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The Spider in the Cup
Album Leaf, or The Spider in the Cup as it was later known, was written by Marjorie Bowen under the pseudonym Joseph Shearing.
Beautiful orphaned 19-year-old Lavinia Pierrepoint has been raised by her grandfather and his housekeeper in a boring little English town, Maybridge, that she can't wait to escape. A way out seems to be offered by a proposal of marriage from Lieutenant William Tassart, but he has no money and no immediate prospects, so Lavinia decides, despite William's opposition, that she should take a job as companion to two reclusive aristocratic women, mother and daughter, in their chateau in southern France. The pay she's offered is suspiciously high; even more suspicious is that, at the first sign of doubt on her part, it's increased by 50%. In France she meets the devilishly handsome Louis, but what dark secrets is he hiding?
Beautiful orphaned 19-year-old Lavinia Pierrepoint has been raised by her grandfather and his housekeeper in a boring little English town, Maybridge, that she can't wait to escape. A way out seems to be offered by a proposal of marriage from Lieutenant William Tassart, but he has no money and no immediate prospects, so Lavinia decides, despite William's opposition, that she should take a job as companion to two reclusive aristocratic women, mother and daughter, in their chateau in southern France. The pay she's offered is suspiciously high; even more suspicious is that, at the first sign of doubt on her part, it's increased by 50%. In France she meets the devilishly handsome Louis, but what dark secrets is he hiding?
256 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 1965
4 people want to read
About the author
Joseph Shearing
35 books9 followersPseudonym for English author Gabrielle Margaret Vere Campbell (1886-1952), who also wrote as George Preedy, Margaret Campbell and Marjorie Bowen.
She was born in Hampshire and married Zefferino Constanzo in 1912 and Arthur L Long in 1917.
She was born in Hampshire and married Zefferino Constanzo in 1912 and Arthur L Long in 1917.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 3, 2016
Beautiful orphaned 19-year-old Lavinia Pierrepoint has been raised by her grandfather and his housekeeper in a boring little English town, Maybridge, that she can't wait to escape. A way out seems to be offered by a proposal of marriage from Lieutenant William Tassart, but he has no money and no immediate prospects so the union's going to have to be delayed until after he's served a three-year stint in India. Lavinia decides, despite William's opposition, that in the interim she should take a job as companion to two reclusive aristocratic women, mother and daughter, in their chateau in southern France.
The pay she's offered is suspiciously high; even more suspicious is that, at the first sign of doubt on her part, it's increased by 50%. The cold-hearted Lavinia reckons, however, that she can put up with just about anything if it'll get her out of Maybridge. Besides, she's heard about how romantic and dashing French men are; she might find herself with a better proposition to marry than William -- he might be the finest Maybridge has to offer, but he's a cold fish and a dull stick whom she doesn't kid herself she loves.
When she gets to the chateau in Dauphiné she discovers the reason the two women are such recluses is that, not so long ago, the daughter, Louise, had a tempestuous affair with someone totally unsuitable. Her mother put her foot down about Louise's desire to marry the cad, who was sent off to serve in Algeria, that being a suitably dangerous destination. Louise tried to kill herself with an overdose of laudanum; in the struggle to save her life a lamp went over and her dress caught fire; her face now bears a hideous scar. Even so, and even though she has been, well, ruined in another way, her devilishly handsome cousin Louis, whom her parents had designated as her intended before the cad came along, still maintains his offer to marry her . . . an offer that she's resisting and about which her mother is now having some wise but belated doubts. After all, could it just possibly be that the hunkadelic but broke Louis might be after the family money, of which there's stacks?
As soon as Louis claps eyes on the fair Lavinia his intentions are obvious. He's a man who's renowned for his ruination skills, and clearly he's keen to usher the English mademoiselle to the front of what we might call the wrecking queue. For her part, Lavinia, who's never experienced the slightest stirring of love or even affection in her life before, now finds herself suddenly panting at the notion of getting ruined by Louis. And, sure enough, even though she knows he's unsuitable -- and even though he's interested in chemistry, having studied under Pasteur (she's a bit phobic about matters chemical, because her mother poisoned herself) and even though he puts back the ol' champagne like there was no tomorrow (her father drank himself to death) -- even though all of these things and more, in due course there's a ruining. More than one, in fact. And she enjoys it, because she's an independent spirit and doesn't give a fig for the priggish mores of the day. So there. In fact, hardly is one ruination over than she's scheming how she can engineer a private meeting with Louis for another. It's that bad.
