Book Review//The Chianti Flask by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Laura Dousland stands trial for the murder of her elderly husband, Fordish Dousland. The rat poison was put in a flask of Chianti at supper but the flask then disappears and is unable to be found. Laura was very unhappy in her marriage; her husband was domineering, difficult, and stingy.

He quoted Laura Dousland’s own admission that the greater part of her married life had been unhappy. She had been for four years a young woman tied to a husband over thirty years older than herself and Terugi, although an unwilling witness, had admitted that he had often heard his master speaking in an unkind way to his mistress. On the other hand, apart from the obvious truth that the two had not been really happy together, no motive had been suggested why this young and gently-nurtured woman should have committed so fearful a crime.

The reader’s sympathy is obviously supposed to be with Laura and this is justified when she is quickly acquitted within the first few chapters of the book. Laura collapses after her acquittal and is taken to the home of Mrs. Hayward where she used to work as a governess. Mrs. Hayward was instrumental in convincing Laura to marry Mr. Dousland and has been a staunch friend to her while she has been in prison. Now, Mrs. Hayward cannot quite understand why Laura is in no state to celebrate her freedom and she only reluctantly allows Laura the rest that Dr. Scrutton insists on. Dr. Scrutton was a witness at the trial. Inevitably, he now falls in love with Laura. She has great hesitation in accepting his proposal because the stigma of being accused of murder will follow her throughout the rest of her life.

I hesitate to call this a mystery. The location of the Chianti flask is baffling to all but the ultimate resolution is relatively obvious. This is a novel about a crime and its after effects but not a novel of detection. It has a lot to say about the few opportunities available to a poor young woman who needed to make her living in the world and about how marriage could seem to be the only solution.

In many ways, the love story between Laura and Dr. Scrutton is the more compelling part of the book. I found myself very invested in whether or not they would find happiness and how those around them would react to their potential marriage. The writing is more than a little overwrought at times. Here is one example.

As Laura stood looking after him, she asked herself piteously whether there was any hope that even his mother would understand what it was about her which had made her cherished only son fall in love with, and desire to marry, a woman who had had to stand her trial for murder? How could she hope that his parents would understand what was still so incredible a thing to herself? True, she now loved Mark Scrutton with an intensity which frightened her. At any moment, willingly she would have died for him. Indeed just now she felt it would be easier to die than live for this man who had all her heart–a heart which till so lately had been atrophied, and cold, cold.

The writing is overwhelming dramatic, the denouement can be seen ten miles out, and yet, I couldn’t stop reading. It is a compelling, very readable, book which is what the British Library specializes in finding for their Crime Classics series.

Thank you to the British Library for the review copy of this book.