Adelaide Lee

In the novel Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Adelaide Lee was the wife of Simeon Lee.

Adelaide passed away years before the events of the novel. However, a portrait of her hangs in the gallery at Gorston Hall, where she is depicted as having "a long gentle face, very blonde hair" and "mild blue eyes". According to Poirot, the children of the Lee family took after her, as her son David and daughter Jennifer closely resembled her, and her son Alfred also bore a resemblance to her.

Alfred described Adelaide as a "poor creature", remembering her as "nearly always ill", and often in tears. David described her as being sweet and patient, saying that she was often in pain, but she endured it, and her husband's treatment of her. According to David, she was quite young when she died.

Simeon Lee remembered that Adelaide had been pretty when he married her, and he had thought that he would be able to settle down and raise a family. However, after they married, he described her as weeping and wailing all the time, and said that she had no guts. She did not stand up to him, which he would have preferred.

Simeon also mentioned that Adelaide had been very clever with her needle, although he said that was about all she was clever with. He described her as "a good woman, but deadly dull", and later said that she had the brains of a louse.