Chance Developments

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Author's Note

Sister Flora's First Day of Freedom

Angels in Italy

Dear Ventriloquist

The Woman with the Beautiful Car

He Wanted to Believe in Tenderness

About the Author

It was difficult for her to remember when it dawned on her that she had a vocation. Some people spoke of a moment of revelation—a moment of certainty—the meaning of which was completely clear. One of the younger sisters had said that it had come to her one morning when she got out of bed and opened the window. “There was a particular sort of light,” she said. “It filled the sky, and I knew at once that I was being called.” Another said that it had come to her in a dream, when she had seen the Virgin herself, who had beckoned her. That, she said, was a sign that would only come once in a lifetime and should not be taken lightly, nor questioned.

It had been different for Flora. She had never had a sense of controlling her own future, of making decisions about what she would do—this, it seemed to her, had been done for her by others. It was not that anybody imposed their will on her; it was more gentle than that. There were suggestions that she had been thinking of a religious life all along; that it was something for which she had somehow shown an aptitude. And then, just as she was about to leave school, there had been that fateful conversation with Sister Angela, a particularly sympathetic nun, who had said, “There will always be a place for you in the Order, you know.” And she had been flattered that she should be thought of in this way.

At university she had become involved in the Catholic chaplaincy, and again assumptions were made. “It's easy for you,” one of her friends had said. “You're obviously going to end up in the Church. You don't have to look for something.”

Flora had simply said, “No, I suppose I don't.” And that, she thought, was the moment at which the decision—if one could call it that—was made. She finished her degree, and took a year's teaching diploma after that before entering the convent as a novice. They were delighted that she had joined them; they ran a school and there was a shortage of nuns with recent, recognised teaching qualifications. A newly minted graduate of the University of Glasgow—in mathematics, of all things—was exactly the sort of young woman the convent wanted.

Her parents were proud of her. They were now elderly, and she was their only child. Any thoughts they had about losing the daughter who might care for them in their old age were eclipsed by their pleasure in having provided the Church, which was at the core of their lives, with such a charming servant.

Her father died a month after she took her final vows, and her mother survived him by barely a year. Thereafter her only family was her aunt and uncle, a childless couple, who lived in a small town on the Clyde estuary. This uncle had been a successful hotelier and caterer, who had made wise investments in land on the outskirts of the city. Flora was aware that he was well off, but it had never occurred to her that he would direct that a large part of his estate was to go to her. She had met the lawyer at his funeral, a thin man with a nasal voice, who had been introduced to her by her aunt at the funeral tea.

“I was always a great admirer of your uncle,” said the lawyer. “His good works were legion, you know.”

She smiled. “He will be missed,” she said.

The lawyer adjusted his tie. “I will need to speak to you at some point,” he said. “Not here, of course—this isn't really the moment. But you are, you may know, his heir.”

She looked at him blankly. “But my aunt?”

“She is very well provided for already,” said the lawyer. “You're what we call the residuary beneficiary, and that will involve a substantial amount. A very substantial amount.”

She was not sure what to say. “Well…”

“These provisions were made when you were still at university,” he said. “He did not change them after you went into the convent.”

“Oh.”

“They're perfectly valid, of course. I don't anticipate any problem. But you might care to be advised on what to do…” He made a gesture that she found hard to interpret—a rolling of the hand. Was this because he had never had to deal with a legacy to somebody who had taken a vow of poverty?

“Will it be possible for me to come to see you at the convent?” he asked.

She nodded. “If you telephone.”

He looked apologetic. “I wasn't sure whether it was one of those open orders.”

“We are. We're not enclosed.”

He looked relieved. “I had an aunt in Dublin,” he said. “She was a nun and none of the family ever saw her.”

“There are some orders that keep themselves away from the world. It's to do with prayer.” She paused. “Telephone the school office. The secretary there is Mrs. Morrison. She'll make an appointment. It's best just after school's out—about four.”

He reached out to take her hand briefly. “I'll do that, and I'm so sorry about your uncle. There are so few good people these days that the loss of one of them makes such a difference.”

