My prior post considered the duality of the home and of women in Victorian sensation fiction, describing my search for occurrences of the words “house” and “woman” in Lady Audley’s Secret with the help of Voyant and AntConc, two digital concordance tools. Both of my searches emphasized the tensions occurring between societal expectations of the domestic abode and femininity and the darkness or crime lurking behind their ordinary facades. This theme permeates much of the sensation fiction genre; Victorian society began to look for crime, murder, and mystery within their own backyards, homes, and social circles, rather than assume that their lives were impermeable to such sensational occurrences. Another digital concordance tool, CLiC, also enables me to trace patterns of words or phrases not easily detected in traditional close-reading, and CLiC helpfully organizes each word occurrence chronologically as they appear in the novel. As with Voyant and AntConc, my searches on CLiC maintain the importance of the terms “house” and “woman” in Lady Audley’s Secret as indicators of the novel’s belonging to the sensation genre. CLiC shows that the words “house” and “woman” both occur 181 separate times within the novel. Interestingly, when filtering the novel for entries that contain both “house” and “woman,” the two words appear together seven times. In Chapter 27 and Chapter 38, Braddon utilizes the two terms to describe women who “rule” or “reign” over the domestic abode, while Chapter 34 places the two together in reference to mad-houses and insanity. Thus, CLiC demonstrates issues of feminine power and associations of women with madness that are significant to the novel’s development and eventual climax.

While reading Volume II of Lady Audley’s Secret, I also underlined and analyzed (with CLiC) specific words utilized by Braddon that seem to emphasize the novel’s adherence to the sensation genre and create the atmospheric sense of crime, mystery, and darkness necessary for the novel’s plot. As Robert Audley meets with George Talboys’s father, imploring him to take his son’s disappearance and possible death seriously, the two discuss the reality of a “conspiracy” (193). The word “conspiracy” occurs 17 times within the novel, and according to CLiC, “conspiracy” is utilized often in relation to Robert’s cognizance of Lady Audley’s deceits and the evidence which stacks against her. Even in Chapter 1, the lime-walk which will become the scene of one of her attempted murders is described as “a place in which a conspiracy might have been planned” (9), foreshadowing the crime which will shape the entire novel’s trajectory and plunge Robert into detective work.

In my own reading, it is apparent that the entirety of the novel revolves around the revelation of hidden secrets, hidden letters, and even hidden people. In addition, the novel’s sensational aspect relies on the suspense and tension created by withholding information and clues from the reader. Braddon even titles Chapter 10 (in Volume II) “Hidden in the Grave,” which explicitly demonstrates her focus on that which cannot be seen. Thus, I decided to search the term “hidden” in CLiC. “Hidden” occurs 34 times within Lady Audley’s Secret, and though it often applies to literal hidden objects like Lucy’s secret trinket or dead bodies, CLiC reveals that it is frequently used in relation to concealing the human face. In fact, Braddon illustrates a “hidden” face seven separate times within her novel, which seems to underscore the importance of identity and veracity to her work; after all, Lady Audley masks her true identity in assuming a new life and marriage, hiding her secrets behind a facade of beauty and elegance. Many characters hide their faces when exposed to the truth of Lady Audley’s manipulations and secrets, demonstrating an unwillingness to accept the darkness lurking behind her facade or the toppling of the Audley household.

Letters seem to be especially important pieces of evidence, and catalysts for discovery, in Lady Audley’s Secret and many other sensation novels. Therefore, I searched for “letter” in CLiC to see if the concordance tool also identifies the significance of letters and telegraphic messages to the novel’s plot. According to CLiC, the word “letter” appears 131 individual times within the novel, and its plural, “letters,” occurs 36. In numbers alone, CLiC establishes that letters are vitally important to Braddon’s construction of plot and intrigue. Letters are both hidden to conceal secrets, as Lady Audley does, but also used by Robert Audley as “links” or pieces of “data” to put together clues exposing the truth behind George’s disappearance and seeming death. “Letter” is utilized 14 times in association with Lady Audley, after filtering search results with “letter” and “lady.” This especially emphasizes the direct relation between Lady Audley and the secrets or clues which will eventually imply her guilt, revealed in the form of letters and handwriting. CLiC provides me with an opportunity to visualize this relationship within the novel, while also enabling me to see each individual use of letters in the novel in order to fully comprehend their general influence.

