“Then let’s do that Mrs. Harter, who goes to tea with Mrs. Fazackerly. We all know her, don’t we?”
“Only very slightly.”
“All the more interesting.”
“She really has personality,” said Claire, who had been silent, with compressed lips and a look of pain in her big dark eyes. I think she felt that no one was looking at her and so gave it up.
“But you’ve never seen Mrs. Harter, have you?” Mary asked me.
“No, but carry on. Who is Mrs. Harter?”
“Old Ellison’s daughter. You remember Ellison, the plumber?”
“Quite well. Is this the girl with the odd Christian name?”
“Diamond—yes. She married young and went out to the East about five years ago. I don’t think she’s been to Cross Loman since. Now she’s here for a year, I believe, having left the husband behind. The children have met her with Nancy Fazackerly and Martyn introduced her to me.”
“In the old days, of course, you’d have seen her behind a typewriter in her father’s office?”