Free Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

seem strange, won't it?' Perhaps this was the third misfortune he had prophesied, proving that disasters always went in threes.
    'Your new landlord is a clergyman, isn't he?' said Marcia.
    'Yes, in a manner of speaking.' Letty had a vision of Father Lydell leaning back in Marjorie's armchair, eyes closed, sipping Orvieto, so very different from Mr Olatunde. Obviously there were clergymen and clergymen, she thought 'I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings,' she said, 'by anything I said about the people living in the house. He seems to be a very nice man.'
    'Isn't there some friend you could live with?' Edwin suggested. 'Apart from the one who's getting married?' A woman like Letty must have many friends, a whole army of nice women like the WRVS or some — though not all — of the female congregation of his church. Surely there were plenty of such women? One saw them everywhere.
    'The best thing is to have a relative,' said Norman. 'Then they're bound to do something for you. After all, blood is thicker than water, however distant the connection — you can bank on that.'
    Letty considered some of her cousins, not seen since childhood, now living somewhere in the west of England. She could hardly expect any of them to offer her a home.
    'Have you ever thought of taking a lodger?' Edwin asked, turning to Marcia.
    'The money might be useful,' Norman chipped in, 'when you're retired.'
    'Oh, I shan't need money,' said Marcia impatiently. 'There won't be any need for me to take in lodgers,' 'Unthinkable' was the word that came to her at Edwin's suggestion, the idea of offering a home to Letty, especially when she remembered that milk bottle. But Letty wouldn't like it either. Even now she was protesting, obviously embarrassed for Marcia as well as for herself.
    'There are organizations and people wanting to help ladies,' said Edwin quaintly .
    'There's a young woman who comes round to see me sometimes — seems to think I need help.' Marcia laughed in a mirthless way. 'It's the other way round, if you ask me.'
    'But you have been in hospital,' Edwin reminded her. 'I expect that's why they like to keep an eye on you.'
    'Oh, yes, but I go to Mr Strong's clinic for that.' Marcia smiled. 'I don't need young people telling me not to buy tinned peas.'
    'Well, it's good to know that people do care,' said Letty vaguely, feeling that it might go rather beyond tinned peas. 'I expect something will turn up when I retire — after all, I haven't retired yet.'
    'But you soon will,' said Norman, 'and you won't get much of a pension from here to add to what the state gives you. And then there's inflation to be considered,' he added unhelpfully.
    'Inflation isn't exactly the kind of thing you can consider,' said Letty. 'It just comes on you unawares.'
    'You're telling me,' said Norman, and delving in his pocket he produced the checkout payslip from his latest visit to the supermarket. Just listen to this,' and he proceeded to read it out. It was the increase in the prices of tinned soup and butter beans that seemed to anger him most, giving a strange insight into his daily diet.
    Nobody commented or even listened. Marcia thought complacently of her well-stocked store cupboard and Letty decided she would have an early lunch and then take a bus to the Oxford Street shops. Only Edwin, perhaps seeing himself as a person wanting to help ladies, went on thinking about Letty and her problem.
     
    All Saints' Day, the first of November, fell on a weekday. There was an evening Mass, quite well attended, and on the next Sunday Edwin was present at the ceremony of coffee and biscuits after the morning service of Parish Communion at a church he sometimes went to because he had once lived in the neighbourhood. It was not his regular church but he had chosen it especially with Letty in mind.
    The making of coffee was in itself a ritual entrusted to various women members of the congregation, all of whom knew Edwin from his occasional visits to the church, and as