An Uncommon Woman

by Nicole Alexander

  Edwina and Aiden mimicked the woman’s gait, the long skirt swaying in tandem with the axe-handle width of her behind. The procession reached the halfway point as a turkey raced across their path. Leaves swirled, the turkey emitted a disgruntled gobble, and the meat landed with a thud on the ground.

  Mrs Ryan was speechless. She stared at the meat in the dirt and then began to emit a low whine. The sound grew in intensity. The five collie dogs appeared.

  Edwina, shoving the two plates she carried at her brother, shooed at the dogs and then picked up the slippery, warm meat. ‘We’ll just brush the dirt off, Mrs Ryan. It will be fine.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Aiden.

  The cook’s bottom lip began to tremble. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose. ’Twas the fairies what done it. I’m sure.’

  ‘No harm done,’ said Edwina, frowning at the mention of the sprites that ruled Mrs Ryan’s domain. Returning the meat to the platter, she used a corner of the Scotswoman’s apron to rub the dirt away, then she turned the roast upside down. ‘See,’ she smiled. ‘Father will never know.’

  The cook, clearly unconvinced, reluctantly resumed her trek indoors.

  The long table was plainly set for dinner for four people, the extra setting in honour of their mother. A fine linen tablecloth, polished silver cutlery and cut-crystal water glasses were complemented by a vase of wildflowers.

  Setting the meat platter at the head of the table before Mr Baker, the cook gave a quick curtsey before departing the room. Her customary description of their meal forgotten, Edwina improvised. ‘Meat and vegetables,’ she announced. Their father didn’t make a comment. Edwina felt him studying their movements as she and Aiden placed a plate at each of the three places before sitting.

  Their father began to carve. ‘What was that commotion I heard?’

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Edwina. ‘Did you have a good visit to town, Father?’

  Hamilton concentrated on the meat. ‘Reasonable. And the cacto-eggs, did you put them out?’

  ‘Yes, in the middle of the bad patch in the Carbeen paddock,’ explained Edwina.

  ‘Good, let’s hope it works. Put the rest out tomorrow, Aiden. The blasted war put a stop to the research but there have been success stories. We can only hope.’

  ‘We saw a black automobile on the Ridgeways’ place this morning,’ began Aiden, as his plate was heaped with meat. ‘A Model T Ford.’ He tugged his napkin from the round silver holder, placing the material carefully on his lap. ‘There were two people in it and a man riding as well.’

  ‘The Ridgeway children’s uncle, Mr Somerville, and his wife are due for a visit. They come up once a year to check on things. You know that.’

  ‘Oh.’ Edwina was both relieved and deflated.

  ‘Do you think the children will return, Father?’ asked Aiden. ‘I remember you telling us that you thought the property would be sold.’

  ‘Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t been sold before this,’ explained Hamilton in a rare moment of disclosure. ‘The Ridgeway twins came of age regarding their parents’ estate last year.’

  Aiden surveyed his plate hungrily. ‘You should have seen their vehicle, Father.’

  Edwina kept her hand outstretched, waiting for an extra slice of mutton. ‘If you intend to work me like a man, Father,’ she said politely, ‘then you must feed me like one.’

  ‘Your mother was always so elegantly svelte,’ Hamilton grunted, adding a further two slices to Edwina’s plate. Aiden gave his sister a wink. With his own plate served, Hamilton sat in the heavy carver and folded his hands in prayer; together all three bowed their heads. ‘God bless this food. Amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ Edwina and Aiden repeated, both sitting up straight as they waited the habitual few minutes while their father stared at the opposite end of the table to where their mother once sat.

  ‘It would be good if we could have an automobile, Father,’ Edwina finally suggested.

  ‘Young women were never so outspoken before the war. Your hair is out of place.’ He pointed to the windblown strand hanging across Edwina’s cheek. ‘Tidy yourself.’ Hamilton pointed to the crystal cruet stand. ‘Salt.’ Dousing his meal with salt, vinegar and prepared mustard, he began to cut his food into bite-size pieces. When he’d completed this ritual and the beans, potatoes and meat were piled into little mounds, only then did he begin to eat.

