Chance Developments Read Free Page A

asked the aunt.
    “Edinburgh,” said Flora. “I thought I might take a train to Edinburgh.”
    “And visit the museum?” asked the aunt.
    “Possibly,” said Flora. “But perhaps not this time.” That was not what she would do; she had other plans altogether.
    4
    The convent had few mirrors and Flora was not accustomed to admiring herself. That morning, though, as she prepared to leave her aunt’s house, she paused in front of the full-length dressing mirror on the front of her wardrobe. The person looking back at her was a stranger, or so it seemed to her, so accustomed had she become to the unchanging black and white garb of the last ten years. Now there was colour: the red of her new dress from Copeland’s in Sauchiehall Street; the russet and purple of the coat she had agonised over for so long before buying; the violet of the close-fitting, rather jaunty hat. Was that really her—Flora Marshall, the same Flora Marshall who only a week ago had been standing in front of a class of Senior Four girls explaining calculus to them, hoping that they would grasp what she was trying to convey? Telling Jean Abercrombie not to fiddle with her ruler; looking askance at Jennifer Morris, who was clearly thinking about boys because that particular expression—the one she had on her face at the moment—was exactly what these Senior Four girls looked like when they thought about boys, which she believed was remarkably often; warning Natalie MacNeil that if she continued to talk to Margaret Cousins she would be sent to stand outside for ten minutes? That was not much of a sanction on the face of it, but what if Mother Superior walked past—and she was inclined to prowl—and saw them? That was the real threat.
    She smiled at the thought. Sister Frances would have assumed responsibility for all that; Sister Frances, who had gasped with the shock of her announcement that she was leaving and had put her hand to her mouth as she had muttered, “May the Lord preserve us…” But then she had composed herself and said, as bravely as she could, “If the Lord wants me to take over Senior Four mathematics, then he must have his reasons.” Poor Sister Frances—a good soul, she had always felt—would never have a red dress like this or a violet hat; or any hat, for that matter. Poor Sister Frances would never board a train to Edinburgh, by herself, in high heels, with the capital waiting for her with all its possibilities and delights; poor Sister Frances would never savour the wicked but delicious sensation of contemplating Protestantism. And Father Sullivan could look at her reproachfully for as long as he liked, she was beyond his reach now. She imagined for a moment what she might say to Father Sullivan were she to meet him in Sauchiehall Street; she in her new finery and he in his accustomed black. Their conversation, she imagined, would be superficial and restrained; Father Sullivan was unfailingly polite. But then she might steer it in a more engaging direction and say something like, “Tell me, Father, I’ve never really asked you this, but what’s your view on the Reformation? Do you think it was timely, or even overdue?”
    She turned away from the mirror, and blushed. These thoughts were unworthy of her. Father Sullivan had been kind to her; it was quite wrong to heap on his shoulders any abuses that the Church might have been guilty of in the past; it was quite wrong to imply that the need for the Reformation was in some way his responsibility, as if he had asked for a reformation because of the way he had tolerated sixteenth-century clerical wrongdoing. Nor should she dwell on the thought of Sister Frances doing what she herself had been doing for all those years. There was nothing dishonourable in being called to educate Senior Four: quite the contrary, in fact—it was an entirely worthy thing to devote one’s life to the dispelling of ignorance. Girls were not born with a knowledge of trigonometry; they did not