Then Sir Michael offers to kill Robert, which Lucy doesn’t take him up on (fair enough); he tells her to tell him that Robert’s crazy, which Lucy also doesn’t take him up on, and that is nuts. Seriously, Lucy. You have laid so much unsubtle groundwork and now you’re just going to walk away? What is this? I don’t know what he’s talking about! My maid will swear that she was with me in my bedroom until very late with a bad headache! Fetch her here and I’ll ask her! How could he accuse me of such a thing?

Also, like, again, I think Lady Audley should really emphasize that she thought George was dead on account of THAT HE ABANDONED HER. George can’t just wander off whenever he feels like it and be like “Talk in a few years when I’m rich!” That is not an acceptable marital strategy! Poor old Lady Audley just had the misfortune to be born before all the marriage reform laws started kicking into high gear.

Another person who needs to shut up: Robert.

I fear that, even sitting by that desolate hearth, and beneath the roof whose noble was an exile from his own house, Robert Audley was weak enough to think of these things—weak enough to let his fancy wander away to the dismal fir-trees under the cold March sky, and the dark-brown eyes that were so like the eyes of his lost friend.

OH MY GOD, ROBERT.

But I’m glad that Lady Audley makes Robert listen to the story of that time that she killed George. I read that story twice. It’s not that I think Lady Audley was right to kill George, but I have just come to hate Robert so much that any suffering for Robert makes me happy.

Another way that Robert is awful is this contemplation of whether he should tell Clara that George is dead:

How many lies he should have to tell, or how much equivocation he must use in order to keep the truth from her? Yet would there be any mercy in telling that horrible story, the knowledge of which must cast a blight upon her youth, and blot out every hope she had even secretly cherished?

Remember at the beginning when Robert didn’t care about anything and we all liked him? I wish we had not had to discover that Robert is just the worst. I wish Robert would fall in a well. I wish Clara would push Robert in a well. I wish that Clara would find out George was dead, ask Robert why he didn’t tell her, receive this line of bullshit from Robert, and then tell him it’s bullshit and push him down a well. And then go off to the Continent.

Doesn’t matter, though. Ultimately these feelings were all pushed out of my brain. The final revelation is too much for me. It did me in at last. I had to lie down on the floor and scream with laughter. George is legitimately not down a well dead forever; he’s legitimately in Australia. Well, friends, I did not see that coming, and I am not too happy about it. And then wait, the book just ends? That’s the end? George is alive, the end?

Nobody dies?

Zero people die? Except I guess Luke, and he doesn’t even die from the fire? WHAT KIND OF SENSATION NOVEL IS THIS?

I have to say, I was much more enamored of y’all in this readalong than I was enamored of the book. The thing at the end where George isn’t dead after all was a legitimate surprise, but everything else was kinda dumb and predictable, and it’s stupid to have Lady Audley’s other big secret to be that her mother was crazy, when that secret doesn’t go anywhere. And also, I wanted George to be dead. It was funnier when George was dead.

The post Lady Audley’s Super Secret Readalong, Final Installment: In which everyone needs to shut up appeared first on Reading the End.

“I am weary of my life here, and wish, if I can, to find a new one. I go out into the world, dissevered from every link which binds me to the hateful past, to seek another home and another fortune. Forgive me if I have been fretful, capricious, changeable. You should forgive me, for you know why I have been so. You know the secret which is the key to my life.”–Helen Talboys

So she already had a secret before she ever went out to be a teacher and governess? All right, Lady Audley, you have my attention again. You apparently have two secrets: bigamy and something else. Since I figured out the bigamy one in the second chapter, I’m hoping the second secret is slightly better concealed and more suspensefully revealed, but my hopes — I’ll be honest — are not that high.

Also, damn, Robert’s investigations indicate that Lady Audley has led quite the itinerant existence. She never stays in one place more than twenty seconds before she’s off to someplace else.

Upon returning to Audley Court (by the way, I lived in Essex for a year*, which is where Audley Court is located, and it’s fun for me to see all the place names. Chelmsford! I used to go see movies there! Colchester! My old stomping grounds!), Robert hears the heavenly strains of heavenly organ music from heaven. And who should be playing it but CLARA TALBOYS!

Robert’s all, “What am I in the hands of this woman, who has my lost friend’s face and the manner of Pallas Athene.” Shut up, Robert.

I’ve spent a lot of this section imagining an alternate version of the story in which George actually has “taken it into his head to keep out of [Robert’s] way for a few months,” as Lady Audley suggests. Like, George doesn’t want to be this guy?

