Page 51 of The Book of Irish Secrets
‘What about your father?’ Sylvia asked. ‘And your grandparents? Didn’t they ever mention us?’
‘Never. Nobody wanted to talk about your side of the family,’ Claire said. ‘My grandparents passed away a long time ago, and my parents are both dead as well. The only person I had left was my great-aunt Rachel, Louis’ daughter. But she’s also gone now.’ Claire drew breath as she felt a wave of sadness, remembering her parents’ and grandparents’ deaths that hadfelt so devastating and had left her with a lingering sorrow nothing could erase.
‘How sad.’ Sylvia leaned forward and touched Claire’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry you’ve been alone all this time. No wonder you came here to see if you could find some kind of family.’
‘Yes, that’s partly why I came,’ Claire said. ‘But I also came to find out what happened to Louis and why he left like that. I worried you’d still hold some kind of grudge towards us that would make you not want my side of the family here. And I wanted desperately to find out whatever happened all those years ago. I thought that if I knew what it was, we could heal all the hurt and pain of the past. Whatever it was, it must have occurred around nineteen ten or so.’
‘In nineteen twelve,’ Sylvia corrected. ‘When Cornelius and Louis were twenty-six years old. It left a bitterness between two brothers who were once very close. And ever since then, there has been this awful divide between the two families.’
‘That’s over a hundred years ago,’ Rose said. ‘A long time to carry a grudge.’
‘Not a grudge, exactly,’ Sylvia said with a faraway look in her eyes. ‘More like a deep wound that couldn’t heal.’
Claire nodded. ‘Yes, that was what I thought. Do you know what caused it?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Sylvia replied. ‘But I’m not going to tell you yet. I feel, at this moment, that we need the entire family to be together when we unravel the whole story. I’ll call everyone and ask them to a meeting when it suits us all and then we’ll put everything together. So, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you, Claire. You will know the whole truth with the rest of the family. I hope you don’t think that’s unfair.’
Claire looked at Sylvia while she tried to take in what the old lady had just said. ‘I suppose that’s fair enough,’ she said. ‘After all, I’ve been telling all kinds of fibs since I arrived while I triedto find out what happened. So if I have to wait for a while longer, it’s quite all right with me.’
Sylvia nodded, looking satisfied. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘We’ll leave it at that for the moment, then.’
‘I just want to reassure you I’m not here for an inheritance,’ Claire said very fast. ‘I don’t want anything from you – no one in my family will claim ownership of Magnolia Manor,’ Claire stated. ‘I just hope you’re not angry with me for not telling you the truth about who I am and why I’m here?’
‘Not at all,’ Sylvia replied. ‘We Fleury women will do whatever we can to survive. And I can understand why you were worried, considering everything you’ve been through. I believe you when you say you don’t want the manor.’
‘Oh. That’s a relief.’ Claire looked at Sylvia while she was momentarily distracted by a delicious scent of garlic and herbs that wafted in from the kitchen.
‘Gosh, that smells nice,’ Rose remarked. ‘Enough to make me really hungry and forget what we were talking about.’
Sylvia smiled. ‘Arnaud is trying a new recipe. You’re welcome to join us for dinner, if you like. Both of you. Then we can chat over a glass of wine and a plate of chicken a la – whatever Arnaud wants to call it. What do you say, girls?’
‘Perfect,’ Rose said and jumped up from the sofa. ‘It’s Noel’s turn to look after the kids anyway, so I’ll just text him to say I’ll be home a little later. How about you, Claire?’
Claire smiled and shook her head. ‘I have nothing special on, but I need to call Karina to explain. I rushed out of her house earlier as if my hair was on fire. Don’t know what to say, though.’
‘Just tell her there was a leak in your flat,’ Sylvia said. ‘Which is true as your secret leaked out, but she’s not to know that.’
Claire had to laugh. ‘Yeah, it did, didn’t it? But I’ll just say the emergency was a false alarm. I don’t like telling lies. Which I have been doing since I came in one way or another,’ she added.
‘But now you don’t have to any more,’ Rose said.
‘No,’ Claire agreed. ‘And what a relief it is.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Rose said and took her phone from her pocket. ‘I’ll just send Noel a text to tell him what I’m doing.’ She tapped in the message and then put her phone away. ‘You can call Karina later, Claire. I’m sure she won’t be annoyed at you.’ She turned to Sylvia. ‘We can continue the story over dinner.’
Sylvia got up. ‘It will be good to take a break from all this. I think I need a glass of wine to calm me down. But, as I said, I think that we should pause everything until we can have the whole family together. Lily and Vi should be told everything from start to finish.’
Rose held the door open for Sylvia. ‘Yes, that’s a good idea. We should wait until the family meeting and talk it through. The rest of the story must wait until then.’
‘It will have to,’ Sylvia said. ‘I hope you understand, Claire.’
Claire nodded, realising that Sylvia held all the cards now. It was frustrating not to have found out everything, but at least she didn’t have to pretend any more. She suddenly thought of Pierce and his reaction to how she had hidden her real identity to the Fleurys. But it didn’t seem so bad any more, now that Rose and Sylvia knew all about her and what she had tried to hide. But maybe he would think otherwise? She knew that Pierce had a very strict code of ethics and didn’t approve of lying, whatever the reason. Claire wondered if he would ever understand that she had felt compelled to lie in order to find out what had happened to make her great-grandfather leave his home never to return. Would he ever be able to grasp that she had been so obsessed with her quest that she felt forced to behave in a way that clashed with her true character? She wasn’t a liar by nature but if he couldn’t believe that, they could never have any kind of relationship. The thought that she would lose the man she hadbegun to fall in love with broke her heart and took some of the gloss off her reconciliation with the Fleury family.
She didn’t need to keep secrets from the Fleurys any more, but she still didn’t have all the pieces of the jigsaw, as Marian had put it. She would have to be patient and wait for Sylvia to reveal it all when the whole family was together. Claire decided to push all sad thoughts away for the moment and enjoy the evening ahead.
‘Right now, all I can think of is following that heavenly smell of cooking,’ she said as they went down the corridor.
They went into the kitchen, where Arnaud greeted them with a wave of his wooden spoon. He was dressed in beige chinos, a striped shirt under a large white apron. ‘Welcome, Rose and Claire,’ he said. ‘I already laid the table. I knew you would want to join us for dinner after your meeting. I hope the emergency wasn’t about something serious.’
