I bought this at the Church fair (along with 5 other books, because it was a buy 5 get 1 free type of deal) because it sounded vaguely familiar and I figured it was one of the books that I’ve always said I wanted to read. But after I started reading it, I found the book to be very familiar… and lo-and-behold, Goodreads says I’ve read this in 2017! Still, Lady Audley’s Secret was such a fun read that I continued reading till the end.

There will be some spoilers in this book (as there are on the Wikipedia page) so if you don’t like spoilers and want to read this, you might want to skip this review.

Lady Audley’s Secret was THE novel of the time. I first heard about the book in Not Just Jane: Rediscovering Seven Amazing Women Writers Who Transformed British Literature (link to my review on Goodreads) where I learnt that this book propelled Mary Elizabeth Braddon to fame and scandal. And you know what, I totally see why – it’s a mystery with more than a whiff of scandal.

As with before, I found myself feeling sympathetic towards Lady Audley. While the book revolves around her being suspected of killing George Talboy, Robert’s good friend, I can’t help but feel that Robert, the main character, quickly suspected her because she’s from a lower class and an “interloper”. Plus, Robert has this tendency to see women as either pure or completely fallen – very much the Madonna-Whore dichotomy. Look at how he compares his cousin to Lady Audley after he is convinced of Lady Audley’s guilt:

“‘Good heavens!’ he thought, ‘can these two women be of the same clay? Can this frank, generous-hearted girl, who cannot conceal any impulse of her innocent nature, be of the same flesh and blood as that wretched creature whose shadow falls upon the path beside me?'”

It’s an extreme comparison, in my opinion.

Plus, despite the book casting Lady Audley as a complete villainess type, I do see some mitigating factors for her. One reason she became Lady Audley was because her first husband left her, without a word, to go seek his fortune. The book presents it in a neutral-to-positive light, that he had to do it for their future, but I think it would be awful to just wake up one day and just have a letter from your husband saying that he’s off to work and he’ll not contact you till he’s rich. How will you ever know that his plan will work? I don’t think she should have deceived people or marry Lord Audley under false pretences, but I can see why she thought she had to find her own source of money and security.

Honestly, it’s the complexity of Lady Audley’s character that kept me reading. Sure, Robert goes through a change, as he moves from a dilettante to someone with a purpose (and when he falls in love, does it instantly), but the ambiguity of Lady Audley’s character is more interesting. Is she truly a selfish, evil woman, or is she doing the best she can in a world where a woman’s worth comes from her beauty and ability to make a good marriage? Is it wrong for her to want to seek a comfortable life? All her actions are viewed through Robert’s biased eyes and I do wonder about his reliability as a narrator – could we view her in a more charitable light? I mean, as Lady Audley, all she did was to amuse herself by buying things – she did not start any affairs or do anything to harm her husband or anyone else until she felt threatened by George’s return.

Also, I was a bit conflicted by the way Lord Audley treated her at the end. Here we have a husband who is madly in love with his wife, to the point where he was ready to find his nephew mad at her suggestion, yet when she comes clean, he just refuses to hear her name anymore or see her? I understand that it’s a large sense of betrayal but it does give me the sense that he loved the idea of her more than he loved her. Of course, we can debate that Lady Audley never let anyone know her as a person, but it feels like a conditional love. Especially since Lady Audley’s former maid, Phoebe, still thought of her as “kind” even after Lady Audley set fire to Phoebe and Luke’s inn (sidenote: Phoebe’s romance with her drunk and possibly abusive cousin is something I don’t understand).

And to talk a bit about Luke – I was slightly disappointed at the ending that George is still alive! Not only was it unrealistic, it made Lady Audley’s “punishment” feel very excessive to me. Then again, that also makes Luke the villain of the story – a drunk who enjoys the little bit of leverage he has over a woman, who wants handouts but needs them to be given in a certain attitude, so that his pride is not damaged. And because his pride is damaged, he keeps a secret that influences the course of the book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this unintentional reread! Although this book is pretty old, I found it to be a very readable and exciting book, and I like the complexity of the story – yes, it’s a mystery but it also explores the themes of class and womanhood.