Lady Audley's Secret

Physical descriptions of character in Lady Audley’s Secret mix together physiognomy and narratorial information on personality. The physical description of one of the main characters, Robert Audley, is simply, “He was a handsome, lazy, care-for-nothing fellow, of about seven and twenty,” while that of George Talboys consists, for the most part, of:
“He was a young man of about five-and-twenty, with a dark face, bronzed by exposure to the sun; he had handsome brown eyes, with a feminine smile in them, that sparkled through his black lashes, and a bushy beard and moustache that covered the whole of the lower part of his face. He was tall, and powerfully built; he wore a loose grey suit, and a felt hat, thrown carelessly upon his black hair.”

(Braddon 32, 17).
These rather important physical descriptions lack the characterization provided for characters of similar narrative importance in Jane Eyre. However, Robert Audley goes through a great journey of self-discovery throughout the novel, so if his inherent characteristics were introduced so early, it might either prove the science false, or discredit his development. In contrast to these meagrely described main characters, minor characters such as Harcourt Talboys are subjected to nearly Brontean levels of physiognomical description:
“[Harcourt Talboys] was a man of about fifty years of age, tall, straight, bony, and angular, with a square, pale face, light grey eyes, and scanty dark hair, brushed from either ear across a bald crown, and thus imparting to his physiognomy some faint resemblance of a terrier--a sharp, uncompromising, hard-headed terrier--- a terrier not to be taken in by the cleverest dog-stealer who ever distinguished himself in his profession.” (Braddon 155)
This description heavily echoes Bronte, although still abandons true physiognomical rules and straight physical description in lieu of more narratorial commentary on personality. Instead of insinuating that George’s father might be the sort with a hard mouth or cold eyes, Braddon instead uses this very descriptive terrier metaphor to accomplish most of the characterization in this excerpt. However, Braddon makes it clear how important facial features can be when Dr. Mosgrave visits Audley Court and encounters Robert before learning that his patient is instead Lady Audley: “‘He is wondering whether I am the patient,’ thought Mr Audley, ‘and is looking for the diagnoses of madness in my face’” (Braddon 319).
Braddon also uses physical description, with many references to physiognomic rules, to build up and draw out the mystery plot of Lady Audley’s Secret.

The plot revolves around the major theme of actual versus assumed truth, especially when applied to physical appearance. Lady Audley herself admits on page 252 that her own discovery of her beauty was the beginning of her downfall, and that she learned to use it to her advantage at a quite early age. From that early age, Lady Audley learned to cultivate a certain appearance that she used to take advantage of other’s assumptions that her childish features and almost angelic beauty correlated directly with her personality. Special attention is given to her hair, the “most wonderful curls in the world--soft and feathery, always floating away from her face, and making a pale halo round her head when the sunlight shone through them” (Braddon 13). Lady Audley’s golden hair and clear blue eyes are incredibly feminine, as Lavater points out that “people with light hair, if not effeminate, are yet, it is well known, of tender formation and constitution” and that “Blue eyes are. generally, more significant of weakness, effeminacy, and yielding, than brown and black” (Lavater 223, 384). Sir Michael could not “resist the tender fascination of those soft and melting blue eyes; the graceful beauty of that slender throat and drooping head, with its wealth of showering flaxen curls,” and is instantly beguiled by Lady Audley’s beauty--a

beauty that seems far too perfect to be exactly as it seems (Braddon 12). Her appearance leads to questions about the truth of her age on page 50, while on page 105, her eyes “seemed to flicker and tremble betwixt blue and green.” Lavater insists that man can do nothing to change the color of his eye, so this changeable color may lead the physiognomy savvy reader to question Lady Audley’s trustworthiness, and as a warning: “green [in the eyes] is almost a decisive token of ardour, fire, and courage,” not necessarily something that one hopes to see in the eyes of a probably murderer (84, 384). The changeability of her features make her uncanny; this feeling grows stronger as certain things that logically should have an effect on her features do not, such as the cold winter weather: “Other people’s noses are rudely assailed by the sharp fingers of the grim ice-king, but not my lady’s; other people’s lips turn pale and blue with the chilling influence of the bitter weather, but my lady’s pretty little rosebud of a mouth retained its brightest colouring and cheeriest freshness” (Braddon 121). While Lady Audley is beautiful and innocent-looking, there are hints hidden in her physical descriptions that can signal to the reader from early in the novel that she may be more than she appears. On pages 54-55, Lady Audley advises Phoebe to color her hair and cheeks to appear more beautiful, as she is too sallow. Changing a feature such as hair color or complexion, which act as “decisive mark[s] of the temper and character” would cause a misrepresentation in one’s physiognomy, to manipulate the perceived reality and hide the actual (Lavater 84).
Lady Audley’s disguised sinister interior shows through in representations of her appearance, particularly in the pre-Raphaelite portrait:
“Yes; the painter must have been a pre-Raphaelite. No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have painted, hair by hair, those feathery masses of ringlets with every glimmer of gold, and every shadow of pale brown. No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have so exaggerated every attribute of that delicate face as to give a lurid lightness to the blonde complexion, and a strange, sinister light to the deep blue eyes. No one but a pre-Raphaelite could have given to that pretty pouting mouth the hard and almost wicked look it had in the portrait.
It was so like and yet unlike; it was as if you had burned strange-coloured fires before my lady’s face, and by their influence brought out new lines and expressions never seen in it before. The perfection of feature, the brilliancy of colouring, were there; but I suppose the painter had copied quaint mediaeval monstrosities until his brain had grown bewildered, for my lady, in his portrait of her, had something of the aspect of a beautiful fiend.” (Braddon 65)
In a revelation as influential as this scene, it is important to note that the fiend-like description of the portrait, while quite vivid, relies on symbolism and metaphor rather than physiognomic rules.

However, it embodies the spirit of physiognomy, in that representations of a face can truthfully show characteristics of the person that may not be immediately clear otherwise. This is especially true for the portrait, because it is the first obvious hint that there might be a dark side to Lady Audley. It is also an important moment because it subverts the concept that every small characteristic can be divined from external features; only through a painting and metaphorical language is it clear that perceived appearance may not correspond with actual

truth.
The Victorian era ensconced the heyday of the “science” of physiognomy, reintroduced from Classical literature by Johann Caspar Lavater in the late eighteenth century and remained popular through the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Physiognomy, now considered to be a pseudoscience, purports that the personality of a person can be divined from their external characteristics. A highly visual and symbolic “science,” physiognomy influenced many writers of the era, especially in their methods of characterization and thematic development. This is evident in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, where minor characters are largely described through their physiognomic traits rather than through dialogue or action. Bronte allows for more nuanced characterization in major characters, holding back key evidence or traits while letting out just enough information to build suspense, particularly leading up to the reveal of Bertha, Mr. Rochester’s first wife. In Lady Audley’s Secret, Mary Elizabeth Braddon uses many of the same techniques, although she puts greater emphasis on metaphor in physical description than physiognomic rules. However, Braddon’s approach is less straight-forward than Bronte’s, as she intentionally twists the reader’s expectations of the beautiful, innocent-looking Lady Audley. Both novels use character appearance to develop the theme of discord between perceived truth and actual truth, although they each approach it in a different manner. This theme utilizes Lavater’s ideas of physiognomy, while also subverting it and reader expectations to create suspense and satisfying plot twists which make the novels so compelling.