The Grazier's Wife Read online

  About the Book

  For three generations of Australian women, becoming a grazier’s wife has meant very different things.

  For Stella in 1946, it was a compromise in the aftermath of a terrible war.

  For Jackie in the 1970s, it was a Cinderella fairytale with an outback prince.

  While for Alice in 2015, it is the promise of a bright new future.

  Decades earlier, Stella was desperate to right a huge injustice, but now a long-held family secret threatens to tear the Drummond family of Ruthven Downs apart. On the eve of a special birthday reunion, with half the district invited, the past and the present collide, passions are unleashed and the shocking truth comes spilling out.

  From glamorous pre-war Singapore to a vast cattle property in Queensland's Far North, this sweeping, emotional saga tests the beliefs and hopes of three strong women as they learn how to hold on to loved ones and when to let go.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For Linsey and Julie

  PROLOGUE

  Ruthven Downs, Far North Queensland, 1970

  Her husband was asleep at last.

  Stella Drummond stood in the bedroom doorway, watching the steady rise and fall of Magnus’s chest. He was sprawled on his back, fully clothed in stained moleskins, a checked flannel shirt and navy blue socks. She had managed to remove his elastic-sided boots when he’d collapsed on the bed, but she knew he was past caring about pyjamas.

  His jaw was bristly white with at least two days’ growth, his thick, grey-flecked hair a dishevelled cockscomb against the pillow, and his mouth hung open to reveal the gap where he’d lost a molar.

  This was how Magnus always slept when he’d been drinking. Soon he would be snoring.

  Stella was all too familiar with the pattern. After a day of uncommunicative moodiness, her husband would spend the evening drowning his sorrows in whisky. The drinking would be accompanied by roaring outbursts of rage and crises of logic that were often directed towards her, and she had no choice but to endure the tirades until at last he was overcome by blessed sleep. Then she could breathe a sigh of relief. The ordeal was over.

  This evening, however, Stella felt no sweet ripple of relief. She was shaking with a harrowing fear.

  This latest rage had been by far Magnus’s worst. Tonight there had been consequences. Magnus hadn’t merely given voice to his anger. He’d taken pen to paper and had written instructions for his lawyer, horrifying instructions that had broken Stella’s heart. And filled her with guilt.

  Now, a snore erupted from the sleeping figure, a snore so loud she feared the noise would wake him. Swiping at her wretched tears, she turned out the light and swiftly left the room. Timber floorboards creaked as she made her way down the darkened passage to the study, where a standard lamp cast a pool of yellow light over Magnus’s desk and the dreaded white envelope.

  Addressed in Magnus’s thick, dark scrawl to Kenneth Woods, his lawyer, the envelope was sealed, but Stella already knew its contents. Magnus had made sure of that. He’d read his legal directive to her in his pompous, booming voice, taking sneering delight when he saw how badly it shocked her.

  Naturally, he’d ignored her tearful pleas. ‘Don’t you bloody dare cry over spilt milk. You only have yourself to blame. You should have thought about the consequences before you snuck away with your fancy man.’

  At least he hadn’t been physically violent. Despite his increasingly drunken rages, Magnus had never raised a hand to Stella and she was grateful for that. She was grateful, too, that both their children were far away in Brisbane – Deb in her last year of art college and Hugh halfway through his university degree. She would have hated them to hear their father swearing at her as he had this evening, yelling and waving his fist as he hurled terrible accusations in her face. Accusations that were, sadly, true.

  For Stella, however, the vile descriptions that still echoed in her head could never sully the beauty of the precious time she’d stolen to be with Tom Kearney. She could never regret going to Cairns to meet him. Those few, too brief, blissful days would be forever enshrined in her memory, bright and unsullied.

  Deep within her, she nursed a reassuring certainty that her memories of Tom would sustain her through whatever grim trials life, or her husband, chose to throw at her. Her only regret was that all these years later, Magnus had finally, mysteriously, found out about Tom.

  Predictably, Magnus had overreacted and jumped to wild, irrational conclusions, with the result that he’d insisted on making these drastic changes to his will. Now he planned to drive to Burralea tomorrow to deliver his instructions to their lawyer.

  This was to be her punishment, but the changes he’d ordered were totally unreasonable. Crazy. Fuelled by jealousy and based on wrong assumptions.

  Unfortunately, Stella knew that her husband wouldn’t listen to reason, especially not from her, and although Kenneth Woods was an old family friend as well as their lawyer, she doubted that even he would be able to change Magnus’s mind. Her husband’s pig-headedness knew no bounds.

  With a heavy sigh, Stella picked up the envelope, handling it cautiously between her thumb and forefinger, as if it were a bomb. She slipped it into the pocket of her apron, then made her way through the house to the verandah outside.

  The night sky was filled with clouds, without a glimmer from moon or stars. Stella leaned forward, resting her forearms on the verandah railing, and looked out into a blackness so complete she felt smothered by it.

  Down by the creek the mournful cry of a curlew drifted into the night in a soul-searing wail of despair.

  I know how you feel, she told it silently and, despite the warm spring evening, she was swamped by a wave of hopelessness.