But matters aren't going too well for her employers. First the mother dies, for no particular reason that the doctor can put a finger on. Then the daughter, likewise. Louis has this passionate interest in chemistry. Before the women died, so did one of the dogs on the estate -- just, you know, keeled over. A dreadful suspicion is born in Lavinia's mind. Could it be that Louis has thought of a better way of getting his mitts on the family dough . . .?
It's a breathless tale, and it's told in a breathless, gushing prose. Bowen clearly found a supplier of cheap commas, because she uses them liberally in place of the more expensive full stops. It's not just figuratively but literally a bodice-ripper -- Lavinia's bodice is actually ripped, and more than once, and she enjoys it, the shameless hussy. This was around about the time that what we now call pre-Code movies were creating a furor in the States because of all their salacious content, so I'm guessing that this novel must have incited many a conniption in the primmer demographics. It wouldn't give you an actual heart attack, like D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, published just a few years earlier, but it might give you a nasty case of arrhythmia.
That reference to pre-Code movies wasn't merely random. Despite the breathlessness and gush, all the while I was reading this book I was struck by how film-noirish it was -- more protonoir than noir, but definitely in that general ballpark. Pull Lavinia and Louis out of their environment and you've got two archetypal noir protagonists: the icily gorgeous femme fatale, the likely murderous homme fatal. Chuck in a brace of unfaithful and untrustworthy servants (they eventually try to pull One Last Job) and various saps, and you have a whole film noir cast. (Veronica Lake as Lavinia, I think. George Sanders as Louis. Bette Davis as both the neurotic aristocrats. And so on.) Lavinia makes poor decisions whose consequences are far greater than anyone could have predicted they might be. There's more than enough suspicion to go round. There's even a brief coda where we see Lavinia setting off toward the rest of her life with the intention of continuing her femme fatale career. More ruination ahoy.
This is not what you could rightly call a good book. The writing is so, ahem, trashy that several times during the first fifty pages or so I thought of throwing the book against the wall and reading something else instead. (If I hadn't been reading the novel on a tablet . . .) But after a while The Spider in the Cup (by far the better of the book's two titles) started pulling me in, and I found myself glad to be involved in its zany little world. Although Lavinia, our focal character (the book might as well have been written in the first person), is by any standards quite ghastly, I actually became sympathetic to her, and was eager to find out what happened to her next, my fingers crossed that (among other possibilities) she wouldn't get framed for Louis's presumed crimes. "You'd ruin her yourself, given half a chance," muttered my wife sarkily when I said some of this to her. Damn, the woman knows me too well.
Would I recommend this book? Not really.
Did I enjoy reading it? Well, with mighty reservations, yes.
Am I champing at the bit to read any more of Bowen's/Shearing's crime novels? Um. Not sure.
======
This is a contribution to Rich Westlake's Crime of the Year 1933 blogathon-type thing at his Past Offences blog.
======
Santosh Iyer found a rather splendid cover for one of the book's reprints, under the (I think much better) variant title.
The pay she's offered is suspiciously high; even more suspicious is that, at the first sign of doubt on her part, it's increased by 50%. The cold-hearted Lavinia reckons, however, that she can put up with just about anything if it'll get her out of Maybridge. Besides, she's heard about how romantic and dashing French men are; she might find herself with a better proposition to marry than William -- he might be the finest Maybridge has to offer, but he's a cold fish and a dull stick whom she doesn't kid herself she loves.
When she gets to the chateau in Dauphiné she discovers the reason the two women are such recluses is that, not so long ago, the daughter, Louise, had a tempestuous affair with someone totally unsuitable. Her mother put her foot down about Louise's desire to marry the cad, who was sent off to serve in Algeria, that being a suitably dangerous destination. Louise tried to kill herself with an overdose of laudanum; in the struggle to save her life a lamp went over and her dress caught fire; her face now bears a hideous scar. Even so, and even though she has been, well, ruined in another way, her devilishly handsome cousin Louis, whom her parents had designated as her intended before the cad came along, still maintains his offer to marry her . . . an offer that she's resisting and about which her mother is now having some wise but belated doubts. After all, could it just possibly be that the hunkadelic but broke Louis might be after the family money, of which there's stacks?
