In the novel A Caribbean Mystery, Evelyn Hillingdon is a woman who does not love her husband Edward, but stays with him both for their public image and for their children.
Evelyn and her husband are botanists, and are also interested in birds. They have two children who attend school in England, and they live in Hampshire.
Evelyn is described as being a "handsome but rather weather-beaten woman". Miss Marple is unable to fit her precisely to a village parallel, but she considers Lady Caroline Wolfe, who had committed suicide, and Leslie James, who was quiet and seldom showed what she felt, as possibilities.
According to Miss Prescott, Evelyn is not very easy to know, as she is always pleasant, but one never seems to get to know her any better, or know what she is thinking.
Evelyn finds Molly Kendal crying at the beach, and asks her what is wrong. She tells Molly about the tension between her and her husband, and how he had an affair with Lucky Dyson, but they had decided to stay together for the sake of the children.
Molly tells Evelyn that she is frightened, feels like somebody hates her, and has periods of time for which she cannot account. Evelyn advises her to see a doctor, or to ask some of her family to come out and be with her.
Edward later tells Evelyn that he wants to go home to England, as he feels that if he does not get away from Lucky soon, he will kill her, because of what she had made him do. He tells Evelyn that Lucky had asked him to get certain drugs from the chemist, and to copy out a prescription that she had. He later realized that Lucky had poisoned Gail Dyson, but felt that he was tied to her by what they had done. Evelyn tells him that he was guilty of adultery, but not murder.
Evelyn speaks to Tim Kendal about Molly's health, and asks if she can help, for example by flying with Molly to New York or Miami, to get medical advice. Tim tells her that Molly would hate to see a doctor, and that she is getting over it anyway.
Tim later wakes Evelyn in the middle of the night, when Molly is found to be ill. The next morning, she stays with Molly, while Tim sees to the running of the hotel.
Evelyn is there when a body is found facedown in the creek, and is thought to be Molly. She is with Miss Marple when she discovers that it is Lucky, not Molly. Evelyn then leaves to tell Greg Dyson that his wife is dead.
Portrayals[]
In the 1983 Warner Bros adaptation of A Caribbean Mystery, Evelyn is portrayed by Beth Howland.
In the BBC 1989 adaptation of A Caribbean Mystery, Evelyn is portrayed by Sheila Ruskin.
In the 2013 ITV adaptation of A Caribbean Mystery, Evelyn is portrayed by Hermione Norris. As with the other adaptations and the original, she well knows that her husband is having an affair with Lucky Dyson. When Lucky chides her, saying that perhaps Evelyn ought to have shown her husband some affection, she responds by saying that she knows what Lucky got Hillingdon to do, and how Lucky had been holding this over him all the while. Evelyn warns Lucky that this has got to stop. Evelyn also tells her husband that she is putting up with all this because she only wants her children to have a good upbringing. There is a hint that Evelyn had known some tragedy in her past childhood and she is determined that this does not happen with her children. For them it must be "summer" all the way. There is a photograph of her three children. There is some hint that Evelyn and her husband are reconciled at the end.