Florence Edwards

Florence Edwards is the wife of Charles Edwards and mother of Neville Edwards, part of a wealthy settler family whose early arrival in the Snowy Mountains helped establish its standing in the district. In Waraganj’s account of life at their homestead, Florence is restless and often away, but also becomes one of the few people there to show her some personal warmth. The connection is shaped by a concealed kinship: Waraganj is Florence’s granddaughter, though neither recognizes the relationship at first, and the affection that develops cannot undo the household’s racial hierarchy or protect Waraganj when Charles returns.

Identity and family

The Edwards family came to the high country in the early 1820s seeking more land for livestock. Charles led the journey with Neville, his youngest son, and five other men, leaving Florence, Charles’s mother Evelyn, and his daughter-in-law Eleanor at home with a young hired worker. The family is described as wealthy, and its cleared property, red-brick homestead, trimmed hedges, and lawn set it apart from the Johnson family’s poorer circumstances.

Florence is Neville’s wife and Waraganj’s stepmother. Because Waraganj is Charles’s daughter, Florence is also her paternal grandmother by marriage: a genuine family connection hidden from Waraganj when she arrives at the homestead seeking shelter. Eleanor, Neville’s wife, is Waraganj’s sister-in-law. These relationships are not initially disclosed to Waraganj, so her first encounter with the household is as a frightened stranger confronting a family whose true connection to her remains unknown.

At the homestead

When Waraganj approaches the red-brick house, Florence sees a woman in torn clothing and initially mistakes her for a white woman in severe distress. Alarmed by Waraganj’s behavior, Florence is afraid to approach and gives Eleanor a pistol, telling her to use it if the newcomer becomes dangerous. Evelyn then takes the weapon and directs Florence to speak to the woman while keeping her positioned for a clear shot. The episode establishes that Florence’s response to an unfamiliar and vulnerable arrival is cautious, filtered through the household’s fear and assumptions.

Waraganj communicates her story through signs, movement, and drawings in the dirt, explaining her fear that her new husband and the other women will mistreat her because of her fair skin and mixed ancestry. Eleanor asks Evelyn to let her stay as a housemaid. Evelyn warns that Waraganj will bring trouble, but Eleanor insists on taking responsibility for her. Florence does not lead this effort to offer shelter; her part in the household remains more distant.

Waraganj gradually settles in among the three women she sees as the property’s effective authorities. Eleanor teaches her English, while Evelyn tolerates her largely for Eleanor’s sake. Florence keeps to herself and is often away from the property. In conversations Waraganj overhears, Florence admits that she is bored with country life and would rather live in the city; she also misses her daughter Bertha. Her absences and dissatisfaction distinguish her from Eleanor’s active involvement in teaching Waraganj and from Evelyn’s authority over the household.

Kinship and attachment

A family photograph gives Waraganj her first unsettling suggestion of a connection. In it, she sees Bertha, who is visiting from Perth with her husband, and thinks that the young woman resembles her. Evelyn reacts with hostility when Waraganj looks closely at the photograph, gathering it to herself and ordering her away. Waraganj flees to sleep in the barn, afraid of Evelyn. The photograph makes resemblance visible but does not yet explain it; within the family, it is bound up with a history of losses and absences.

Florence later tells Waraganj that she looks like Bertha, her youngest daughter. Waraganj does not understand why the comparison matters, but it makes Florence more fond of her, and Waraganj welcomes the kindness. This detail gives their relationship an intimate but incomplete form: Florence recognizes a likeness to her absent child, while Waraganj experiences the resulting affection without knowing that she is Florence’s granddaughter. The resemblance becomes a small point of connection inside a household where the wider truth of their kinship remains unspoken.

After nearly three months, Waraganj has learned enough English to converse with the women. One evening, as she serves tea on the verandah, Florence asks about her fair skin and finer features. Waraganj relates the story her mother told her. Florence and Eleanor are appalled, while Evelyn leaves muttering profanities; afterward, Evelyn begins calling Waraganj Black Mary and using racist abuse to insist that she is black and inferior. Florence’s reaction shows sympathy, but the account does not describe her intervening against Evelyn’s ensuing hostility.

Change and narrative significance

The household’s fragile shelter changes after the men return from a drove, about eight months after Waraganj arrived. The narrative says that Charles’s return brings her new world crashing down, marking the limit of the security she had begun to find among the women. Florence’s earlier fondness and Waraganj’s place in the family do not translate into protection from the authority Charles represents. The difference between private affection and power within the settler household is central to Florence’s significance in Waraganj’s story.

Florence is neither presented simply as a persecutor nor as someone able to overcome the conditions around her. She is dissatisfied with the life she has, misses Bertha, and forms a genuine though partly resemblance-based attachment to Waraganj; at the same time, her early fear of the newcomer and her lack of described resistance to Evelyn’s abuse limit what that attachment can accomplish. Through Florence, the novel makes the concealed family tie legible before it can secure belonging: kinship exists, but under the household’s racialized order it does not guarantee recognition or safety.