And he’s trying to let Robert down easy? But instead of taking it like a man, Robert goes insane with this conspiracy idea that his uncle’s pretty young wife murdered George, and he wanders about finding insane evidence to prove it. And he eventually kills Lady Audley even though she’s innocent, and George comes back from Australia to gaze sadly at the graves of people he could have saved if he’d just been straight with Robert about being straight. That would be the, like, Golden Age Detective Story version, where any gay characters have to come to bad ends or go insane or both.

“When my friend, George Talboys, returned to England,” Robert began, gravely, “the thought which was uppermost in his mind was the thought of his wife.”

 

“Whom he had deserted,” said my lady, quickly.

Again: REALLY GOOD POINT. I feel like Robert isn’t paying enough attention to this important point, but let’s not lose track of it ourselves.

Anyway, the section ends with Lady Audley trying to burn down Luke’s inn with Luke and Robert inside (she’s like, “Oh Phoebe! You don’t want that unpleasant husband anyway!”), but then when she comes down from her bedroom in the hope of learning that Robert Audley has been burnt to a crisp,  who do you think awaits her in the entry hall? ROBERT AUDLEY. NOT DEAD YET. Cue dramatic music.

*Footnote for British people: Let me go ahead and preempt whatever joke you want to make right now about Essex girls being slags. I HAVE HEARD THEM ALL. And if you are too courteous to make those jokes, just know that I still know that you’re thinking about Essex girls being slags. I can tell from your face. I always eventually say, “I know. Essex girls are slags, I know,” and then you always look happy to be relieved of the responsibility of notifying me about regional stereotypes.

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In the first chapter of this segment of readalong, Robert gets chucked out of the Audley house for paying too much attention to Lady Audley. Here is Braddon’s representation of how the conversation went down. I, um, it sounds like Sir Audley could have minced his words a little bit more.

Sir Michael Audley told his nephew that the Court was no home for him, and that my lady was too young and pretty to accept the attentions of a handsome nephew of eight-and-twenty.

Deprived of the ability to spend all day saying “I know what you did” to Lady Audley, Robert hies himself to Phoebe and Luke’s inn so that he can spend all day saying “I know what you did” to Phoebe and Luke. This seems like particularly hard luck on poor little Phoebe, who really has done very little wrong, but who is now implicated in a blackmail scheme, and who probably also knows that George is down a well.

Anyway, Lady Audley comes to visit Robert at the inn, giving him the opportunity to tip his hand by explaining how he intends to reveal her infamy. This is foolish of Robert. Lady Audley may be babyish and prone to fainting, but she has shown herself to be not-terrible at covering her tracks. She takes off for London and either steals George’s letters or arranges for them to be stolen. It’s not clear yet how she manages this.

Robert goes to question the locksmith who apparently changed one of his locks (?at Lucy’s bequest? ?after Lucy broke the locks when she broke in herself?). The guy doesn’t know anything, but Robert does take the opportunity to make a posh-lad-sneery face at his having a drink in the middle of the day. Then he goes to George’s father-in-law’s place to organize schooling for George’s son (fuckin finally — it has been bothering me all along that the child is living in this ridiculous situation), whereupon he makes another posh-lad-sneery face at George’s father-in-law for drinking, then takes Little Georgey out to get him started on a raging alcohol dependency.

[Little Georgey] drank Bass’ pale ale to an extent which considerably alarmed his entertainer, and enjoyed himself amazingly, showing an appreciation of roast pheasant and bread-sauce which was beyond his years.

How shocked am I supposed to be about this? Did little kids drink beer all the time back then, or does it bother Robert to see the child for whom he is now responsible downing pints?

Anyway, the section ends with Robert meeting the Society-Approved-George-Talboys-Proxy that he can marry at the end of the book. (I guess this means Alicia will relent and marry Lord Harry after all.) It’s George’s sister! He has a sister who looks just like him! Robert thinks she’s beautiful!

PS this doesn’t really apply to us right now, but I wanted to share it with you anyway because it rocks: How to Tell You’re Reading a Gothic Novel.

The post Lady Audley’s Super Secret Readalong: In which I learn the word “conge” appeared first on Reading the End.

In the face of George’s new deadness disappearance, Robert forgets about his crush on Lady Audley and realizes that George Talboys was his true love all along, and that he must track him down wherever he is and declare his love for him. (This isn’t directly stated, but I’m very attentive to subtext; it’s one of my many strengths as a reader.) Sorry, Robert, your forbidden love is forbidden! It’s forbidden by the Offences against the Person Act, but also because George is for sure dead at the bottom of a well right now.

Again, though, all the respect for Lady Audley’s remarkable cool. It seems obvious that she killed a guy this morning, but here she is chattering with her husband and his guest at dinner about how bad she is at carving up pheasant.

