by Judy Nunn
‘Introduce me,’ Reginald had demanded under his breath. Then he’d turned to Evelyn and the other wives. ‘Will you excuse us, ladies,’ he’d said, ‘a bit of business to attend to, won’t be long,’ and he and Archie had left, ostensibly to circulate among their colleagues.
The 1892 Spring Charity Ball, held in the opulent grand ballroom of the Town Hall, was the social event of the season, attracting the who’s-who of Hobart. Up on stage, in front of the ornate arch that housed the organ, a band was playing a waltz, and in the glittering light cast by the three chandeliers that hung from the ballroom’s massive ceiling, couples glided gracefully about the floor, women glamorous in their gowns, men handsome in their evening dress. Around the perimeters of the ballroom were those watching the dancers: the elderly, who were seated enjoying the spectacle; and those standing nearby, hiding their longing with careless smiles as they waited to be invited onto the floor. Others were paying little attention to the dancers as they mingled, chatting among themselves, some exchanging niceties, some conducting business, and some unmistakeably flirting.
‘How do you do, Mr Stanford,’ Shauna boldly proffered her gloved hand to be kissed in the French manner of greeting. Reginald Stanford of Stanford Colonial – she knew exactly who he was, and she liked what she saw. He was handsome in an elegant way, with his ramrod-straight back, his formal evening suit stylishly cut and fitted to perfection: a man of obvious position and power. But she sensed something else, something lurking beneath the dapper surface. In the ice-blue eyes she saw danger. Shauna liked danger, it excited her. Danger was an aphrodisiac.
‘Miss O’Callaghan.’ Reginald took her hand and obediently touched his lips to her glove, surprised but intrigued by the boldness of her gesture. He was surprised and intrigued also by the way she was so blatantly assessing him. The audacity of the woman.
‘Shauna has volunteered her services to the cause, Reginald,’ Archibald said. ‘She teaches our orphans three mornings a week.’ Stanford Colonial was a longstanding supporter of the Hobart Orphans School Association.
‘Ah,’ Reginald said, ‘we welcome generosity like yours, Miss O’Callaghan.’ Her eyes were focused on his mouth now as if she were devouring him, or rather as if she might wish to. Remarkable, he thought, quite remarkable. Women simply did not look at men in such a manner. Far from being disconcerted, Reginald found her behaviour extremely erotic – which is no doubt her intention, he thought. The woman was a predator. How very exciting. ‘On behalf of the Association,’ he said, ‘I thank you most sincerely for donating your time and your expertise.’
‘It is no hardship, I can assure you,’ Shauna replied with an easy smile, her eyes now meeting his. ‘I very much enjoy teaching children.’ It was true she did enjoy teaching at the school, but she was grateful for the secret remuneration she received from her sister. Heavens above, she was between lovers: she couldn’t survive on air. Although perhaps, she thought as she saw Reginald Stanford’s eyes flicker to her bare shoulders, perhaps her pecuniary difficulties were about to be resolved.
‘I think it’s time we were moving on, old man,’ Archibald said with a signalling glance towards the opposite side of the ballroom, where Evelyn was looking steadfastly in their direction. ‘There are several colleagues we need to chat to.’
Reginald did not acknowledge Archie’s warning; he didn’t give a damn about his wife. Evelyn knew he had dalliances, and why shouldn’t he? She was not only unexciting in bed, she was infertile. Reginald was sick of Evelyn.
‘It’s been delightful to meet you, Miss O’Callaghan. I do trust you’ll enjoy the ball.’
‘I know I shall, Mr Stanford.’ Her smile was intimate, as if they were lovers. ‘I am already enjoying myself,’ she said, ‘very much indeed.’
‘Perhaps we will meet on the dance floor. They’re bound to play a progressive waltz, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes I would, and perhaps we will. If so I shall look forward to our reunion.’
‘And now, Archie, you’re quite right,’ Reginald dragged his eyes away from her, ‘we must mingle; there is business to be done.’ He might not give a damn about his wife, but he had a respectable position in society and appearances must be observed. Talking with Shauna O’Callaghan was like making love in public.
Half an hour later, following an energetic polka, the music ceased and the bandmaster stepped forwards.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced, obeying the instruction relayed to him personally by Reginald Stanford, ‘take your partners now please and form a circle for “The Parmelia Progressive Waltz”.’
‘Would you care to dance, my dear?’ Reginald offered Evelyn his arm.
‘I’d be delighted,’ she said and they stepped out onto the dance floor.
Evelyn knew exactly what was going on. She and Reginald had had one obligatory dance early in the evening, after which he’d left her with the other wives while he mingled. It was true many of the husbands spent the evening conferring – a great deal of business was conducted at social functions like this – but other men’s business did not include intimate conversations with beautiful, bare-shouldered redheads. And now Reginald was keen to participate in the progressive waltz.
As they took their places in the circle, waiting for the music to commence, Evelyn watched the woman with the flame-coloured hair being partnered onto the dance floor. This woman will be my husband’s next conquest, she thought, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Evelyn Stanford’s marriage was not a happy one, but like many a barren wife she held herself principally to blame. Reginald desperately wanted a son, and in two years of marriage she had failed to become pregnant. She annoyed him now and she knew it. They coupled regularly in the hope that she might conceive, but there was no joy in the act, so it was little wonder he sought his pleasures elsewhere. Evelyn prayed with all her heart that she would conceive and that God would grant her a son. If He did, then her husband would come back to her.
The band struck up and the dance commenced. In barely half a minute the couples would part, the ladies progressing on to their next partner.
