That is the question.
In The Woman in White the female characters were cast in a more typical light. But then in Lady Audley's Secret the leading female character’s went from follower to leader, angel to devil, victim to villian. Lady Audley was manipulating those around her and every action was for her own selfish purposes while Laura dutifully did as she was told even when she knew she wouldn't be happy.
The contrast is stark.
From this:
To this:
Because Lady Audley usurped the role of villain male characters became victims. In Lady Audley's Secret George is seriously injured, the innkeeper dies, and Robert nearly dies, all at the hand of Lady Audley.
That was a pretty big jump for Victorian critics.
Particularly because The Woman in White contrastingly upheld the idea that the average man (represented in Walter) could use a woman's bad situation to his advantage.
Lyn Pykett, a modern critic, points out some of the problems with Walter’s potential motives when she called the novel “a Victorian story of self-help in which the quest for justice serves also as a route to power, which allows the art teacher to marry the lady, despite the difference in their class status” (“Women” 37).
Not only does The Woman in White provide a secure place for men in society as rescuers and villains, it also idealizes the masculine reality while giving male characters the magical ability to jump from one class to another. And the critics certainly appreciated that magical ability.
In Lady Audley’s Secret, a different path presents itself—one with woman a social climber willing to kill. She climbs from one social rung to another, by using her looks. Or, in Braddon’s words, she has the “magic power of fascination by which a woman can charm with a word or intoxicate with a smile” (11), and she uses that power to the utmost of her abilities to get what she wants. Suddenly, women were no longer to be protected but feared.
Intimidating.
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