Professor Braddock

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 regret--for he had been sincerely attached to her in his
absent-minded way--and sent Lucy to a Hampstead boarding school. After
an interview with his late wife's lawyer to see that the income was
safe, he sought for a house in the country, and quickly discovered
Gartley Grange, which no one would take because of its isolation. Within
three months from the burial of Mrs. Braddock, the widower had removed
himself and his collection to Gartley, and had renamed his new abode
the Pyramids. 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.