She thanked him, and he moved away. She closed her eyes. She wondered whether she had brought this upon herself; that this was somehow a consequence of having taken the decision to leave the convent. She knew it was irrational, but she had struggled for years with guilt and a tendency to give in to superstition. She had bargained with herself, identifying what she had to do to avert disaster: one more rosary, just one, or something dreadful will happen; one further novena or something would happen to one of the girls in her class—these were the little pacts, familiar to anybody who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder; these were the ways in which she negotiated her way through life.

The lawyer came to see her two weeks later. He brought her aunt, and the three of them sat facing one another in the convent parlour. The floor was highly polished—that was the mark, she thought, of a nun's parlour anywhere in the world: the smell of polish, the air of scrupulous, antiseptic tidiness.

The Mother Superior had suggested that she might be there too. “I'd be perfectly happy to see Mr. O'Malley with you,” she said. “His brother is in the St. Vincent de Paul Society and I've met him. That family had a daughter here some years back—I think she was his niece.”

“That's very kind of you, Mother, but I think my aunt might prefer the meeting to be a small one.”

“If that's what she wants…”

“Yes, it is. Thank you all the same.”

Now they sat together in the rather faded and uncomfortable Morris chairs, each with a cup of tea on the small occasional table beside them.

The lawyer produced a file and extracted several copies of a document.

“Mr. O'Malley wanted to explain things to you,” said her aunt. “He's always been very good at translating legal documents into plain English.”

The lawyer smiled weakly. “I do my best,” he said. “And your uncle's will is far from complicated. May I tell you—in the most general terms, of course—what he had in mind?”

“He was always very well organised,” said the aunt. “He never liked disorder.”

“Admirable,” said the lawyer.

She was given a copy of the document. She glanced at it and saw her uncle's signature. It saddened her; she had loved him. He was a kind man.

“Effectively, what he asked his executors to do is to create two trusts,” said the lawyer. “One is an offshoot of an existing trust he had created for your aunt, and this makes provision for her maintenance at, well, I hope she will agree, a very comfortable level.”

“Very,” said the aunt.

“There are certain legacies,” the lawyer continued. “There is something for the St. Vincent de Paul Society and there is an outstandingly generous one to the Diocese of Glasgow. After that, everything goes into your fund, to be administered by trustees appointed under the will.”

“There's an awful lot in that,” said the aunt. “All the property in Renfrew. His shareholdings in ICI. The Clydesdale Bank funds. It's a lot of money, Flora.”

“The trustees have the power to make disbursements,” said the lawyer. “That means they will meet such reasonable requests as you may make. Funds should be adequate for…well, for just about everything you would care to do with it.”

He looked at her expectantly and she, in her turn, glanced at her aunt. The aunt smiled encouragingly.

“I have decided to leave the Order,” said Flora.

The aunt's surprise was evident. “Well,” she said. “That
is
news.”

The lawyer frowned. “I must say that I have always said to legatees that they should sleep on any decisions they make. Sometimes the prospect of an infusion of funds makes people behave a bit rashly. Not that this would apply to you, of course, but I should perhaps sound a note of caution.”

Flora shook her head. “I've been thinking about this for some time.” She turned to the aunt. “I was going to tell you, but then Uncle Hector became ill and I never got round to it.”

The aunt reassured her. “Of course, my dear. And I must say that I'm rather relieved. I know it's an important calling, but I've always felt it a pity that you hadn't led a life before you went in. I've always thought you left the world before you got to know it.”

“Well, I'm going to do something about that now. I'm thirty-two, so I don't think it's too late.”

“Not in the least,” said the lawyer. “We shall hold funds for you in our clients' account,” he added. “They will be available when and as you need them.”

“Where are you going to go?” asked the aunt.

She shrugged.

“Come to me,” said the aunt. “Stay as long as you like.”

“You could easily afford a flat or house of your own,” said the lawyer. “It's exactly the sort of purchase that trustees are very happy to authorise.”

“I'll think about it,” said Flora.

That ended the business side of the conversation, and as they chatted over a cup of tea, she thought,
Would it be better to get a flat before a husband, or get a husband first and then a flat?
She would have like to have asked them, but she could not, because neither knew the nature of her plans just yet, and she was eager not to play her hand too soon.