Five Little Pigs (Hercule Poirot 25)

I have been absolutely frank and have kept nothing back. You may show it to Carla Crale. It may pain her, but I have always been a believer in truth. Palliatives are harmful. One must have the courage to face reality. Without that courage, life is meaningless. The people who do us most harm are the people who shield us from reality.

Believe me, yours sincerely,

Cecilia Williams

My name is Cecilia Williams. I was engaged by Mrs. Crale as governess to her half sister Angela Warren, in 19…I was then forty-eight.

I took up my duties at Alderbury, a very beautiful estate in south Devon which had belonged to Mr. Crale’s family for many generations. I knew that Mr. Crale was a well-known painter, but I did not meet him until I took up residence at Alderbury.

The household consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Crale, Angela Warren (then a girl of thirteen), and three servants, all of whom had been with the family many years.

I found my pupil an interesting and promising character. She had very marked abilities and it was a pleasure to teach her. She was somewhat wild and undisciplined, but these faults arose mainly through high spirits, and I have always preferred my girls to show spirit. An excess of vitality can be trained and guided into paths of real usefulness and achievement.

On the whole, I found Angela amenable to discipline. She had been somewhat spoiled—mainly by Mrs. Crale, who was far too indulgent where she was concerned. Mr. Crale’s influence was, I considered, unwise. He indulged her absurdly one day, and was unnecessarily peremptory on another occasion. He was very much a man of moods—possibly owing to what is styled the artistic temperament.

I have never seen, myself, why the possession of artistic ability should be supposed to excuse a man from a decent exercise of self-control. I did not myself admire Mr. Crale’s paintings. The drawing seemed to me faulty and the colouring exaggerated, but naturally I was not called upon to express any opinion on these matters.

I soon formed a deep attachment to Mrs. Crale. I admired her character and her fortitude in the difficulties of her life. Mr. Crale was not a faithful husband, and I think that that fact was the source of much pain to her. A stronger-minded woman would have left him, but Mrs. Crale never seemed to contemplate such a course. She endured his infidelities and forgave him for them—but I may say that she did not take them meekly. She remonstrated—and with spirit!

It was said at the trial that they led a cat and dog life. I would not go as far as that—Mrs. Crale had too much dignity for that term to apply, but they did have quarrels. And I consider that that was only natural under the circumstances.

I had been with Mrs. Crale just over two years when Miss Elsa Greer appeared upon the scene. She arrived down at Alderbury in the summer of 19…Mrs. Crale had not met her previously. She was Mr. Crale’s friend, and she was said to be there for the purpose of having her portrait painted.

It was apparent at once that Mr. Crale was infatuated with this girl and that the girl herself was doing nothing to discourage him. She behaved, in my opinion, quite outrageously, being abominably rude to Mrs. Crale, and openly flirting with Mr. Crale.

Naturally Mrs. Crale said nothing to me, but I could see that she was disturbed and unhappy, and I did everything in my power to distract her mind and lighten her burden. Miss Greer sat every day to Mr. Crale, but I noticed that the picture was not getting on very fast. They had, no doubt, other things to talk about!

My pupil, I am thankful to say, noticed very little of what was going on. Angela was in some ways young for her age. Though her intellect was well developed, she was not at all what I may term precocious. She seemed to have no wish to read undesirable books, and showed no signs of morbid curiosity such as girls often do at her age.

She, therefore, saw nothing undesirable in the friendship between Mr. Crale and Miss Greer. Nevertheless she disliked Miss Greer and thought her stupid. Here she was quite right. Miss Greer had had, I presume, a proper education, but she never opened a book and was quite unfamiliar with current literary allusions. Moreover she could not sustain a discussion on any intellectual subject.

She was entirely taken up with her personal appearance, her clothes, and men.

Angela, I think, did not even realize that her sister was unhappy. She was not at that time a very perceptive person. She spent a lot of time in hoydenish pastimes, such as tree climbing and wild feats of bicycling. She was also a passionate reader and showed excellent taste in what she liked and disliked.

Mrs. Crale was always careful to conceal any signs of unhappiness from Angela, and exerted herself to appear bright and cheerful when the girl was about.

Miss Greer went back to London—at which, I can tell you, we were all very pleased! The servants disliked her as much as I did. She was the kind of person who gives a lot of unnecessary trouble and forgets to say thank you.

Mr. Crale went away shortly afterwards, and of course I knew that he had gone after the girl. I was very sorry for Mrs. Crale. She felt these things very keenly. I felt extremely bitter towards Mr. Crale. When a man has a charming, gracious, intelligent wife, he’s no business to treat her badly.

However, she and I both hoped the affair would soon be over. Not that we mentioned the subject to each other—we did not—but she knew quite well how I felt about it.

Unfortunately, after some weeks, the pair of them reappeared. It seemed the sittings were to be resumed.

Mr. Crale was now painting with absolute frenzy. He seemed less preoccupied with the girl than with his picture of her. Nevertheless I realized that this was not the usual kind of thing we had gone through before. This girl had got her claws into him and she meant business. He was just like wax in her hands.

The thing came to a head on the day before he died—that is on Sept. 17. Miss Greer’s manner had been unbearably insolent the last few days. She was feeling sure of herself and she wanted to assert her importance. Mrs. Crale behaved like a true gentlewoman. She was icily polite, but she showed the other clearly what she thought of her.

On this day, Sept. 17, as we were sitting in the drawing room after lunch, Miss Greer came out with an amazing remark as to how she was going to redecorate the room when she was living at Alderbury.

Naturally Mrs. Crale couldn’t let that pass. She challenged her, and Miss Greer had the impudence to say, before us all, that she was going to marry Mr. Crale. She actually talked about marrying a married man—and she said it to his

wife!

I was very, very angry with Mr. Crale. How dared he let this girl insult his wife in her own drawing room? If he wanted to run away with the girl, he should have gone off with her, not brought her into his wife’s house and backed her up in her insolence.

In spite of what she must have felt, Mrs. Crale did not lose her dignity. Her husband came in just then, and she immediately demanded confirmation from him.