"It is more than a year since a black-edged letter, written upon foreign paper, came to Robert Audley, to announce the death of a certain Madame Taylor, who had expired peacefully ay Villebrumeuse, dying after a long illness, which Monsieur Val describes as a maladie de langueur" (Braddon 445).
While our class was in Madison on Tuesday, someone brought up the idea that perhaps Lady Audley was actually alive at the end of Lady Audley's Secret. This thought wormed it's way into my head and I began to think, "Why not?" As we know from previously in the text, Lady Audley has successfully faked her death before to change her life and circumstances and what would stop her now?
Before the conclusion of Lady Audley's Secret, Lady Audley confesses all of the things that she has done to keep her identity secret and to maintain the style of life that she has chosen for herself. For me that confession seemed like an ending of sorts - the secret was out and there was an answer for the mysteries that had been plaguing Robert Audley for most of the serial. Despite some of the confession being false (though Lady Audley thought that she'd killed George Talboys), we would never have know that Lady Audley was wrong.
What if the secret is that Lady Audley didn't die peacefully of an illness referred to as "maladie de langueur" or as the footnote points out "anemia or general fatigue?" Part of me wishes to believe that Braddon didn't leave it so cut and dry. The "general fatigue" or the "wasting disease" that Lady Audley purportedly died of was Braddon's way of saying that she grew tired of her situation and moved on to a different one. To me, dying just seems too tidy a thing.
Braddon concludes by saying, "I hope that no one will take objection to my story because the end of it leaves the good people all happy and at peace" (Braddon 446). What about the "bad?" Even if Braddon doesn't place Lady Audley in the "good" people category, perhaps Lady Audley isn't "at peace" because she still hasn't found the life or security that she has been searching for and she isn't dead (the idea of "rest in peace" as something we associate with the dead and being buried). Her presence still haunts Audley Court because she hasn't found the place that she's meant to be.
What do you think?
I really like the insight here that dying is just "too tidy a thing" for *Lady Audley's Secret*! Also, if being "bad" means being restless (rather than "at peace"), then it could certainly still suggest a kind of life--just a more unhappy and unsatisfied one!
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