  She shook the feeling aside. There was danger in indulging in maudlin thoughts and she turned her mind instead to memories of her arrival here at Ruthven Downs as a bride, remembering how she’d loved the homestead at first sight. She’d entered this marriage determined to be a good wife and mother and, for the most part, she’d succeeded. It had only been in recent years that Magnus’s drinking had spoiled the delicate harmony she’d worked so hard to maintain.

  Until now she’d managed to keep her marriage and her family on an even keel, and tonight she had to remain strong. Her son’s future and the future of the Drummond family’s vast cattle property now depended on her. She had to keep a cool head and think this problem through.

  Even the bleakest situations could be turned around. There was always a solution, and she was grateful for the crucial lesson she’d learned many years ago. Too late.

  She must ne
ver, never give up hope.

  1

  Ruthven Downs, 2014

  It had been a long day in the stockyards. As Seth Drummond drove his ute back down the winding, dusty track to the homestead, his thoughts were focused on creature comforts. A hot shower, a fried steak with onions, and a beer. Not necessarily in that order.

  Rounding the last bend, he dipped his Akubra against the setting sun and saw the familiar spread of the home paddocks and the horse yards, their timber fences weathered to silvery grey. Beyond the low, sprawling, iron-roofed homestead with its deep verandahs and hanging baskets of ferns, a huge old poinciana tree shaded the house from the western sun.

  At the perimeter of the paddocks, a meandering line of paperbarks marked the course of the creek, and as the setting sun’s rays lengthened, the distant hills became folds of rumpled velvet beneath an arching sky that deepened from pale blue to mauve.

  Seth had lived here all his life, but he never tired of this view, especially at the end of the day when the landscape was dappled with shadows and light.

  Today, however, a strange car was parked near the homestead’s front steps. The small, bright purple sedan looked out of place in this dusty rural setting.

  Visitors.

  On the passenger’s seat at Seth’s side, the blue cattle dog pricked up his ears and stiffened.

  ‘Yeah, know how you feel, Ralph.’ Seth gave the dog’s neck a sympathetic scratch. ‘I’m beat. Not in the mood for visitors.’

  He edged the ute forward and as he did so, a figure rose from a squatter’s chair on the verandah. A girl in slim blue jeans and a white T-shirt. She had a mane of thick, pale tawny hair, dead straight to her shoulders.

  Recognising her, Seth let out a low whistle.

  Joanna Dixon, the English backpacker, had scored a job as camp cook on last year’s muster. She’d cooked a mean curry in the camp oven and she’d coped well on the job, giving as good as she got when the ringers labelled her the Pommy jillaroo and teased her about her toffy English accent.

  Pretty in a slim, tomboyish way, with surprisingly cool, blue eyes, Joanna had flirted with Seth rather blatantly. But his job had been to lead the mustering team, not to be sidetracked by the chance of a roll in the swag with the hired help.

  He had no idea what Joanna was doing back here now, but his recollections were suddenly cut off. Joanna was bending down to lift something from a basket on the verandah.

  A small bundle. A baby.

  Seth cast a quick glance around the homestead and lawns, but there was no sign of another woman. Joanna was holding the baby against her shoulder now, patting it with a practised air.

  Fine hairs lifted on the back of Seth’s neck. He went cold all over. No, surely not.

  After the muster last year, Joanna had moved away from the district to pick bananas at a farm near Tully. Seth hadn’t expected to see her again, and he’d been surprised when she’d turned up at the Mareeba Rodeo a couple of weeks later, all smiles and long legs in skinny white jeans. She’d greeted him like a long-lost friend and had mingled easily with his circle of friends.

  They’d enjoyed a few laughs, a few drinks. Later that night, primed with rum and Cokes, Joanna had knocked on his motel door. He hadn’t turned her away that time.

  Yanking a sharp rein on his galloping thoughts, Seth parked the ute next to her car. He drew several deep breaths and took his time killing the motor. There had to be a sensible explanation for this, an explanation that did not involve him.

  Determined to show no sign of panic, he got out of the vehicle slowly. ‘Stay here,’ he told Ralph as the dog slipped out behind him. Obedient as ever, the blue heeler sat in the red dust by the ute’s front wheel, his eyes and ears alert.

  The girl on the verandah settled the baby in her arms. Seth removed his Akubra and ran a hand through his hair. After an afternoon in the stockyards, he was dusty and grimy: he’d been branding, ear-tagging and vaccinating a new mob of weaners, fresh from the Mareeba sales. He left his hat on the bonnet as he strolled towards the three low steps that led to the verandah.

  ‘Hi, Joanna.’

  ‘Hello, Seth.’

  ‘Long time no see.’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked nervous, which was not a good sign. The girl Seth remembered had been brash and overconfident.

  ‘How long have you been waiting here?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh.’ She gave a shy shrug. ‘An hour or so.’

  ‘That’s quite a wait. Sorry there was no one to meet you. I’m afraid I’m the only one home at the moment.’ He forced a smile but it only reached half-mast. ‘I thought you’d be back in England by now.’

