Lady Audley’s Secret: Volume 3, Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Robert asks to speak to Lady Audley alone, and they go to the library. Robert tells her the Castle Inn burned to the ground. He escaped only by chance, since he found his designated room damp and chill and chose to sleep on a couch in the sitting-room. Robert knows Lady Audley set the fire, not caring who else she killed in the process. He says he will not show any mercy to her, only to her husband.

No one died in the fire. Robert slept lightly because of his worries. He woke up in time to save Luke, but not before Luke was horribly burned. Afterwards, Luke and Phoebe told Robert that Lady Audley had visited the inn that night.

Robert says while before he wondered how such a beautiful woman could murder George, he doesn’t wonder now. He knows Lady Audley is capable of any evil deed. Unless she confesses, he will gather witnesses who can reveal her identity and will see her punished for her crime.

Lady Audley tells Robert to bring Sir Michael in, because Robert has won. She then says that he has conquered a mad woman. She claims managing her insanity has always been a delicate balancing act and when George distressed her, as Robert is distressing her now, she killed him. She asks again for Sir Michael so that she may tell him her life’s “secret.”

Robert goes to Sir Michael, telling him that Lady Audley has deceived him and now wishes to make her confession. Sir Michael goes into the library, saying, “‘Tell me that this man is a madman! Tell me so, my love, or I shall kill him!’” Lady Audley falls at his feet and apologizes. She says he has been good to her, but that she cannot sympathize with others because her own misery is so great.

Lady Audley tells the story of her life. She grew up without her mother. She lived in a lonely village with a caretaker she hated. She rarely saw her father and learned early on “what it was to be poor.”

As a child, Lady Audley kept asking where her mother was, but only heard that she was ill and away. In a moment of anger, her caretaker told her that her mother was a madwoman and lived in a mad-house. Imagines of her mother, violent and decrepit, haunted Lady Audley. In her dreams, her mother killed her.

When Lady Audley was 10 years old, her father returned to take her to school, but she had already felt “the bitterness of poverty.” Sir Michael listens to this story in shock, as it is completely different from the previous backstory Lady Audley told him.

Lady Audley says she told her father she knew about her mother. Captain Maldon loved his wife dearly and would have cared for her if he didn’t have to work for a living. Lady Audley takes this situation as another example of the cruelties of poverty.

Lady Audley continues to tell the story of her past. Before she went to school, Captain Maldon took Lady Audley to see her mother. Instead of a raving maniac, her mother appeared to be a “golden-haired, blue-eyed, girlish creature, who seemed as frivolous as a butterfly.” Lady Audley furthers notes that her mother inherited her madness from her own mother (Lady Audley’s grandmother), who died mad. Lady Audley’s mother seemed sane before Lady Audley’s birth, but afterward her sanity declined.

Lady Audley had to keep her mother’s madness a secret, and that secret made her selfish and heartless. As she got older, others told her she was beautiful. Even though she had been cursed with her mother’s madness, she realized her beauty could be used to make an advantageous marriage.

At seventeen, Lady Audley moved in with her now retired father in a remote town. She grew impatient while waiting for a rich husband. She says Robert and Sir Michael have been rich their whole lives, so they cannot know how poverty impacts one’s life.

Finally, a rich suitor arrived. His name was George Talboys (at this name, Sir Michael starts). George fell in love with Lady Audley and she loved him as much as someone like her could. She loved Sir Michael more, however, since he elevated her status even more than George.

Sir Michael’s romantic image of courting his wife shatters with this story. He remembers the “vague feeling of loss and disappointment which had come upon him on the summer’s night of his betrothal,” but he never fully believed that Lady Audley could marry him solely for his wealth and status.

Lady Audley says that after she and George married, they traveled Europe together. When they came back to live with her father, however, George had run out of money and neglected his wife because he was depressed at their situation. She “begged George to appeal to his father; but he refused,” and she “persuaded him to try and get employment,” but he didn’t succeed. She gave birth to their son and “the crisis which had been fatal to my mother arose for me.” Lady Audley recovered but was more irritable than before. She called George cruel for dooming her to a life of poverty. He ran away, and left her a letter saying he went to Australia and wouldn’t return until he was a rich man.

Lady Audley resented George for leaving her in poverty, having to labor even though George’s father was rich. She didn’t love her son because he was only a burden to her. She began to have “fits of violence and despair” indicative of madness. She saw that her father recognized the madness she was feeling. She decided to run away from “this wretched home which [her] slavery supported” and go to London.

Lady Audley went to Mrs. Vincent after reading the school mistress’s advertisement for a teacher in the newspaper. She came up with the fake name of Lucy Graham. When she came to Essex and Sir Michael proposed, she felt she had fulfilled the ambition she’d had ever since she first realized her beauty. Three years had passed by that point, and she heard nothing from her first husband. For all she knew, George was dead or at least separated from her forever, so she agreed to marry Sir Michael with every intention to be a worthy wife. She remained faithful, despite all the men who desired her.

Lady Audley says she delighted in her new status and was grateful to Sir Michael. She donated to the less fortunate, empathizing with them since she was once poor. She sent money to her father anonymously. She would have been kind and generous all her life if fate had not intervened. She believed that she could keep her madness in check without anyone in her new life noticing.

Lady Audley then saw an announcement in the paper saying George was coming home. She realized that unless George believed she was dead, he would never stop searching for her. Again, Lady Audley felt herself sink into madness. She went to meet her father in Southampton and together they conspired to announce Helen Talboys’s death in the newspaper. They realized they needed details of time and place for the announcement in order to convince George, due to his determination and hope.

Captain Maldon broke down in tears due to his anxiety over George. Lady Audley sat down to play with her son, who viewed her as a stranger. When the child’s caretaker Mrs. Plowson came in, Lady Audley took her aside to ensure the child was well-treated. Then Lady Audley learned that this pale-faced, blonde-haired, short woman had a dying daughter. Suddenly, Lady Audley had the idea to use Mrs. Plowson and her daughter Matilda in her scheme.

Lady Audley visited Matilda and confirmed she bore a passing resemblance to herself. Lady Audley bribed Mrs. Plowson and then instructed Maldon to find lodgings and a doctor while referring to Matilda as his daughter, “Mrs. Talboys.” When Matilda died, Maldon buried her under the name of Helen Talboys.

Sir Michael says he cannot listen anymore. He tells Robert to arrange to provide for the woman he once loved. He cannot bear to say goodbye to her, and makes plans to leave Essex.