‘The way you went about things was a little unorthodox, Edwina, but your father will survive. He’s a tough man. I’d be very much surprised if secretly he wasn’t quite proud.’
Ahead, Han Lee and Luke shook hands.
‘They’ll be firm friends,’ noted Mason, ‘and once Luke Gordon takes a liking to someone, well, they’re a friend for life. So, Miss Edwina Baker, now you have a property and the loyalty of the Chinese and Luke Gordon to guide you. How does it feel?’
She held on to the wagon as they hit a bumpy patch in the road. ‘I don’t know.’ Edwina certainly wasn’t going to tell him how uncertain she felt about the future. ‘It’s strange to think so many people are willing to support me.’
Mason leant over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’d like to do more than support you.’
‘Mason, don’t.’
‘Can you please get over your aversion to my unexpected kisses?’
‘I’m sorry, it’s just that –’
‘What, that you’re not sure about me? About us? I’m coming with you to Condo Station, Edwina. Whether you like it or not. A few weeks on the road will have any knots between us sorted out, don’t you think?’
There was pleasure in seeing Mason and equal concern at his expectations – particularly as he had just given her an ultimatum. He sounded exactly like Will. ‘Would you like to come to Condo Station, Mason?’
‘I, yes, I would.’
She’d off-balanced him. ‘You must always ask first, Mason. Never assume.’ Edwina certainly didn’t want to lead him astray, nor could she make any promises, at least at the moment. Her head and heart were in two separate places, her body heading towards a new beginning. And yet here he was sitting beside her. Like Will, he’d come to claim her. And just like Will, his hopes would probably not align with her own.
‘I’m not here to take possession of you, Edwina, or your property for that matter. We both have our own places, after all.’
Edwina held on to her arm as they hit another bump in the road.
‘We could rig up a seat inside the wagon for you with a mattress,’ suggested Mason. ‘It’d be a bit hot but a darn sight more comfortable.’
‘I’d rather be right here.’
Mason rolled his eyes. ‘This isn’t going to work if you don’t do what I say.’
Edwina couldn’t help but smile, remembering the last time he’d used that phrase on Ridgeway Station, the day of their first kiss. Then as now there was a cocky grin on his sun-browned face and she knew that he was in her life to stay.
‘No, Mason. This won’t work if you don’t do what I say,’ she told him. ‘Understand, I still have a property to run,’ she clarified.
‘As do I,’ he countered equally serious.
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘If you have ideas of being with a docile woman content to obey you, best rethink this journey. I’ll not be anyone’s domestic, nor do I know if I even want to take on the role of wife. I will be station owner first and foremost and I will run my own affairs and my finances my way.’
‘I think this is going to be a rather unconventional relationship,’ muttered Mason.
‘Are you prepared to be with me on those terms? That’s if we can actually manage to get along for the next few weeks.’ Would he agree? It was a lot to ask of a man and she knew that she probably came across as being extraordinarily inflexible; however, Edwina couldn’t give up the chance of being in control of her own life.
Mason flicked the reins. ‘I am and, to be honest, knowing the little of you that I do, Edwina Baker, I wouldn’t have expected anything else.’
The relief was immediate. Here then was her equal. Mason understood.
Luke rode back towards them, drawing level with the wagon. ‘Anyone else joining us that we should know about?’
Edwina swivelled on the hard wooden seat, clasping the frame; a blur of dust and men filled her vision. It was difficult to decipher what Luke pointed at for there were a further two wagons behind them as well as Han Lee’s men. Then she caught sight of him, tall and erect in the saddle, gaining gradually on their steady progress. Behind him rode a number of other men. The women and children, she guessed, would be travelling under cover of the trees.
‘It looks like you’ve been forgiven,’ stated Mason.
‘Yes, it does,’ replied Edwina.
There he was, trailing them like the wraith he’d always been, her father’s black factotum, the white-eyed crow.
Author’s Note
An Uncommon Woman began with an idea based on an article in a 1930s Tasmanian newspaper. It reported that a woman had purchased a Queensland pastoral station. The fact that this buying of land warranted a headline in an island state far removed from the dusty interior of Australia signified the importance and the uniqueness of the event. The world had just staggered through the great stock market crash of 1929 and was in the grip of a devastating recession, and yet here was a woman laying claim to a remote rural property.