  ‘I’ll be flying home quite soon.’

  Relief swept through Seth. He’d been stupidly worrying about nothing. This wasn’t what he’d feared. Joanna was leaving, going back to England.

  ‘That’s why I needed to see you.’ Joanna dropped her gaze to the baby in her arms, then looked at Seth again. He could see now that her eyes were too big and too wide, displaying an emotion very close to fear.

  Alarmed, Seth swallowed. His mind was racing again, trying to recall important details from that night over a year ago. Hadn’t Joanna said she was on the pill?

  He found himself staring at the baby, searching for clues, but it just looked cute and tiny like any other baby. Its hair was downy and golden as a duckling, and it had pink cheeks and round blue eyes. It was wearing a grey and red striped jumpsuit and he couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl.

  He swallowed again. ‘How can I help you, Joanna?’

  Her mouth twisted, and she looked apologetic. So not a good sign. ‘I’ve come to introduce you to Charlie.’

  Whack.

  ‘A – a boy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Seth couldn’t think. He was too busy panicking. ‘Is – is he yours?’ A stupid question, no doubt, but it was the best he could manage.

  ‘Yes.’ Joanna gave her lower lip a quick nervous chew. ‘And he’s yours too, Seth.’

  Slam. It was like being thrown from a horse and finding himself on the ground, winded. Seth struggled to breathe. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Joanna truly looked sorry. Unfortunately for Seth, this only compounded the situation. She’d always been so cool and self-assured, and now, as he saw tears glittering in her eyes, an incredible impossibility seemed scarily believable and – damn it – feasible.

  ‘Didn’t you . . . Weren’t you on the pill?’

  ‘Yes, but I’d started the pill mid-cycle and things hadn’t settled down. Obviously, I should have been been more careful. I should have warned you, but I never dreamed . . . It was an accident, of course.’

  Again she looked down at the baby lying in her arms. She touched his soft hair. ‘I nearly didn’t go through with it. I was so close to having an abortion. I had it all booked and everything. But I – I knew he was yours.’

  She looked up at Seth with a sad smile. ‘At the last minute I knew I had to keep him, Seth. I realised I had this little person inside me and I knew that one day he could inherit all this.’ She gave a nod towards the wide, bronzed stretch of the Ruthven Downs paddocks.

  Seth could only stare at her. He had no words. He was numb, dumbstruck. Trying to take in the horrifying news.

  ‘Charlie’s three months old. You can have a DNA test, if you like, but I swear you’re the only guy I slept with around then.’ Lifting her chin, she eyed him steadily. ‘You’re his father, Seth. Your name is on his birth certificate. He’s Charles Drummond.’

  Seth still couldn’t think straight, but he forced his legs to move, to mount the steps. ‘You’d better come inside.’

  ‘Right, thanks.’ With surprising speed, Joanna scooped up a bulging zipper bag and the basket, which Seth now realised was actually one of those capsules for putting babies into cars.

  It was a lot to juggle when she had the baby as well. He wasn’t keen to help her. It would be like admitting to a truth
he didn’t want to accept, but the good manners ingrained in him from birth were too strong. He held out his hand. ‘I’ll take those.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The homestead door wasn’t locked. Propping it ajar with one elbow, Seth nodded for Joanna to precede him into the central hallway. ‘Lounge room’s on the right,’ he said, knowing she’d never been in the house before. When she’d been on Ruthven Downs previously, she’d only ever slept in the ringers’ quarters or in a swag under the stars.

  Now he followed her into the lounge room, still furnished with the same old-fashioned chintz and silky-oak sofas and armchairs that had been in the house since his grandparents’ day. The long room was divided by a timber archway and at the far end was the dining area, dominated by a rather grand, mirror-backed sideboard where a collection of photos depicted the history of Seth’s family. The Drummonds of Ruthven Downs.

  Seth’s great-grandfather Hamish Drummond was there in faded sepia, looking serious and heroic in his World War I army uniform. In another frame, Seth’s grandparents stood together on their wedding day, his grandfather Magnus looking ever so slightly smug. Then his father, Hugh, as a baby in a long, white christening robe. His parents, rugged up in thick coats and scarves, on their honeymoon in the Blue Mountains. Seth was there too, aged around ten. He and his sister were both on horseback. There were even photos of his aunt and cousin.

  Now, as Seth set the baby capsule and bag in a corner next to a faded gold and cream oriental rug, he felt as if the four generations of family photographs were somehow watching him. Reproaching him for fathering a bastard.

  ‘Take a seat, Joanna.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She seemed as edgy as he was and she sat with a very straight back.

  ‘Would you like a drink? Water? A cuppa?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. I have a water bottle. I can’t stay long.’

  Seth frowned. He supposed he should be relieved that this was only a brief call. She was going back to England, so at least she wasn’t planning to move in with him.

  But there were so many questions. He was too tense to sit. ‘How come this has taken so long?’ He tried not to glare at her, but he had no hope of smiling. ‘You’ve known about – about him for a year. Why suddenly decide to turn up now out of the blue?’