Given that we are told in the title that Lady Audley has a secret and given that there are hints from the nature of the dramatis personae that there are intimate connections between events known as coincidences, the broad nature of the secret is apparent to the attentive reader who is outside the action. But inside the story there is only fog and confusion. What led to the disappearance of George Talboys? He seemed rapt before the portrait of Lady Audley which is in the locked room only entered by a priest’s hide that is under the floorboards. Why did she lock her room. Lady Lucy is a mysterious woman, antecedents unknown, who has appeared out of nowhere to be the governess in the house of a local surgeon/doctor. Vivacious, fascinating and a great beauty she has won the heart of Sir Michael Audley who marries her though there is a great disparity in age and her rank is unknown. He is fifty and she twenty two or so. He has a daughter Alicia only a little younger who is not delighted with her stepmother. She’s a hard riding gentlewoman of the barbarian class as Matthew Arnold termed them. Rest easy we are spared a Trollopian hunting scene. Alicia is in love with her first cousin the only son of Sir Michael’s brother and therefore heir presumptive of the lands and wealth of the Baronet. Robert Audley is a barrister who does not practice plies his forensic intelligence to unravel the secret. How everything is traced back to the source is quite credible and Robert himself is a well drawn character. Out of the great love for his missing friend which draws him out of his indolence and aimless drift he sets on the trail of Lady Lucy whom he feels is in some way the key to what has happened to George Talboys.
As I said this is an outside/inside story a rather clever device by the brilliant author of a mere twenty seven when the serialised book was published. Like all serials cliffhangers are plentiful. How will this impasse be overcome? Has the trail gone cold and so on. Never mind Braddon conjures up credible breakthroughs. She is a superb writer with a mastery of the short observation followed by a long descriptive sentence. A stylistic tic perhaps but it adds to the rich texture of the story. She like all the Victorians can precisely delineate the class of the characters. This is not just a sensation novel. It’s a classic.