Great changes were occurring across the globe in the 1920s and 1930s. Automobiles were no longer the privilege of the few, hemlines were rising, and women were embracing the many opportunities that the modern age offered. The shifting times also challenged the golden age of the travelling circus, which reminded me of a story from my own family. While at the Ringling Brothers Circus in Moree in the 1950s, my father became enamoured with a lion cub. He offered the handler £50, all the cash he had with him at the time, and was refused. In later years, on retelling the story my father said he had a vision of the lion lying at his feet in the homestead dining room. In hindsight, probably not exactly appropriate for a sheep stud. And so another twist was added to An Uncommon Woman.
While researching this work, once again I had the privilege of listening to my father as he recounted the many stories passed down through the generations. I am fortunate that he shared so much. Thank you to my mother, Marita, for your encouragement and love, and to my beloved father, Ian, you will be forever missed.
To Penguin Random House – my publisher Beverley Cousins and managing editor Brandon VanOver – and my agent, Tara Wynne. Thank you for your friendship and guidance. Lastly, to the many booksellers, librarians and readers: thank you.
I am indebted to the following texts and recommend them for further reading:
Crops and Rocks: The Queensland Economy During the 1920s, Lecture on NQ History by D. May, 1984 (PDF online) What Price Pastoral Leases? The Exploitation of QLD Aboriginal Labour by Pastoralists and Government, 1897–1968 by Loretta de Plevitz, 1998
Australia 1918–1950s by Mirams Southee
The Global 1920s by R. Carr and B. W. Hart
Journal of the Royal Historical Society of QLD, vol. xiii, no. 7, Aug 1988
State Pastoral Stations in QLD, 1916–30 by Kay Cohen The Story of Australia’s People: The Rise and Rise of a New Australia by Geoffrey Blainey On the Sheep’s Back: Past, Present and Future? by Ronald Anderson Decades of Change by Itiel Bereson
Father’s Right-hand Man: Women on Australia’s Family Farms in the Age of Federation 1880s–1920s by K. Hunter Wirth Bros Ltd Circus and Menagerie: Greatest Show on Earth, magazine, past review and program Australia in the Nineteen Twenties by L. L. Robson Nostalgia Australia: 1920s and 1930s by A. Sharpe The Life of Philip Wirth: A Lifetime With an Australian Circus by Philip Wirth Round the World With a Circus by George Wirth
Dreams of Jade and Gold: Chinese Families in Australia’s History by P. Macgregor, Museum of Chinese-Australian History, CultureVictoria website. http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/stories/immigrants-and-emigrants/chinese-australian-families/dreams-of-jade-and-gold/
‘Ringbarkers and Market Gardeners. A Comparison of the Rural Chinese of New South Wales and California’, Chinese America, History and Perspectives, vol. 2006, by B. McGowan
Nicole Alexander is a fourth-generation grazier. She has a Master of Letters in creative writing and her novels, poetry, travel and genealogy articles have been published in Australia, Germany, America and Singapore.<
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She is the author of seven previous novels: The Bark Cutters, A Changing Land, Absolution Creek, Sunset Ridge, The Great Plains, Wild Lands and River Run.
Also by Nicole Alexander
The Bark Cutters
A Changing Land
Absolution Creek
Sunset Ridge
The Great Plains
Wild Lands
River Run
Divertissements: Love, War, Society – Selected Poems
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An Uncommon Woman
ePub ISBN – 9780857989505
First published by Bantam in 2017
Copyright © Nicole Alexander, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A Bantam book
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Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Alexander, Nicole L., author
An uncommon woman/Nicole Alexander
ISBN: 978 0 85798 950 5 (ebook)
Nineteen twenties – Fiction
Women – Queensland – Fiction
Queensland – Social life and customs – Fiction
Cover photograph © Roux Hamilton/Arcangel
Cover design by Blacksheep
Ebook by Firstsource
An Uncommon Woman Page 37
