Here he dwelt quietly and enjoyably--from
his dry-as-dust point of view--for ten years, and here Lucy
Kendal had come when her education was completed. The arrival of
a marriageable young lady made no difference in the Professor's
habits, and he hailed her thankfully as the successor to her
mother in managing the small establishment. It is to be feared
that Braddock was somewhat selfish in his views, but the fixed
idea of archaeological research made him egotistical.
The mansion was three-story, flat-roofed, extremely ugly and
unexpectedly comfortable. Built of mellow red brick with dingy
white stone facings, it stood a few yards back from the roadway
which ran from Gartley Fort through the village, and, at the
precise point where the Pyramids was situated, curved abruptly
through woodlands to terminate a mile away, at Jessum, the local
station of the Thames Railway Line. An iron railing, embedded in
moldering stone work, divided the narrow front garden from the
road, and on either side of the door--which could be reached by
five shallow steps--grew two small yew trees, smartly clipped
and trimmed into cones of dull green. These yews possessed some
magical significance, which Professor Braddock would occasionally
explain to chance visitors interested in occult matters; for,
amongst other things Egyptian, the archaeologist searched into
the magic of the Sons of Khem, and insisted that there was more
truth than superstition in their enchantments.
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