  ‘It takes so long to go into town, Father,’ Edwina told him. ‘Why, it’s a whole day in the buggie when we need supplies. A long day. Everyone’s modernising.’

  Brother and sister held their breath as their father picked something from his tongue, peered at it and then deposited it on the edge of his plate. Hamilton gave each of his children a wary glance and resumed eating, this time examining each forkful of food carefully. ‘Are they? Well then, maybe you should ride over to Ridgeway Station, Edwina, and ask them about this automobile of theirs, if this is something you feel keenly about.’ Placing his fork down, Hamilton took a sip of water and then dabbed at his moustache with the linen napkin. ‘I’m sure their manager, Mr Fernleigh, would be overjoyed to make your acquaintance again, Edwina. It must be a good two months since the man last eye-balled you across the fence.’

  Edwina picked at her vegetables sullenly. Mr Fernleigh would undoubtedly throw her off the property if she took one step on that land. It may have been different if her father’s diplomatic skills were more advanced; however, last winter when a large mob of Ridgeway merinos had broken through the boundary fence and begun feasting on their crops, their father’s response was to ride out and shoot the luckless animals. He managed to kill ten before Davidson and Aiden intervened.

  Their father chewed thoughtfully on a bean. ‘I saw Sears earlier. You didn’t promise him anything, did you, Aiden?’

  ‘Of course not, Father. He asked me to put in a word for him, that’s all.’

  ‘Apparently he wants to buy some land in Wywanna, Father,’ added Edwina.

  ‘Well, I’ve said no. So if he has the audacity to mention it to you again, don’t get involved. Sears’ team will be finishing up soon.’ Hamilton changed the subject. ‘And one of the men has walked off the job?’

  ‘Ran away to the circus,’ confirmed Aiden. ‘Apparently he didn’t like killing things.’

  His father scratched at the surface of a piece of meat with his knife. ‘He doesn’t like killing things? What, trees? One would think he’d be more concerned about where his next meal is coming from. Still, I don’t like a man leaving my employ without being recompensed for his labour, especially when the lad’s father served at Gallipoli. If he does intend doing such a foolhardy thing then I imagine he’ll be skulking around Colby Brothers on Saturday night.’

  ‘The circus …’ Edwina gave her father a beaming smile. ‘We’ve never been to a performance, you know.’

  ‘I have business in town over the weekend; however, I want you to go into town on Saturday as well, Aiden. Find the lad and pay him. The circus. I’ve never heard of a more ridiculous thing.’

  ‘I’m to stay overnight while the circus is on?’ Aiden sounded almost breathless.

  Hamilton cleared his throat. ‘Of course not. You will return home within the day. This is a good opportunity for you to be entrusted with this task, Aiden. Should you encounter any problems, send word for me at the Guild.’

  ‘Can I go too, Father?’ Edwina pleaded. ‘Please?’

  ‘I’d send Sears, but the rest of the men would take off as well,’ their father continued, ignoring his daughter. ‘I don’t need the ringbarking halted because of the demon drink. Pay the boy, Aiden, and then come straight home. And I mean what I say. Straight home. No dillydallying, not with your sister left here alone.’

  ‘Alone?’ repeated Edwina.

  ‘Mrs Ryan has the weekend off.’

  ‘So it’s alright for the cook to attend the circus, but not me?’ argued Edwina. ‘I am twenty years of age, Father, and I’m yet to make my first appearance in public life.’


  ‘And the circus isn’t the place to do it,’ her father replied.

  ‘And why should Aiden get to go when he is two years younger than me?’

  Hamilton addressed his son. ‘I’m entrusting you with this, Aiden. You are a man now, after all. And take Davidson with you.’ Hamilton ate quickly, the steady crawl of the grandfather clock measuring the clatter of knives and forks. ‘And, Aiden, you’ll attend to the woodpile and cart some water as well.’

  Edwina chewed the now cold food, pausing to absently study the gleaming mahogany sideboard with its empty decanters and the matching pale green bases of the kerosene lamps that lit the room at night.

  ‘Why can’t I go?’ she finally asked.

  Folding his napkin, Hamilton placed it on the table. ‘Because, although you may choose to parade around this property dressed like a man, you are in fact a young woman. And young women of breeding don’t attend such spectacles. The hurly-burly of the circus is hardly appropriate for a daughter of mine.’

