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Five Little Pigs :: Christie Agatha
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‘Whenwas this?’
‘Actually the day before-before it all happened. They came over to tea here, you know. I got Crale aside and I-I put it to him. I even said, I remember, that it wasn’t fair on either of them.’
‘Ah, you said that?’
‘Yes. I didn’t think-you see, that herealized.’
‘Possibly not.’
‘I said to him that it was putting Caroline in a perfectly unendurable position. If he meant to marry this girl, he ought not to have her staying in the house and-well-more or less flaunt her in Caroline’s face. It was, I said, an unendurable insult.’
Poirot asked curiously: ‘What did he answer?’
Meredith Blake replied with distaste:
‘He said: “Caroline must lump it.” ’
Hercule Poirot’s eyebrows rose.
‘Not,’ he said, ‘a very sympathetic reply.’
‘I thought it abominable. I lost my temper. I said that no doubt, not caring for his wife, he didn’t mind how much he made her suffer, but what, I said, about the girl? Hadn’t he realized it was a pretty rotten position forher? His reply to that was that Elsa must lump it too!
‘Then he went on: “You don’t seem to understand, Meredith, that this thing I’m painting is the best thing I’ve done. It’sgood, I tell you. And a couple of jealous quarrelling women aren’t going to upset it-no, by hell, they’re not.”
‘It was hopeless talking to him. I said he seemed to have taken leave of all ordinary decency. Painting, I said, wasn’t everything. He interrupted there. He said: “Ah, but it is tome.”
‘I was still very angry. I said it was perfectly disgraceful the way he had always treated Caroline. She had had a miserable life with him. He said he knew that and he was sorry about it. Sorry! He said: “I know, Merry, you don’t believe that-but it’s the truth. I’ve given Caroline the hell of a life and she’s been a saint about it. But she did know, I think, what she might be letting herself in for. I told her candidly the sort of damnable egoistic, loose-living kind of chap I was.”
‘I put it to him then very strongly that he ought not to break up his married life. There was the child to be considered and everything. I said that I could understand that a girl like Elsa could bowl a man over, but that even for her sake he ought to break off the whole thing. She was very young. She was going into this bald-headed, but she might regret it bitterly afterwards.
‘Whenwas this?’
‘Actually the day before-before it all happened. They came over to tea here, you know. I got Crale aside and I-I put it to him. I even said, I remember, that it wasn’t fair on either of them.’
‘Ah, you said that?’
‘Yes. I didn’t think-you see, that herealized.’
‘Possibly not.’
‘I said to him that it was putting Caroline in a perfectly unendurable position. If he meant to marry this girl, he ought not to have her staying in the house and-well-more or less flaunt her in Caroline’s face. It was, I said, an unendurable insult.’
Poirot asked curiously: ‘What did he answer?’
Meredith Blake replied with distaste:
‘He said: “Caroline must lump it.” ’
Hercule Poirot’s eyebrows rose.
‘Not,’ he said, ‘a very sympathetic reply.’
‘I thought it abominable. I lost my temper. I said that no doubt, not caring for his wife, he didn’t mind how much he made her suffer, but what, I said, about the girl? Hadn’t he realized it was a pretty rotten position forher? His reply to that was that Elsa must lump it too!
‘Then he went on: “You don’t seem to understand, Meredith, that this thing I’m painting is the best thing I’ve done. It’sgood, I tell you. And a couple of jealous quarrelling women aren’t going to upset it-no, by hell, they’re not.”
‘It was hopeless talking to him. I said he seemed to have taken leave of all ordinary decency. Painting, I said, wasn’t everything. He interrupted there. He said: “Ah, but it is tome.”
‘I was still very angry. I said it was perfectly disgraceful the way he had always treated Caroline. She had had a miserable life with him. He said he knew that and he was sorry about it. Sorry! He said: “I know, Merry, you don’t believe that-but it’s the truth. I’ve given Caroline the hell of a life and she’s been a saint about it. But she did know, I think, what she might be letting herself in for. I told her candidly the sort of damnable egoistic, loose-living kind of chap I was.”
‘I put it to him then very strongly that he ought not to break up his married life. There was the child to be considered and everything. I said that I could understand that a girl like Elsa could bowl a man over, but that even for her sake he ought to break off the whole thing. She was very young. She was going into this bald-headed, but she might regret it bitterly afterwards.