Lucy/Helen’s father alibis her out. Wait, is that one of the errands Phoebe ran, to send the telegram to the father telling him what to say to the authorities or anyone who asked? Because I’ve been assuming Lucy well-dumped George as a crime of passion — they quarreled, he wouldn’t consent to leave her in peace to her bigamy, so she pushed him down a well. This new information makes it seem like Lucy cold-bloodedly planned to murder George in a well all along, as soon as she heard he was in town. THAT IS INSANE, LUCY.

Alternate solution: Lucy gives her father a whole bunch of money to take her kid to Australia/America/Scotland. George would follow them, surely, in order to stay in touch with the son? That would be a much safer, less murdery plan.

The section ends with Robert telling Lady Audley in coded terms that this is a very nice life she has here with Lord Audley and it would be a shame if anything should happen to this life. Lady Audley faints. I retract everything I ever said about her being a cool customer. You jerk, Lady Audley. First you say this to my girl Alicia:

“Why, I can’t help smiling at people, and speaking prettily to them. I know I’m no better than the rest of the world; but I can’t help it if I’m pleasanter. It’s constitutional.”

And now you BRING UP THE SUBJECT OF THE GUY YOU MURDERED to Robert, and when Robert gives you the side-eye, YOU FAINT? Keep it together, woman!

The post Lady Audley: Not quite as cool about her secret as I initially thought appeared first on Reading the End.

Have we already established the number of readalong participants whose awareness of Lady Audley’s Secret prior to this readalong was limited to / originated from that time Tacy’s father burned the copy of it that Betsy had borrowed from her maid and lent to Tacy? If not, can I get a show of hands in the comments? & some critical remarks about Mr. Kelly and what a huge jerk he is?

My predictions based on the first nine chapters are as follows:

1) Lucy is definitely Helen Talboys. She’s going to turn out to be much more evil than just wanted to marry bigamously, because duh, only an unnatural mother would abandon her child in such a way. The appropriate Victorian attitude toward motherhood is this one:

2) Robert realizes his true love for Alicia. Poor old Alicia. I sympathize with her. She’s got this rotten stepmother who everyone else thinks is smashing because she looks like a pretty dolly, but who is SECRETLY A WICKED BIGAMIST (see Prediction #1), and Alicia’s the only one who can see through her.

Plus, Alicia’s crush, Robert, thinks Lady Audley is the prettiest lady he’s even seen, and says so to Alicia like twelve times. Get a grip, Robert. Lady Audley is a wicked woman and an unnatural mother.

(“Unnatural mother” is a funny phrase to me, and I’m going to say it as often as possible in this readalong.)

(To be clear, I like Lady Audley. Why shouldn’t she try to improve her station in life after her husband has been MIA for three years? I think she is an awesomely cool customer also — I’d be much more jittery about George’s visit if I were she. She just sits in her carriage, as cool as a cucumber, and figures out how to to avoid him.)

3) Someone gets pushed down the well. Braddon has talked about the well way too much for somebody not to get pushed down it. In case you have forgotten about the well, can I quickly remind you of a few things? a) There is a well. b) It is semi-hidden amidst a big cluster of weeds. c) It is broken and nobody uses it. For sure, somebody goes into that well at some point.

4) Phoebe blackmails Lady Audley with that baby shoe she found. And maybe she gets pushed down the well. Poor Phoebe.

Here are some things that I would like to see happen but I know they won’t:

1) Somebody remarks upon what a whiny little fart George is. I’m not talking about when he’s in mourning, because, okay, once you’ve lost your wife, you get a little bit of leeway on the moping. But we have evidence that George was terrible long before he got some bad news about the wife, namely this business from when he was a-sailing home.

Would it be in ten days, in eleven, in twelve, in thirteen? Was the wind favorable? How many knots an hour was the vessel doing? Then a sudden passion would sieze him, and he would stamp upon the deck, crying out that she was a rickety old craft, and that her owners were swindlers to advertise her as the fast-sailing Argus. She was not fit for passenger traffic; she was not fit to carry impatient living creatures, with hearts and souls; she was fit for nothing but to be laden with bales of stupid wool, that might rot on the sea and be none the worse for it.

STFU, George. The sailors are doing their best. It’s not their fault you didn’t write a single letter to your supposedly beloved wife for three entire years. I hope you are the one to fall down the well.

2) Lady Audley gets away with it and lives happily ever after. Probably not, though. I feel like the best outcome for such an unnatural mother in a work of Victorian fiction is that she takes the easy way out by flinging herself down the well, once her bigamy has been uncovered and prosecuted. :/

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