The Green Mummy | Page 8

into the house six years
ago. Now he is quite presentable. I shouldn't wonder if he married Mrs.
Jasher."
"H'm! I rather think Mrs. Jasher admires the Professor."
"Oh, he'll never marry her. If she were a mummy there might be a
chance, of course, but as a human being the Professor will never look at
her."

"I don't know so much about that, Archie. Mrs. Jasher is attractive."
Hope laughed. "In a mutton-dressed-as-lamb way, no doubt."
"And she has money. My father is poor and so - "
"You make up a match at once, as every woman will do. Well, let us
get back to the Pyramids, and see how the flirtation is progressing."
Lucy walked on for a few steps in silence. "Do you believe in Mrs.
Bolton's dream, Archie?"
"No! I believe she eats heavy suppers. Bolton will return quite safe; he
is a clever fellow, not easily taken advantage of. Don't bother any more
about Widow Anne and her dismal prophecies."
"I'll try not to," replied Lucy dutifully. "All the same, I wish she had
not told me her dream," and she shivered.
CHAPTER II
PROFESSOR BRADDOCK
There was only one really palatial mansion in Gartley, and that was the
ancient Georgian house known as the Pyramids. Lucy's stepfather had
given the place this eccentric name on taking up his abode there some
ten years previously. Before that time the dwelling had been occupied
by the Lord of the Manor and his family. But now the old squire was
dead, and his impecunious children were scattered to the four quarters
of the globe in search of money with which to rebuild their ruined
fortunes. As the village was somewhat isolated and rather unhealthily
situated in a marshy country, the huge, roomy old Grange had not been
easy to let, and had proved quite impossible to sell. Under these
disastrous circumstances, Professor Braddock - who described himself
humorously as a scientific pauper - had obtained the tenancy at a
ridiculously low rental, much to his satisfaction.
Many people would have paid money to avoid exile in these damp

waste lands, which, as it were, fringed civilization, but their loneliness
and desolation suited the Professor exactly. He required ample room for
his Egyptian collection, with plenty of time to decipher hieroglyphics
and study perished dynasties of the Nile Valley. The world of the
present day did not interest Braddock in the least. He lived almost
continuously on that portion of the mental plane which had to do with
the far-distant past, and only concerned himself with physical existence,
when it consisted of mummies and mystic beetles, sepulchral
ornaments, pictured documents, hawk-headed deities and suchlike
things of almost inconceivable antiquity. He rarely walked abroad and
was invariably late for meals, save when he missed any particular one
altogether, which happened frequently. Absent-minded in conversation,
untidy in dress, unpractical in business, dreamy in manner, Professor
Braddock lived solely for archaeology. That such a man should have
taken to himself a wife was mystery.
Yet he had been married fifteen years before to a widow, who
possessed a limited income and one small child. It was the opportunity
of securing the use of a steady income which had decoyed Braddock
into the matrimonial snare of Mrs. Kendal. To put it plainly, he had
married the agreeable widow for her money, although he could scarcely
be called a fortune-hunter. Like Eugene Aram, he desired cash to assist
learning, and as that scholar had committed murder to secure what he
wanted, so did the Professor marry to obtain his ends. These were to
have someone to manage the house, and to be set free from the
necessity of earning his bread, so that he might indulge in pursuits
more pleasurable than money-making. Mrs. Kendal was a placid,
phlegmatic lady, who liked rather than loved the Professor, and who
desired him more as a companion than as a husband. With Braddock
she did not arrange a romantic marriage so much as enter into a
congenial partnership. She wanted a man in the house, and he desired
freedom from pecuniary embarrassment. On these lines the prosaic
bargain was struck, and Mrs. Kendal became the Professor's wife with
entirely successful results. She gave her husband a home, and her child
a father, who became fond of Lucy, and who - considering he was
merely an amateur parent - acted admirably.

But this sensible partnership lasted only for five years. Mrs. Braddock
died of a chill on the liver and left her five hundred a year to the
Professor for life, with remainder to Lucy, then a small girl of ten. It
was at this critical moment that Braddock became a practical man for
the first and last time in his dreamy life. He buried his wife with
unfeigned