  ‘If I had somewhere to go to,’ she responded, ‘like the circus, I’d be quite happy to dress appropriately, but when I’m here, Father, all the time, on this half-starved block, there is little point swanning around in my mother’s altered seconds. Not when I work like a factory girl, my opinions ignored.’

  Edwina wondered if her father was going to have some sort of attack. He plucked at his tie and collar. ‘You will remember who you’re talking to, Edwina. Clearly you’ve had too much free time on your hands. Well, that can be rectified. Next week you and Aiden can start work ploughing the new block.’

  ‘Father,’ replied Edwina, ‘I know the cost of things. The wheat undertaking is far from viable once the expense of land clearing is factored in and Aiden will tell you that having just checked the wheat the harvest doesn’t look like it’s going to be a good one this year. Again,’ she said for emphasis.

  ‘I think the crop looks alright,’ Aiden answered his father’s gaze.

  ‘Aiden, really?’ said Edwina. ‘Father, we should be letting the cleared land grass up and then go into sheep or cattle. Wheat is too chancy. Our yields simply aren’t good enough. We have to do something else. Try something different so that we have a chance at a better life.’

  Across the table Aiden appeared to shrink.

  Pushing his plate aside, their father stood abruptly. ‘Are you starving?’ he asked, his words clipped. ‘No. Plenty are. You’d do well to remember that, Edwina. And another thing, I like to be forewarned when my meal ends up in the dirt.’

  ‘At least read this proposal, Father,’ pleaded Edwina, holding out the piece of paper she’d been carrying around for the last few days. ‘I have assessed the risks, calculated the costs involved and the profit to be made. I think you’ll be pleased.’

  He stared at her. ‘I have looked at your suggestions in the past, my girl. Have any of them been implemented?’

  Edwina shook her head. ‘But that is not to say they weren’t good ideas or that they wouldn’t have worked.’

  ‘You are very opinionated for a young woman who has no business experience.’

  ‘But I do have business experience, Father,’ argued Edwina. ‘I learn from you every day.’

  Her father reluctantly took the paper and walked out of the room.

  He simply couldn’t ignore her this time, could he? thought Edwina. She’d been so careful with her sums, recalculating them to show differing outcomes dependent on season and prices.

  With their father’s departure, Aiden slouched back in his chair. ‘Steady on, old girl.’

  It was hard to get rid of the image of Aiden and her coaxing the horse and plough across unbroken land. Edwina could already feel the exhaustion and taste the September wind, dry dirt biting at her eyes and skin. ‘Doesn’t it bother you, Aiden, that we’re working like slaves for nothing? Seriously, I mean if someone in the family comes up with a proposal that has the potential to benefit everybody, isn’t that a good thing?’

  ‘It’s Father’s decision, Edwina. You have to stop antagonising him. Look, the latest copy of the Agricultural Gazette’s in the parlour. Why don’t you go and read it?’ he said dismissively.

  ‘Have you read it?’ she asked.

  He gave a lethargic smile. Aiden never read anything. Edwina thought of the number of times Aiden had abandoned his sums as a schoolboy and wondered why she’d bothered to share her ideas earlier. She doubted he would manage running a business without their father when that day came, and the thought worried her.

  ‘Honestly, Aiden, if we made more money we wouldn’t have to be outside working like navvies all the time. We could be researching new ideas for the property and making some improvements like new fences and gateways. And in our spare time we should be able to do the things that other people do, like going to the circus and –’

  ‘Edwina.’ Aiden grew impatient. ‘I’m happy being like everyone else.’

  ‘But we’re not like everyone else,’ argued Edwina. Their small holding was somewhat of an aberration in a landscape mainly populated by sheep graziers. To the east and south huge areas of land were engulfed by pear and to their north, only miles away, was the dingo fence. Two tangible boundaries that in Edwina’s mind literally hedged them in. Why couldn’t she make Aiden understand that they had to do better, that everything they did mattered, particularly when your father was held at arm’s length by the district for being a moneylender. And clearly not a very good one at that.

