Chance Developments Read Online Free PDF Page A

today.”
    Helena looked at her watch. “Oh, come on, darling: it’s half past ten already.”
    “It would be no trouble to lay an extra place,” said Marjorie. She looked at Flora. “Would you like that, Miss Marshall?”
    “Flora, please,” said Flora, remembering just in time not to say Sister Flora.
    “Would you like that, Flora?”
    Flora hesitated. She was not sure that she was ready. It was easy enough to talk about meeting men, but the actual business of speaking to them was quite another matter. She was not even sure what one talked to men about. She could say a lot about Senior Four and their problems, but would men be interested in hearing about the little ways of schoolgirls? Even some of the racier bits?
    She made up her mind. “Yes, please—if it’s no trouble. I should hate to be any trouble.”
    “None at all,” said Marjorie. “But we’d better get along, I think. I have a maid, but she needs to be supervised—you know how these women are.”
    Flora nodded. “Oh yes,” she said.
You don’t
, she said to herself.
You have been a servant yourself. Remember that.
    She paid the bill for all three of them, and left a handsome tip.
    “Very generous,” said Helena, eyeing the tip. “But one should be careful not to encourage excessive expectations.”
    Flora noticed that Marjorie’s eyes had been fixed on the new wallet, the bulging wad of Bank of Scotland notes having caught her attention. She thought for a moment, and then said, “My ship has come in. I had an uncle over near Greenock. He left me everything, you see.”
    “Ah,” said Helena.
    “You’re very lucky,” said Marjorie. “That should make it much easier to find a man—much, much easier.”
    “Marjorie, darling!” scolded Helena.
    “But it’s a truth universally acknowledged,” said Marjorie lightly. “Jane Austen would have understood perfectly.”
    “Perhaps,” said Helena. “But I’m not altogether convinced that we should always reveal everything we have in mind.”
    “Oh, nonsense!” said Marjorie, and smiled mischievously at Flora.
    I’m so glad I’ve found you
, thought Flora.
    As they left the tea room, Marjorie whispered to her, “You know, Flora, men must like you—with your looks.”
    This came as a surprise. “I’m not sure…”
    “No need for false modesty,” said Marjorie. “You’re a very beautiful woman, you know. Men will not be indifferent to that.”
    She floundered. She had never thought about her looks—or, at least, not for a long time. “I don’t know about that,” she said at last.
    “Well, I do,” said Marjorie. “And I’m telling you. You are not going to find this difficult. Quite the opposite, in fact. You’ll be fighting them off, my dear.”
    Helena had overheard this. “Marjorie is rarely wrong,” she said.
    6
    The lunch party was held in Marjorie’s house in Great King Street. This was a Georgian town house, one room wide but with four floors and a basement. The dining room gave off a large drawing room, both with floor-to-ceiling windows into which light flooded from both north and south. On the walls of the drawing room were several Scots colourist paintings, lively to the point of exuberance, adding splashes of red and yellow.
    The maid had wasted time polishing silver, with the result that the cooking was behind schedule.
    “Look at us,” said Marjorie, glaring at the maid. “Completely unprepared.”
    Helena and Flora both helped—Flora peeling potatoes for the salad while Helena arranged plates of cold meat and cheese.
    “Five guests,” said Marjorie, reeling off a list of names to which Helena responded with a nod or a shake of the head. There were four men and one woman. “I like to keep the odds in our favour,” she continued. “I can’t be doing with those occasions in which there are equal numbers of men and women. Why on earth do people do it? Can’t they
count
?
”
    “To give everybody a chance,” said Helena.
    “Oh, nonsense,”