Hercule Poirot's Christmas: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot 20)

Hilda said:

‘I believe the present matters—not the past! The past must go. If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it. We see it in exaggerated terms—a false perspective.’

‘I can remember every word and every incident of those days perfectly,’ said David passionately.

‘Yes, but you shouldn’t, my dear! It isn’t natural to do so! You’re applying the judgment of a boy to those days instead of looking back on them with the more temperate outlook of a man.’

‘What difference would that make?’ demanded David.

Hilda hesitated. She was aware of unwisdom in going on, and yet there were things she badly wanted to say.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that you’re seeing your father as a bogy! Probably, if you were to see him now, you would realize that he was only a very ordinary man; a man, perhaps, whose passions ran away with him, a man whose life was far from blameless, but nevertheless merely a man—not a kind of inhuman monster!’

‘You don’t understand! His treatment of my mother—’

Hilda said gravely:

‘There is a certain kind of meekness—of submission— brings out the worst in a man—whereas that same man, faced by spirit and determination, might be a different creature!’

‘So you say it was her fault—’

Hilda interrupted him.

‘No, of course I don’t! I’ve no doubt your father treated your mother very badly indeed, but marriage is an extraordinary thing—and I doubt if any outsider—even a child of the marriage—has the right to judge. Besides, all this resentment on your part now cannot help your mother. It is all gone—it is behind you! What is left now is an old man, in feeble health, asking his son to come home for Christmas.’

‘And you want me to go?’

Hilda hesitated, then she suddenly made up her mind. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do. I want you to go and lay the bogy once and for all.’

V

George Lee, M.P. for Westeringham, was a somewhat corpulent gentleman of forty-one. His eyes were pale blue and slightly prominent with a suspicious expression, he had a heavy jowl, and a slow pedantic utterance.

He said now in a weighty manner:

‘I have told you, Magdalene, that I think it my duty to go.’

His wife shrugged her shoulders impatiently.

She was a slender creature, a platinum blonde with plucked eyebrows and a smooth egg-like face. It could, on occasions, look quite blank and devoid of any expression whatever. She was looking like that now.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘it will be perfectly grim, I am sure of it.’

‘Moreover,’ said George Lee, and his face lit up as an attractive idea occurred to him, ‘it will enable us to save considerably. Christmas is always an expensive time. We can put the servants on board wages.’

‘Oh, well!’ said Magdalene. ‘After all, Christmas is pretty grim anywhere!’

‘I suppose,’ said George, pursuing his own line of thought, ‘they will expect to have a Christmas dinner? A nice piece of beef, perhaps, instead of a turkey.’

‘Who?’ The servants? Oh, George, don’t fuss so. You’re always worrying about money.’

‘Somebody has to worry,’ said George.

‘Yes, but it’s absurd to pinch and scrape in all these little ways. Why don’t you make your father give you some more money?’

‘He already gives me a very handsome allowance.’

‘It’s awful to be completely dependent on your father, as you are! He ought to settle some money on you outright.’