“I cannot!” cried my lady, pushing her hair fiercely from her white forehead, and fixing her dilated eyes upon Robert Audley, “I cannot!” Has my beauty brought me to this? Have I plotted and schemed to shield myself, and laid awake in the long deadly nights trembling to think of my dangers, for this? I had better have given up at once, since this was to be the end. I had better have yielded to the curse that was upon me, and given up when George Talboys first came back to England.” page 384, volume III, chapter VI
Okay, there is a lot packed into this short paragraph. The italicized “cannot’s” and “this’s” I though at first to be signs of despair. Now, not so much.
This paragraph is about Lady Audley’s reaction to the madhouse that Robert has brought her to. Robert tells her she can spend the rest of her life here in this institution and repent for all her evil ways, as “many a good and holy woman in this Catholic country freely takes upon herself.”
Her repeated “I cannot!” might mean that she isn’t repentant, and will suffer the consequences of her sins in a madhouse, but in a version she didn’t know existed before her arrival here. When she was a young girl she visited her mother in a public sanitarium, a horrid, disgusting fate she fears for herself. But, unbeknownst to her, wealthy people don’t go to those kinds of places. What if she is really saying “BONUS!!!“? Remember? She packed up all of those beautiful things before she left Audley Court, and I thought that was really odd at the time. If you are going to be locked away somewhere, why bring all your “stuff”. Now it has a different meaning for me.
I think she’s thinking “Damn! If this is how I will live my life; in luxury, no plotting, no scheming, or looking over my shoulder for someone to out me, no fear of being thrown out of Audley Court to be a pauper again, I should have given up my secret a long time ago!!”. In this madhouse, she has everything she always wanted; to be taken care of, to cherish her possessions, and to be left alone. She has hit a jack pot. She might be locked in, but troublesome realities and the needs of other people, are locked out. There are no men she has to perform for, and on whose affection her desired lifestyle relies. She is finally free to be herself, by herself, free to be selfish and self-absorbed, and finally free of the iron mask that weighed her down with exhausting performances for others. She is now able to be herself, gloriously free of her manufactured identity.
I think this is a very interesting perspective. It does seem that Helen Talboys has finally gotten her wish of living peacefully in a comfortable place surrounded by her expensive luxurious things and so why wouldn’t she be happy in this sanitarium that is nothing like the mad house she saw her mother in. On the other hand though, there is nobody in this place who will dote on her or admire her beauty. Her one real treasure and advantage in life means nothing in this place. There can fall no lower, but she can not climb any higher either. She cannot hide secrets and play out vicious schemes that have become almost a game to her, despite the trouble they put her through. If Robert hadn’t been so adamant to figure her out, I believe she would have loved every second of her villainy. Finally, if the mad house had been her perfect freedom, I doubt she would have died there of what was described in the notes as “listlessness.” With nothing but her fortune and beauty – all she had ever wanted – Helen Talboys died of boredom.
A connection I made to this post was from Urbantactic’s post. They were discussing Lady Audley’s ability to move up in status and her lack of heart. This post sees the mad house as a good spot for Lady Audley. I would agree that it’s the best place for her but I think its best for everyone. In particular Sir Michael and his reputation. Putting Lady Audley in a mad house keeps her from causing more trouble in his life. It also prevents her from ruining his name and the way society views him. He is a well liked, and well known man and if the public found out his wife was a lying gold digger, people would likely think less of him.
This passage reminds me of my post I wrote about Lady Audley’s mask. On page 148, we learn that Lady Audley feels like she has always had to hide in public and has lead a double life. The audience can see from both of these passages that Lady Audley has lead this life for so long that it has taken such a toll on her. After breaking down in front of Robert in the room at Mount Stanning, to finally getting to be herself in the asylum, it seems that Lady Audley is ready to embrace the joys of being herself, even if that means she is locked up.
Many interesting perspectives have been cast upon Lady Audley and whether she will enjoy being alone with herself. It seems as if Lady Audley has no sense of remorse or guilt for all of her actions, but I would imagine that Lady Audley would be bored. She was been manipulating people her entire life, like a battle for the wealth she thinks she deserves. Even when married to Audley, she is still playing a charade. I think lots of boredom will ensue. Her obsession with her appearance will only grow as she ages and cannot watch herself in that process. Even though she no longer needs her beauty, her whole life it has been her ticket to wealth. In theory, she will be very happy with this lifestyle, like mentioned in the original post, but Lady Audley is too complex a woman to be content with what she has
Having Lady Audley institutionalized at the end of the novel provides the ultimate satisfaction as punishment for her crimes rather than having her end up dead. In our time, when some lunatic shoots up XYZ and ends up behind bars, their fate is ultimately the death penalty, which personally I don’t feel is true justice.
Justice, being the primary motivator behind Robert’s actions as he attempts to unravel Lady Audley’s secret (see what I did there?) For someone who committed as heinous an act as murder, the death penalty is getting off easy. Justice is a life of insanity-inducing self-reflection on the atrocities committed.
As the reader, we are are aware of some of the lengths Lady Audley has gone to cover her tracks, whether her manipulation of people through smooth talking, or locking Robert’s door and setting fire to the Castle Inn. Actions like this make us despise and pity her, we want justice just as much as Robert, possibly even to an extent that some migh seem sadistic.
This wish is granted in the appearance of the sanitorium that Lady Audley will spend her remaining years, and it is oh so satisfying. The lobby is described as being “paved with alternate diamonds of black and white marble, but of a dismal cellarlike darkness; a sloon furnished with gloomy velvet draperies, and with a certain funereal splendour” (381). The irony of Lady Audley’s fate being that she was a beautiful wretch who surrounded herself with exquisite décor to mask her lies and inward appearance and must now spend her remaining years in an asylum that attempts to mask its own function by deceptive beauty. No matter how expensive the furnishings are, whether they be velvet or marble, they still can’t hide the melancholy atmosphere of being locked away, and are only used to make the patients feel more at comfortable. To Lady Audley, however, this is even more insulting due to the circumstances of her living before being locked away.