. We had another baby shortly afterwards.
We both wanted the kids to grow up in Ireland, so we stayed on until the children were grown and flew the nest. Then Theo wanted to move to Australia and set up shop in Surfers Paradise and get back to that beach lifestyle he used to love so much.
’ Marian drew breath and looked at the fresh glass of wine that had been put on her tray while she talked.
‘I ordered another one,’ Sean said and lifted his own. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers,’ Marian said and took a sip. ‘So where were we?’ The wine relaxed her and made her feel less shy. It was good to talk.
‘You moved to Australia. And now you’re on your way to Ireland for your sister’s wedding,’ Sean reminded her. ‘And also because you needed a break? Something happened to make you feel that your husband was not as supportive as he should be? Just guessing.’
‘You’re right,’ she said and leaned her head against the headrest, staring into the dark night outside.
She felt suspended in time and space, on her way to nowhere, everyone around her asleep, except the man beside her who, with his kind eyes, seemed to want to hear her story.
‘I found something that made me wonder if Theo truly loved me. Or if he married me on the rebound from the break-up with another woman.’
‘That must have been painful,’ Sean said, his voice gentle.
‘Yes,’ Marian whispered as a wave of pain and sorrow hit her.
What she had found had shaken her but it left so many questions.
She knew she should have had it out with him and asked what it all meant, but she couldn’t bear to speak to Theo about it, feeling that he might tell her things she didn’t want to hear.
But she had told him that they would have to talk about his behaviour towards her and how they were not on the same page any more.
She added that he didn’t seem to want to spend time with her and always found reasons to go out in the evenings with his friends.
Theo had accused her of being picky and resentful, which to Marian looked like a very guilty conscience.
Added to her enormous homesickness that seemed to get worse with every year, and the disenchantment with their marriage, Marian felt this was the last straw.
Instead of making plans for them both to travel together, she had booked a single ticket to Ireland, telling Theo she was going to her sister Claire’s wedding on her own and wouldn’t be back for some time.
They had parted on a sour note, neither of them willing to take the first step towards a reconciliation.
‘Fine,’ he had said and turned his back to her.
Then he had gone to the beach and stayed there all day while Marian packed her suitcase with tears streaming down her cheeks.
Theo had arrived back just as the taxi pulled up outside their house.
He had given her a quick peck on the cheek and said, ‘Bye, then. Have a good trip. Text me when you arrive. Take as much time as you need. And then we’ll talk when you come back. ’
‘Okay,’ she had whispered, tears welling up yet again. If I come back, she had thought as she got into the taxi. Then she had turned to look at him through the back window, but he had already gone inside.
‘It was very painful,’ she said to the man beside her. ‘But I don’t want to talk about it.’ It was suddenly too much and she knew if she started to tell him, she would burst into tears.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘We’ll change the subject.’
‘What will we talk about?’ Marian asked, relieved that he had understood. She had felt initially that she wanted to tell him everything but then she shied away from what had happened. She didn’t want to go back there just yet.
‘How about the Fleury family?’ Sean suggested. ‘I bet they have an interesting history.’
‘Oh yes,’ Marian said. ‘They certainly do. My branch of the family lived in Dublin and we knew nothing about “the other Fleurys” as we used to call them. We only knew that something terrible had happened about a hundred years ago that split the family apart.’
Sean sat up and looked at Marian with excitement in his brown eyes. ‘How fascinating. So what was that terrible thing?’
‘We had no idea. It was a big secret and we were never to even ask about it,’ Marian said. ‘Then, about two years ago, my sister Claire came across an old diary after our great-aunt died and it contained a bit of the story. So Claire decided to go to Kerry, where the other Fleurys lived.’
‘Where?’ Sean asked. ‘In Dingle?’
‘Just outside the town,’ Marian replied. ‘In this big house called Magnolia Manor that was built by a Fleury ancestor over two hundred years ago.’
‘Wow, this is getting to be really fascinating,’ Sean said, looking excited.
‘It’s better than any movie,’ Marian said. ‘I was following it step by step through FaceTime with my sister. She was an amazing detective.’
‘I hope you’re going to tell me,’ Sean said. He sat back and closed his eyes. ‘I’m ready. I want to hear the whole story, even the tiniest detail.’
Marian laughed softly. ‘Okay. I’m wide awake anyway.’
‘Me too,’ he said, shifting in his seat to get more comfortable. ‘Let me hear it.’
Marian nodded and leaned her head on the headrest. ‘It all started at a ball in nineteen ten,’ she said. ‘And ended more than a hundred years later…’
Then, once she had started, she couldn’t stop, and during the two hours that followed, Marian told Sean the story of the Fleurys of Magnolia Manor, not leaving out a single thing. Not even the family secrets that she wasn’t supposed to reveal.