The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

104
THE FOOT OF TIME
"Don't worry your little head about it, child.
Your children will come in for all that. So! Didn't
I guess it? I told my cat Felix. 'Felix,' I said, 'depend
upon it that angel face, Clare Swinton, has a
skeleton in her cupboard.' Well, pet, what did the
old boy die of—drink)"
"Bruce's father is still alive, Auntie—very much
alive. He is Sir Bruce Arbuthnot. He's a baronet."
Florence clapped her hands. "Good for you,
Flossie," she said. "Didn't you guess it was something
like that?"
"And, Auntie, Mrs. Swinton divorced him!"
"Poor, poor Clare," said Florence Tooth, and sat
quiet, thinking—thinking. Outside, the hall clock
chimed the hour, deep, resonous. Bruce's father
resting out East until his youth was spent, and
then—.
"That is really all there is to tell you, Auntie.
You see everything now, don't you? Bruce is only
studying so far. There is father, and Bruce may
possibly be a baronet one day."
"Great God, child! That angel doesn't expect
the monster to try to get her back, does she?"
"I don't know, Aunt Floss; the only thing that is
absolutely certain is that the divorce made not
the smallest difference to Mrs. Swinton's undying
love for Bruce's awful father, and that Mrs. Swinton
knows to the very fibre of her being that Sir
Bruce will always love her."
"What type of woman came between them,
child?"
"I don't know that either, Auntie. I gathered
THE FOOT OF TIME 105
that the baronet was an out and outer. The Eastern
potentate and free thinker, you know. Anyhow,
Mrs. Swinton had clear grounds for divorce—the
rotter was evidently too awful to live with."
"So!"
Aunt Florence Tooth went into a quiet reverie.
So this was the type of family tradition into which
her best beloved was going to marry. Should she
endeavour to stop it? Not if the Heavens tumbled
into the sea. Stop it! Not Florence Tooth. Of
course the boy would sow his wild oats. Miss Tooth
sincerely hoped he would. They would be safer
sown before marriage, then—and probably then
only—would he settle down. So that was what she
had sensed underlying that sweet Clare's reserve and
unnaturally quiet manner. Clare had not always
been sad. "Florence," the old lady said to herself,
"you will be wanted in this affair as sure as your
name's Tooth. You'll have to bite on it, old thing,
starting on William, the psalmodist. You have
something to live for now, Florence, so buckle on
your old armour for the fray. Who would have
thought it? And yet you did think it. Florence,
my dear, you're a marvel! Pull those darlings
through and you can die in peace."
"Well, Auntie?"
you "Your rbeoT, m has gone off on a sight-seeing trip,
"Not yet. He is starting next Thursday. Why-
-why, Auntie? You don't think I ought to have
tried to stop him, do you?"
H