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Updated: June 21, 2025
"But, as I was a-saying only last night to Jim Marksby, the hall-porter, sir," he continued, "court-martials, sir, isn't wot they used to was. Lord-sakes! sir, I remembers, as if it were yesterday, in old Sir Titus Fitzblazes's time, sir, when they was as plentiful as the blackberries on Browndown!
I looked at Oscar, who had followed me. The driver of the cart had, on his own acknowledgment, been investigated and questioned by this extraordinary child; strolling up to the door of Browndown to see what he was doing there. Jicks was a public character at Dimchurch. The driver knew all about her.
"Browndown belongs to Somebody," I said hazarding another guess. "Did Somebody let it without a reference?" "Browndown belongs to a gentleman at Brighton," answered Lucilla. "And the gentleman was referred to a well-known name in London one of the great City merchants. Here is the most provoking part of the whole mystery. The merchant said, 'I have known Mr. Dubourg from his childhood.
I married Nugent Dubourg willingly married him without a thought of my engagement to Oscar. Yes! yes! I know it's only a dream. I can't bear to think of it, for all that. I don't like to be false to Oscar even in a dream. Let us go to him. I want to hear him tell me that he loves me. Come to Browndown. I'm so nervous, I don't like going by myself. Come to Browndown!"
Was the word "Help"? Yes! traced on the back of the child's frock, with a finger dipped in blood "HELP." Discoveries at Browndown IT is needless to tell you at what conclusion I arrived, as soon as I was sufficiently myself to think at all. Thanks to my adventurous past life, I have got the habit of deciding quickly in serious emergencies of all sorts.
"I want to run over Nugent's letter. It's so interesting! There is a message in it to you." Too deeply absorbed in his subject to notice the sullen submission with which she listened to him, he placed her on a chair, and began reading. "The first lines," he explained, "relate to Nugent's return to England, and to his delightful idea of coming to stay with me at Browndown.
Half an hour passed, without news from Browndown. Calculated by reference to itself, half an hour is no doubt a short space of time. Calculated by reference to your own suspense, while your own interests are at stake, half an hour is an eternity. Every minute that passed, leaving Lucilla still undisturbed in her delusion, was a minute that pricked me in the conscience.
Her object in view, whatever it might be, was evidently an object that lay beyond the village. In the solemn, peaceful twilight we followed the lonely windings of the valley along which I had passed in the morning. When we came opposite the little solitary house, which I had already learnt to know as "Browndown," I felt her hand unconsciously tighten on my arm. "Aha!" I said to myself.
"Nugent will feel for me, and understand me, when he comes to Browndown. In the meantime, this shall not happen again." He stooped over Jicks. The child, while we were talking, had laid herself down luxuriously on the grass, and was singing to herself little snatches of a nursery song. Oscar pulled her up on her legs rather roughly. He was out of temper with her, as well as with himself.
"Jicks again!" I exclaimed. "No not Jicks. Oscar's own man-servant, this time." "How did it happen?" "It happened through one of the boys in the village. Oscar and Lucilla found the little imp howling outside the house. They asked what was the matter. The imp told them that the servant at Browndown had beaten him. Lucilla was indignant. She insisted on having the thing inquired into.
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