Lucy Audley’s power as the female head of a household is underlined with an allusion and some powerful scent imagery in this passage from Volume 2, Chapter 7:
Surely a pretty woman never looks prettier than when making tea [...] [it] imparts a magic harmony to her every movement, a witchery to her glance. The floating mists from the boiling liquid in which she infuses the soothing herbs; whose secrets are known to her alone, envelope her in a cloud of scented vapor, through which she seems a social fairy, weaving potent spells with Gunpowder and Bohea. At the tea-table she reigns omnipotent, unapproachable.
Social tea-drinking was a regular ritual in Victorian households in England, and the invitation to take tea with someone was also an invitation to share secrets and various intimacies. This passage emphasizes the preparation of tea and its association with social power, particularly for the person hosting the event. The author employs scent imagery to evoke a sense of mystery and allure surrounding the act of brewing tea. The steam and mist of the tea are described as "evocative and mysterious" and as having the power to "weave spells." The reader can almost smell and feel the heat and fragrance of the vapors rising from the steaming hot liquids. This imagery enhances the significance of tea preparation in the narrative. In Braddon's England, it is not just an empty social nicety, but a mystical ritual that women preside over. Like many things at Audley Court, it’s an everyday act that is tinged with the supernatural.
What's more, Braddon also makes an allusion to the mystical-sounding substances "Gunpowder" and "Bohea" in this segment. These sound mysterious and esoteric but are, in fact, just types of expensive imported tea. This allusion would be significant to cultured and wealthy readers, who would have understood the reference. People who didn’t consume this kind of product, however, might also usefully read Lucy’s potion-making with mysterious ingredients as a way to coax people into sharing secrets. The passage highlights the role of tea in the novel and Victorian culture as a symbol of social influence and control. This is especially so when it’s in the hands of Lucy, a “social fairy” who becomes “omnipotent” and “unapproachable” when she’s behind the tea-pot.
In this passage from Lady Audley's Secret, the author makes an allusion to William Shakespeare's play Macbeth, as Robert chastises Lucy for withholding information from him. Braddon makes this reference to draw a parallel between Lucy’s situation (as she tries to deny crimes she thinks she has committed) and a similar situation that Macbeth’s wife finds herself embroiled in. This moment underscores the novel’s central undercurrent of guilt, and its psychological consequences:
"Do you remember what Macbeth tells his physician, my lady?" asked Robert, gravely. "Mr. Dawson may be very much more clever than the Scottish leech, but I doubt if even he can minister to the mind that is diseased [...] all the medicines your doctor can prescribe are only so much physic that might as well be thrown to the dogs."
This reference to Macbeth is not general or incidental; it's a deliberate evocation of Act 5, Scene 3 of the Scottish Play. In this scene, Macbeth confronts his physician about the mental affliction that seems to be plaguing Lady Macbeth. Macbeth asks the doctor if he can truly "minister to a mind diseased?" This line in the play refers to the fact that Lady Macbeth is being driven mad by guilt for her role in assassinating Duncan, the previous King of Scotland. The allusion speaks to the limitations of medicine in curing psychological disturbances, especially as Robert believes that Lucy isn’t “nervous” but guilty.
In Lady Audley’s Secret, Robert's invocation of this specific scene in Macbeth serves to tacitly communicate his suspicions about Lady Audley. By drawing a parallel to Lady Macbeth's psychological descent—which is widely understood to be a manifestation of her guilt, as she tries to scrub invisible blood from her hands—Robert implies he believes Lady Audley is similarly plagued by post-murder remorse. Through the reference, he is tacitly suggesting that her claim of mere "nervousness" is just an attempt to cover her tracks. His comment about throwing “physic” (medicine) to the dogs also implies that he doesn’t think anything a doctor could do would help her. Only telling the truth will assuage her guilt, in his opinion.
In this passage, Robert Audley contemplates Lucy's actions after discovering certain facts, leading him to make an allusion to Eve's sins in the Garden of Eden. In this passage, he reflects on what he understands to be the potential for deceit that all women possess:
I do not say that Robert Audley was a coward, but I will admit that a shiver of horror, something akin to fear, chilled him to the heart as he remembered the horrible things that have been done by women since that day upon which Eve was created to be Adam's companion and help-meet in the garden of Eden.
Here, the narrator alludes to the Christian Bible and its story of the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. This story appears in the Book of Genesis, and describes the two first humans defying the word of God by eating an apple from the Tree of Knowledge. Eve was tempted to eat the apple by a snake, who—according to Christian interpretation—was the Devil in disguise. She then told Adam to try one, and after he had done so, the two humans were cast out of Eden forever. This ancient narrative is the basis for many associations of women with evil, temptation, and sexuality in popular culture.
As Robert thinks about the events that are transpiring with Lucy, he draws parallels between her and Eve. They are both women he believes have the power to seduce and tempt people. The implication here is that Robert thinks Lucy's actions are morally corrupt. This also aligns with Victorian-era attitudes about women exceeding their prescribed roles. Robert's contemplation of Lucy's beauty and deceptiveness reflects the discomfort that some men of his time may have felt when faced with the new and more empowered roles women were beginning to occupy in society. The allusion to Eve that Braddon makes here suggests that Lucy's selfish actions could potentially carry consequences similar to those of Eve, although on a smaller scale. Because of her behavior, she might be "cast out" of Audley Court like Eve was from Eden. It also speaks to Robert’s implicit assumptions about women, an important factor in his decision-making throughout Lady Audley's Secret.
Toward the end of the novel, Lady Audley is deeply uneasy amidst her many luxuries. This is because her enemies aren’t yet totally crushed. Her desire for revenge and loss of interest in the trappings of wealth is highlighted by her discomfort with her fancy possessions. These are briefly alluded to and then ironically dismissed as "bric-a-brac" in the following passage:
My lady shivered and looked round at the bright collection of bric-a-brac, as if the Sèvres and bronze, the buhl and ormolu, had been the moldering adornments of some ruined castle.
Lucy is sitting in her private rooms reflecting on the fact that nothing that she has makes her happy anymore. She believes she can only be content if the people she hates, like Robert Audley, are destroyed. The author emphasizes her disengagement from her surroundings through an allusion to "Sèvres" and "buhl and ormolu." These references allude to expensive, imported china and decorations. These would have been difficult and extremely costly to acquire, and as such were considered exotic and fashionable during the Victorian period. This allusion points to the idea that Lady Audley's inherited wealth and exclusive access to luxurious items has become so normalized to her that it’s no longer enough to sustain her happiness. It also points to the cultural significance of these items during the Victorian era, highlighting the opulence and social status associated with them. The fact that she might as well be in “some ruined castle” when she is surrounded by all her treasures speaks to the degradation her personality has undergone. She now only lives to hurt people.
The passage is also rife with situational irony. Lucy has lied, stolen and (she believes) murdered in order to obtain luxury and escape poverty forever. However, now that she has so many of them, the signifiers of wealth and opulence that she might have once craved now seem meaningless to her. The most expensive items are dismissed as mere "bric-a-brac." What would amount to a fortune to anyone less wealthy seems like nothing to her.
