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Volume 2, Chapter 11
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lady Audley’s Secret, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Women and Power in Victorian England
Appearances and Deception
Poverty and Wealth
Madness
Summary
Analysis
Lady Audley goes into the library to see Sir Michael, who loves her purely and generously. Sir Michael asks what Lady Audley has been doing since she came home an hour ago. She says that Robert was talking to her but then he suddenly ran off. Sir Michael remarks that Robert must be half-mad, but in truth, Sir Michael only believes his good-natured nephew to be a little incompetent because of his idleness. Lady Audley sees an opportunity to change this opinion and sits down at Sir Michael’s feet.
The purity of Sir Michael’s love contrasts with Lady Audley’s manipulation. Lady Audley sitting at Sir Michael’s feet suggests the submissiveness that Victorian society expected of wives. The reader knows Lady Audley is only pretending to be submissive, when in reality she intends to use her influence over her husband to change his opinion of Robert for her own self-interest.
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Lady Audley begins to cry, worrying Sir Michael. The very real anguish Lady Audley feels overcomes her and she cannot speak. Her agony moves Sir Michael to the point where he would do anything for her. With much difficulty, Lady Audley says Robert talked to her about horrible subjects and must have inherited madness. Sir Michael says Robert’s family has no madness, but Lady Audley says his mother’s family could have kept hereditary madness a secret.
Again, strong emotion overcomes Lady Audley’s deceptive appearance. One might almost feel sympathy for her agony, if she didn’t then accuse a sane man of madness for her own gain. Ironically, Lady Audley accuses Robert’s family of hiding madness when, as we later learn, her own family hid her mother’s madness.
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Lady Audley argues that Robert must have lived alone for too long and read too many novels. She says people can hide their madness for years before they are overcome by their insanity and commit some violent crime. She declares Robert is mad because he thinks George was murdered at Audley Court.
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Sir Michael is shocked and says he will go to Mount Stanning to determine whether or not Robert is mad. Lady Audley says usually a stranger identifies the first signs of madness in a person. Then she says Sir Michael must not go because he was recently ill.
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Sir Michael says Robert will come visit tomorrow. He adds that he really doesn’t believe that Robert is mad. Robert may just be saying such outlandish ideas because everyone struggles to understand the tragedies that fall upon others. He says Lady Audley doesn’t have to see Robert if she doesn’t want to.
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Lady Audley says Robert accused her of being involved in George’s disappearance. Sir Michael finally agrees that Robert must be mad, and says he will send someone to Mount Stanning to talk to him. Lady Audley makes Sir Michael promise that he will never be influenced against his own wife. She leaves the room, certain that she has turned the tables on Robert.
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