  Chapter Four

  On Saturday morning Edwina woke to rays of fractured light patterning the soft draping of the mosquito net cocooning the bed. Around her the house creaked and groaned, as if the bulk of leaves matting the iron roof was pushing down on the building’s timber frame, expanding the tongue and groove cypress boards and bulging the pressed metal ceilings. As a child, Edwina often believed that she would wake in the middle of the night, shrouded by leaves, the stars her ceiling, and was somewhat dismayed when such a disaster didn’t happen. Even now she half expected to wake to a sagging ceiling. This morning she stared through the open doors to the grey-green tangle of bush beyond, watching as a moth fluttered against the suspended netting. She kept her bedroom door open to the elements, except for the coldest months of the year, and the mesh provided protection from all manner of creepy-crawlies.

  The homestead was noisiest at dawn and dusk as if attuned to each day’s cycle. Edwina stretched out her arms and legs, feeling the sheet taut across her toes as the building gave a final groan, a yawn of sorts and then fell silent. In its place came the sounds and smells of the household. A door closing. The pad of feet on timber. Kitchen smoke. Susan Ryan’s baking accompanied by a tuneless song. Down the wide central hallway footsteps retreated to the dining room. Outside a horse whinnied. Mrs Ryan would have already set a pot of tea at her father’s elbow, a slice of freshly baked bread and a silver jar filled with mulberry jam from the lone tree in the garden. Rituals. Hamilton Baker was one for procedure and habit. Edwina would never know if he’d always been so, but certainly over the past years both she and her brother had become gradually aware of their father’s increasing need for routine. Everything had its place and there was a place for everything, including his children.

  The black-and-white border collie lying on the floor by Edwina’s bed stared at her impatiently, his tail flicking the timber boards. Despite his advanced age, Jed wasn’t one for lying about. As Edwina pushed back the bedcovers and gathered the netting, securing it behind the brass bedhead, she noted that one of the wallaby hides scattered on the timber floor was partially chewed.

  ‘Jed.’

  The old dog got to his feet slowly, moving to the verandah door.

  ‘That was my favourite.’

  Jed regarded her fleetingly. The days of meeting his mistress’s gaze with a knowing air were gone.

  Wrapping a shawl about her shoulders, Edwina twisted long blonde hair into a loose bun, securing it with a tortoiseshell comb. A silver locket lay on the plain oak dre
sser and she opened it carefully, touching the delicate strand of curled plaited hair belonging to her mother, before hanging the keepsake about her neck. The dresser with its mirror, a dilapidated brocade chair and a wardrobe of limited proportions comprised the extent of the furnishings. The centrepiece of the bedroom was the fireplace. The mantelpiece held an assortment of framed pictures – dour-looking grandparents, bearded uncles of uncanny resemblance and her father photographed in front of a painted Grecian screen. The swan of the grim-faced grouping was her mother. Caroline Baker stood elegantly posed in a large picture hat, the gossamer folds of her gown sweeping elegantly in a train across the studio floor. Edwina smiled at the photograph and then, picking up the broom, began brushing out the leaves and dust carried indoors during the night.

  It was an impossible task holding back the bush from the interior of the house. In summer Edwina kept many of the windows in the main part of the homestead closed and the curtains drawn in an effort to minimise the beating heat and powdery dust. But it was an unwinnable battle. They lived in the middle of the scrub and the land surrounding them could not be contained. On hands and knees, Edwina repositioned the length of material that blocked the gap between the outside wall and the floor. The space had worsened over winter and was now due to be patched with mud brick, a messy concoction of mud and straw. It must be done quickly, thought Edwina, before the snakes came out in numbers. There was a long, wide length of wood to place across the doorway, which usually kept the serpents at bay.

  With the room tidied, Edwina searched through the items sitting on her dressing table. ‘Where is it?’ she said aloud. Her hands moved the few objects. A small glass bottle of lavender water, the silver-backed brush and mirror, and a number of empty vessels with beaten silver lids, which once held her mother’s creams and potions. ‘Where is it?’ Inexplicably her heart gave a little flutter of anxiety. ‘There it is.’ The fragment of blue glass was partially concealed beneath an embroidered linen handkerchief. Edwina studied the jagged piece found in the chicken pen yesterday and, with it clasped in her hand, joined Jed on the verandah.