My first wife and I drifted apart. I need not mince matters. I had met someone else, someone with whom I was quite infatuated.
I left England and went to South Africa with the other woman. My wife did not approve of divorce and I did not ask her for one. I made suitable financial provision for my wife and for the child — she was only five years old at the time — ” He paused and then went on: “Looking back, I can see that I had been dissatisfied with life for some time. I’d been yearning to travel. At that period of my life I hated being tied down to an office desk. My brother reproached me several times with not taking more interest in the family business, now that I had come in with him. He said that I was not pulling my weight. But I didn’t want that sort of life.
I was restless. I wanted an adventurous life. I wanted to see the world and wild places…” He broke off abruptly.
“Anyway — you don’t want to hear the story of my life. I went to South Africa and Louise went with me. It wasn’t a success.
I’ll admit that straight away. I was in love with her but we quarrelled incessantly. She hated life in South Africa. She wanted to get back to London and Paris — all the sophisticated places. We parted only about a year after we arrived there.” He sighed.
“Perhaps I ought to have gone back then, back to the tame life that I disliked the idea of so much. But I didn’t. I don’t know whether my wife would have had me back or not. Probably she would have considered it her duty to do so. She was a great woman for doing her duty.” Poirot noted the slight bitterness that ran through that sentence.
“But I ought to have thought more about Norma, I suppose. Well, there it was.
The child was safely with her mother.
Financial arrangements had been made. I wrote to her occasionally and sent her presents, but I never once thought of going back to England and seeing her. That was not entirely blameworthy on my part. I had adopted a different way of life and I thought it would be merely unsettling for the child to have a father who came and went, and perhaps disturbed her own peace of mind. Anyway, let’s say I thought I was acting for the best.” Restarick’s words came fast now. It was as though he was feeling a definite solace in being able to pour out his story to a sympathetic listener. It was a reaction that Poirot had often noticed before and he encouraged it.
“You never wished to come home on your own account?” Restarick shook his head very definitely.
“No. You see, I was living the kind of life I liked, the kind of life I was meant for. I went from South Africa to East Africa. I was doing very well financially, everything I touched seemed to prosper, projects with which I was associated, occasionally with other people, sometimes on my own, all went well. I used to go off into the bush and trek. That was the life I’d always wanted. I am by nature an out-of-door man.
Perhaps that’s why when I was married to my first wife I felt trapped, held down. No, I enjoyed my freedom and I’d no wish to go back to the conventional type of life that I’d led here.” “But you did come back in the end?” Restarick sighed. “Yes. I did come back. Ah well, one grows old, I suppose.
Also, another man and I had made a very good strike. We’d secured a concession which might have very important consequences. It would need negotiation in London. There I could have depended on my brother to act, but my brother died.
I was still a partner in the firm. I could return if I chose and see to things myself.
It was the first time I had thought of doing so. Of returning, I mean, to City life.” “Perhaps your wife — your second wife — ” “Yes, you may have something there. I had been married to Mary just a month or two when my brother died. Mary was born in South Africa but she had been to England several times and she liked the life there. She liked particularly the idea of having an English garden!