In Volume II of Lady Audley’s Secret, Robert Audley works to piece together the evidence implicating Lady Audley in George Talboys’s disappearance. His slowly forming “chain of circumstantial evidence” eventually enables him to identify Lady Audley as Helen Talboys (formerly Maldon), George’s ‘deceased’ wife (Braddon 248). This new premonition of Lady Audley’s hidden nature comes to color the way that he sees and describes Audley Court and other places of social and domestic life. In Chapter VII, titled “Retrograde Investigation,” his narration illustrates how his perception of Audley Court has changed since his investigative discovery:

The dim village lights flickered faintly through the growing dusk when Robert reached Audley […] A low moaning wind swept across the flat meadowland, and tossed those rugged branches hither and thither against the dark grey sky. They looked like the ghostly arms of shrunken and withered giants beckoning Robert to his uncle’s house. They looked like threatening phantoms in the chill winter twilight, gesticulating to him to hasten upon his journey. The long avenue, so bright and pleasant when the perfumed limes scattered their light bloom upon the pathway, and the dog-rose leaves floated on the summer air, was terribly bleak and desolate in the cheerless interregnum that divides the homely joys of Christmas form the pale blush of coming spring. (213)

Though his description of Audley’s grounds simply implies that Audley Court is in the midst of the winter season, Robert Audley’s particular depiction of the “moaning wind,” the “ghostly” tree “phantoms,” and the “bleak and desolate” atmosphere augment the sense of Robert’s own despair in discovering that Lady Audley has wholly deceived his uncle. The passage utilizes elements of Gothic literature, popularized before the era of sensation fiction, to produce a sense of horror. Earlier in the chapter, Robert muses on his “horrible presentiment” and his dread at revealing Lady Audley’s deceit; he asserts that his investigation and the evidence procured will bring about a “tempest […] to ruin [Sir Michael’s] noble life” (211). His notion of Audley Court transforms from the bright, inviting family home to the dreary, gloomy scene of mystery and crime. The ordinary and the extraordinary blend together in Lady Audley’s Secret and sensation fiction as a whole; this creates tension between that which can be readily perceived and that which hides beneath the surface of everyday life. It is only a matter of recognizing that the ordinary, everyday aspects of societal life coexist with the dark, hidden, or scandalous aspects of crime and sensation. Robert also makes this tension apparent in his musings on the thin line separating madness from sanity. When contemplating mad-houses, thinking it “strange [that] they are not larger,” he notes that “many minds must tremble upon the narrow boundary between reason and unreason, mad to-day and sane to-morrow, mad yesterday and sane to-day” (206). The blurring lines between sanity and insanity, or ordinary and sensational, make it harder for Robert to distinguish between the two as mutually exclusive.

As Robert realizes that Lady Audley’s beauty and charm have concealed her true identity and the manipulations necessary to maintain this identity, he often contemplates upon the nature of women and feminine roles in society. Throughout Volume II, these musings not only exhibit aspects of Robert’s own misogyny, but also demonstrate an inherent fear towards powerful (or violent) women that seem to be present in much of the sensation genre. The fear of women asserting their own power and agency betrays Robert’s own fears of women upending society itself. He litters his narrative with long meditations on the true nature of women, the fallacy of calling women the “weaker sex,” and his own desires that women would remain “silent.” In Chapter VI, he explicitly states that he “hate[s] women” because they are “invented for the annoyance and destruction of their superiors” (208). Further, he acknowledges, both fearfully and scornfully, the power of women to influence men and society. He states:

They don’t know what it is to be quiet. They are Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joan of Arcs, Queen Elizabeths, and Catharine the Seconds, and they riot in battle, and murder, and clamour, and desperation. If they can’t agitate the universe and play at ball with hemispheres, they’ll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of domestic molehills; and social storms in household teacups […] To call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery. They are the stronger sex, the noisier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex […] Let them be lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers, soldiers, legislators – anything they like – but let them be quiet – if they can. (208)

This appraisal of womanly power continues in Chapter VII during Robert’s careful scrutiny of Lady Audley as she makes tea. He describes the act as that of “witchery” and the “magic harmony” of a “social fairy,” implying an almost magical or supernatural quality to his uncle’s wife (222). He asserts:

Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea […] At the tea-table she reigns omnipotent, unapproachable. What do men know of the mysterious beverage? […] To do away with the tea-table is to rob woman of her legitimate empire […] Better the pretty influence of the teacups and saucers gracefully wielded in a woman’s hand, than all the inappropriate power snatched at the point of the pen from the unwilling sterner sex. (222)

Robert’s perception of Lady Audley and societal expectations of women are fascinating in light of the sensation genre’s reliance on women as perpetrators of crime and deceit. His musings expose an uneasiness at the idea that, were it not for the “tea-table” and the societal superiority given to men, women would have the innate power to influence and lord over every aspect of political, social, and domestic life. Lady Audley ultimately abandons her duty as a wife and mother to George Talboys and their son, upending societal expectations in order to pursue a life of comfort and wealth. Her beauty, charm, and cleverness become more than ideal aspects of femininity; rather, they become tools that enable her to climb social ranks, escape societal restrictions, and deceive those around her. Thus, Robert’s restless efforts to uncover her secrets not only stem from the desire to find George, but also reveal a desire to seek “justice” for Lady Audley’s own transgression against societal norms. Lady Audley unnerves Robert because of her unflinching defiance towards his prying curiosity and suspicion; once he pieces together her culpability in George’s disappearance, he recognizes power and strength behind Lady Audley’s facade of delicate, feeble, or innocent femininity.