As soon as Louis claps eyes on the fair Lavinia his intentions are obvious. He's a man who's renowned for his ruination skills, and clearly he's keen to usher the English mademoiselle to the front of what we might call the wrecking queue. For her part, Lavinia, who's never experienced the slightest stirring of love or even affection in her life before, now finds herself suddenly panting at the notion of getting ruined by Louis. And, sure enough, even though she knows he's unsuitable -- and even though he's interested in chemistry, having studied under Pasteur (she's a bit phobic about matters chemical, because her mother poisoned herself) and even though he puts back the ol' champagne like there was no tomorrow (her father drank himself to death) -- even though all of these things and more, in due course there's a ruining. More than one, in fact. And she enjoys it, because she's an independent spirit and doesn't give a fig for the priggish mores of the day. So there. In fact, hardly is one ruination over than she's scheming how she can engineer a private meeting with Louis for another. It's that bad.
But matters aren't going too well for her employers. First the mother dies, for no particular reason that the doctor can put a finger on. Then the daughter, likewise. Louis has this passionate interest in chemistry. Before the women died, so did one of the dogs on the estate -- just, you know, keeled over. A dreadful suspicion is born in Lavinia's mind. Could it be that Louis has thought of a better way of getting his mitts on the family dough . . .?
It's a breathless tale, and it's told in a breathless, gushing prose. Bowen clearly found a supplier of cheap commas, because she uses them liberally in place of the more expensive full stops. It's not just figuratively but literally a bodice-ripper -- Lavinia's bodice is actually ripped, and more than once, and she enjoys it, the shameless hussy. This was around about the time that what we now call pre-Code movies were creating a furor in the States because of all their salacious content, so I'm guessing that this novel must have incited many a conniption in the primmer demographics. It wouldn't give you an actual heart attack, like D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, published just a few years earlier, but it might give you a nasty case of arrhythmia.
That reference to pre-Code movies wasn't merely random. Despite the breathlessness and gush, all the while I was reading this book I was struck by how film-noirish it was -- more protonoir than noir, but definitely in that general ballpark. Pull Lavinia and Louis out of their environment and you've got two archetypal noir protagonists: the icily gorgeous femme fatale, the likely murderous homme fatal. Chuck in a brace of unfaithful and untrustworthy servants (they eventually try to pull One Last Job) and various saps, and you have a whole film noir cast. (Veronica Lake as Lavinia, I think. George Sanders as Louis. Bette Davis as both the neurotic aristocrats. And so on.) Lavinia makes poor decisions whose consequences are far greater than anyone could have predicted they might be. There's more than enough suspicion to go round. There's even a brief coda where we see Lavinia setting off toward the rest of her life with the intention of continuing her femme fatale career. More ruination ahoy.
This is not what you could rightly call a good book. The writing is so, ahem, trashy that several times during the first fifty pages or so I thought of throwing the book against the wall and reading something else instead. (If I hadn't been reading the novel on a tablet . . .) But after a while The Spider in the Cup (by far the better of the book's two titles) started pulling me in, and I found myself glad to be involved in its zany little world. Although Lavinia, our focal character (the book might as well have been written in the first person), is by any standards quite ghastly, I actually became sympathetic to her, and was eager to find out what happened to her next, my fingers crossed that (among other possibilities) she wouldn't get framed for Louis's presumed crimes. "You'd ruin her yourself, given half a chance," muttered my wife sarkily when I said some of this to her. Damn, the woman knows me too well.
Would I recommend this book? Not really.
Did I enjoy reading it? Well, with mighty reservations, yes.
Am I champing at the bit to read any more of Bowen's/Shearing's crime novels? Um. Not sure.
======
This is a contribution to Rich Westlake's Crime of the Year 1933 blogathon-type thing at his Past Offences blog.
======
Santosh Iyer found a rather splendid cover for one of the book's reprints, under the (I think much better) variant title.
June 8, 2022
Lavinia is an interesting character but the book should be at least a hundred pages shorter. I almost gave up in the second half. The third star is just for the great ending. Not recommended.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews