Carol’s fiancé looked very much like his mother, an extraordinary beauty who had come from the upper echelons of English society, and Carol and Linda’s parents had always wondered how Captain Butler had convinced her to emigrate to his sheep farm. Lady Deborah had probably had a completely different vision of her life as a “sheep baroness” in the empty Canterbury Plains. She must have imagined fox hunting, picnics, and garden parties rather than playing hostess only to the drovers who traveled between the distant farms to shear sheep.
In New Zealand, an invitation to tea was a rarity. People usually drank coffee in their simple farm kitchens, and the conversations had more to do with training sheepdogs or Merino-Romney crossbreeds than with caring for rosebushes. In fact, these were frequent subjects of conversation between Deborah’s husband, Captain Butler, and Linda’s mother, Catherine Rata. Catherine, who, to Deborah’s dismay, was called Cat, had declined the tea and headed straight to the shearing shed, leaving Carol and Linda in the garden with their hostess.
“Perhaps before we leave,” she’d said. “But first I really must speak with your husband about the young ram, Mrs. Butler. And pretty soon we’ll have to go. We’ll take Georgie with us. There isn’t much time.”
Georgie was the boatman who delivered mail and packages to the farms along the Waimakariri River. He had brought Cat and the two young women with him that morning. The river was the only way to travel between Rata Station and Butler Station in one day. With horses, the journey took at least two days, even though the path along the river was well maintained. It connected Rata Station with the Redwood brothers’ farm, as well as a more recently founded settlement to the north. Usually, Cat didn’t mind being on the road for a couple of days and would have been happy to sit and chat. Right now, though, the shearing was fully underway, and the last pregnant ewes were lambing. Everyone had their hands full. In October, the only person who had time for a leisurely tea party in a well-kept garden was Deborah Butler, and that was because it had never even occurred to her to get near a sheep.
Linda wondered how Captain Butler could stand Deborah’s idleness. Before he’d invested in sheep, the old salty dog had made his fortune as the captain of a whaling ship. But even after twenty years of marriage, he still seemed to be madly in love with his gorgeous wife. Everything at Butler Station pointed toward his blind obsession with her. The house wasn’t simple and practical like those at Rata Station or Redwood Station—it resembled a castle more than anything else. An English specialist had been hired to tend to the gardens, and the stable was full of thoroughbreds instead of solid crossbreeds. Captain Butler obviously viewed his wife as a rare kind of luxury, like the horses. But that indulgence didn’t extend to his son. If it had been up to his father, Oliver would be making himself useful in the shearing shed instead of taking tea with his fiancée and chatting about regattas.
“Don’t bore the young ladies, Oliver,” Deborah Butler said as she crossed the perfectly trimmed lawn.
She was trailed by a Maori girl in a maid’s uniform who carried a tray with a teapot and English biscuits. Deborah wore an elegant sky-blue day dress with a fitted bodice, bolero jacket, and hoopskirt. Cream-colored lace adorned the hem of the skirt, neckline, sleeves, and jacket. Deborah’s full dark hair was combed back and coiled tidily into a matching bonnet.
Both Linda and Carol felt awkward in their simple blouses and skirts, in spite of the fact that Carol had made an extra effort to look pretty that day. She had decorated her white muslin blouse with blue trim but had had to take off the matching cape; it had gotten warm in the spring sun. Her shiny blonde hair was pinned up in a complicated style. Linda had helped her braid it and had woven in dark blue ribbons to match the trim on the blouse and skirt. The result should have been enough to satisfy Deborah, but of course the long boat trip in the stiff breeze had been enough to set free a number of unruly strands that danced around Carol’s pretty face. Oliver thought it terribly fetching, but his mother regarded her rather skeptically.
And for Linda, Deborah Butler’s stern gaze held no mercy. After Linda had helped her excited sister with her outfit and hair, she’d had no time to worry about her own. She wore a pale blouse and a gray skirt, her hair in a simple ponytail. It had been more susceptible to the wind than Carol’s braided style, and even more stray blonde strands surrounded Linda’s face.
The girls, who had both turned eighteen in May, passed easily as twins. They both had big blue eyes, although Carol’s were a little darker and more expressive, and Linda’s were a lighter blue and gentle. Her eyes were also a bit too close together and, like her full lips, had been inherited from the girls’ father, Ottfried Brandmann. Most men couldn’t keep their eyes off Carol’s or Linda’s sensual lips. Carol’s face was narrower, and Linda’s was rather oval. But all that was only evident when one studied them closely. At first glance, the impression of sisterly similarity won out.
“How is your needlepoint going, Miss Carol?” Deborah Butler asked. Following English tradition, she poured their tea herself. The Maori girl stood aside to wait for further instructions. “Are you satisfied with the pattern?”
Carol nodded uncomfortably. Her future mother-in-law had initiated her in the art of petit point embroidery several weeks ago. The border that she was working on at the moment was intended to be a decoration for her wedding gown. Unfortunately, Carol had neither enthusiasm nor talent for fine needlework. And no matter how carefully she scrubbed her hands after a day of handling reins and leashes, wrestling with sheep, and petting horses, there was always enough grime caught under her nails to turn the border gray instead of the intended shades of cream. Fortunately, Linda helped her every now and then. She was more domestic than her half sister, and above all much more patient—when she didn’t have to listen to endless chatter about regattas.
“I’m afraid I don’t have much time for embroidery,” Carol explained. “I work on the farm, and in the evenings I’m tired. Besides, you need daylight for such fine work.”
Deborah Butler made a face. “Doubtlessly,” she agreed. “Although I don’t understand why a young lady has to work with sheep and sheepdogs. I mean, I have nothing against riding sometimes or owning a little dog. I had a kitten when I was a girl—they can be terribly charming. But my husband says you won the herding-dog competition in Christchurch?”
Carol nodded delightedly and turned to look for her dog. The tricolor border collie she called Fancy was a purebred from the Wardens’ kennel at Kiward Station, and her pride and joy. Her adoptive father Chris Fenroy liked to say that Fancy had cost him a fortune, but she was worth every penny, and in the coming years, she would be the dam for their own breeding stock at Rata Station.
“When you live here with us, it will be more necessary for you to pursue . . . ladylike activities,” Deborah Butler said before Carol could reply. “I certainly won’t allow my husband to involve Oliver’s wife in the farm work. As a member of the Butler family, you will have social obligations!”
Linda and Carol exchanged glances and almost giggled out loud. The social duties of a sheep baroness in the Canterbury Plains were limited to accompanying her husband to the annual meeting of the Sheep Breeders’ Association in Christchurch. Afterward, Carol would have to be careful not to drink herself into a stupor at the complimentary dinner at the White Hart Hotel. Many of the sheep barons had started out as whalers and seal hunters. The ladies didn’t like it when they got drunk and talked about their past experiences at the formal dinner that followed the meeting.