A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [101]
Fifi’s inherent curiosity reared up at that statement. In four months she’d made absolutely no headway in finding out anything about this woman, and even though that hadn’t been her aim today, she wasn’t going to let an opportunity like this slip away. She sat down on the top of the stairs. ‘Tell me about it?’ she asked.
Miss Diamond bent down again, carrying on with her sweeping. ‘It’s not something I like to talk about or even think about,’ she said crisply. ‘Let’s just say he was a complete bounder.’
‘Really?’ Fifi was intrigued. ‘Do tell me about him, Miss Diamond. If you don’t I’ll be wondering about it all day.’
The woman looked up again, a ghost of a smile playing at her lips. ‘You can be such a child, Fifi,’ she exclaimed. ‘So curious about everything. Me, what went on over the road. Anything and anybody. My aunt used to say, “Curiosity killed the cat”.’
‘Mum used to say that all the time,’ Fifi chuckled. ‘But being interested in other people isn’t such a bad thing, is it? Not if it helps to understand them.’
‘Perhaps. I suppose we are the end product of what has happened to us,’ Miss Diamond replied thoughtfully. ‘I was once warm, trusting and full of fun. If I’d married a decent man I might have stayed that way instead of turning into a humourless Tartar.’
‘You aren’t a Tartar,’ Fifi insisted, even though that name summed the woman up remarkably well. ‘You were very kind to me after I lost my baby.’
‘That was because I knew how you felt. I lost a baby myself after my husband ran out on me.’
Fifi saw the hurt in Miss Diamond’s dark eyes and guessed this was something she wasn’t in the habit of divulging.
‘You poor thing,’ Fifi exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry. No wonder you call him a bounder, though I’d be calling him something much worse than that.’
‘I’ve called him all sorts over the years, but I’ve learned to live with what he did to me by blaming myself for being so headstrong. A great many people warned me about him, but I refused to listen.’
‘I can’t imagine you being fooled by anyone,’ Fifi said. ‘You seem so sure of yourself.’
‘I am now,’ Miss Diamond smiled wryly. ‘But when I was your age, my heart ruled my head, just like yours does.’
Fifi thought there was a warning in that confidence. ‘You don’t think Dan’s like your husband, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ Miss Diamond said quickly. ‘He’s a good man, with many very fine qualities. But I suspect that your family aren’t enamoured with him?’
Fifi nodded sadly. ‘And I don’t think my mum is ever going to come round about him,’ she said dolefully. ‘But then Dan’s being so funny with me, I shouldn’t be surprised if we split up.’
‘Oh dear.’ Miss Diamond frowned. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Fifi. You seemed so close last time I came up and had a coffee with you.’
‘Everything was fine till Angela was killed,’ Fifi explained. ‘But he seems to be cross with me all the time now.’
The older woman looked hard at Fifi. ‘Is that because you keep talking about the murder and the Muckles?’
‘I suppose so,’ Fifi admitted somewhat reluctantly.
‘Then I can’t say I blame him for being cross. If I were Dan I’d find your morbid fascination with the lower classes quite offensive.’
Fifi looked at her neighbour in puzzlement. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘I’ve watched you, Fifi,’ Miss Diamond said crisply. ‘You try to prove to everyone in this street that you are one of them. Though why you should want to be considered on a level with such riff-raff I can’t imagine!’
‘Don’t call them that! You sound like my mother,’ Fifi exclaimed.
‘Of course! That’s what’s behind it, isn’t it?’ her neighbour said almost triumphantly. ‘Your mother doesn’t approve of Dan, so you’ve gone all out to try and join the other side.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Fifi said indignantly. ‘I haven’t tried to join anything. I believe in being nice to people. Just because they are poor doesn’t mean they are worth less than other people.’
‘I don’t take exception to anyone