Reginald watched as she came ever closer. He released his current partner from the circular waltz and held his hand out to receive the next woman in line. He enjoyed dancing, but his mind was not on the dance as hand in hand he and his new partner stepped forward three paces and then back three paces. He could no longer see her: she was behind him now. Then twenty seconds later, the circular waltz and there she was again, the green taffeta gown and red hair clearly visible in a sea of twirling bodies. He tried counting how many couples were between them, but the moment was too brief and she was still too far away. More partners arrived and moved on in the never-ending circle of the dance, and closer and closer she came. It was easy to count now: she was only three couples away. Then two couples, then one, and now as he stepped forward with his new partner she was right behind him.
The circular waltz, then the progression and suddenly her hand was in his. They had little time. There was no point in wasting it.
‘We must see each other alone,’ he said as they took their three paces forward and their three paces back.
‘Yes, we must. Where do you suggest?’
‘The Orient. Suite number eleven on the second floor.’ Stanford Colonial maintained a regular suite at the Orient Hotel for the accommodation of visiting colleagues and as a venue for business meetings. The arrangement proved extremely convenient for Reginald.
‘When, and at what time?’ Shauna knew Hadley’s Orient Hotel in Murray Street. Everyone did. It was the most elegant hotel in Hobart.
‘Tomorrow afternoon, three o’clock.’
They were facing each other now in the next sequence of the dance, holding both hands, stepping towards each other and then back.
‘Tomorrow is Sunday.’ She twirled under his arm and they changed sides to repeat the step.
‘So?’
‘Sunday is the day I visit my family.’
‘Monday then –’ the circular waltz was coming up, they were running out of time ‘– Monday, three o’clock.’
‘I shall be there.’
He put his arm around her waist, holding her close as they waltzed the final steps. ‘I’m married,’ he said. Best to prepare her, in case she had any illusions he was available.
‘Of course you are,’ she whispered into his ear. As if she didn’t know that. Then she smiled and glided on to the next partner.
Reginald was accustomed to making his conquests with relative ease. Money and power could eventually seduce even the most proper of women, he’d found. But this evening, although his assignation had been made with record speed, he did not feel like a conqueror at all. To the contrary, he felt as though she had conquered him. How tremendously exciting, he thought. This affair was destined to be a torrid one.
The following day, Mara Dimbleby called around to her parents’ home in Hampden Road. Mara visited at least once a month, always staying for the Sunday baked luncheon and always with her small son and daughter in attendance. She was rarely accompanied by her husband. Archibald found the O’Callaghan home stifling and unpleasant, particularly when Bernie was there, which he invariably was on a Sunday. Bernie’s drinking habits disgusted Archibald. He would have steered his children well clear of the place if he’d had his way, but with a feisty wife like Mara he couldn’t. ‘You can like it or lump it, Archie,’ she would say, ‘but the children will grow up knowing their grandparents.’ Mara openly acknowledged that she’d married a snob – it was one of the prices one paid for the security of a good marriage, she said to her mother, and Eileen was hardly likely to disagree. Archie was very generous to his wife, and his wife in turn was very generous to her family.
This Sunday, however, Mara had left the children at home with their nanny. She wanted to speak to Shauna alone, she announced with a meaningful look to her mother. Eileen, welcoming any sound advice Mara might offer to her wayward youngest daughter, refused any help in the kitchen and, while the roast was cooking, the two went into Shauna’s bedroom.
The same room we shared as girls, Mara thought. It looked even smaller and there’d been three of them then with Kathleen at home. Behind her in the main living room, her father and her young brother were seated at the dining table drinking and chatting. Bernie was knocking back straight rum and Mick was sipping from a glass of rum-spiked milk. He’d given up the ale lately as it irritated his ulcer. Their talk was amicable enough as they played the charade of father-and-son camaraderie, but before the day was out Bernie would become obstreperous and Mick would become irritable. Mara closed the bedroom door.
‘What’s going on, Shauna?’ she demanded as they sat opposite each other on the two small bunks. Like her mother, Mara always got straight to the point. ‘I was watching you last night. I saw how you set your hat at Reginald Stanford. Why on earth did you bother?’ Mara was justifiably annoyed. She’d gone to a great deal of trouble for her sister. ‘The object of the exercise was to find you a husband. I introduced you to at least three eligible men last night, all of them ideal husband material –’
‘And they were boring, every one of them,’ Shauna said with a shrug, ‘Reginald Stanford wasn’t.’
‘You’re thirty-two years old, for God’s sake.’ Mara felt like hitting her sister. ‘You need security in your life. Stanford is hardly going to offer you that.’
‘How do you know? He’s very wealthy. He may not be “husband material”,’ Shauna softened her mockery with a smile, ‘but he is excellent “benefactor material”, wouldn’t you agree?’ Much as she appreciated her family’s care and concern, Shauna was heartily sick of Eileen’s and Mara’s nagging. When would they realise that ‘husband material’ did not interest her? When would they simply allow her to lead her own life?
‘No, Shauna, you are wrong, Reginald Stanford is not excellent benefactor material at all.’ Mara refused to lose her temper. She was determined to issue a serious warning. ‘He does not keep mistresses. Archie tells me that to the best of his knowledge Stanford has never once kept a mistress. The man has brief affaires de coeur only.’
‘Which means, like me, he is easily bored.’ Shauna decided to call a halt to the discussion. ‘We must therefore make it our mission to excite each other.’
‘You have agreed to meet with him already?’
‘Tomorrow, the Orient at three o’clock. I must say I’m very much looking forward to it.’
Mara found her sister’s flippancy intensely annoying.
‘Your last two lovers were married, weren’t they?’ she said. The question was clearly rhetorical and Shauna simply nodded. ‘Did you ever consider the wrongs that were perpetrated upon the wives of those men?
Her sister stared back uncomprehendingly.
‘Those loyal women who wait at home faithfully while their husbands betray them,’ Mara said coldly. ‘Do you never think of your lovers’ wives?’
‘Are you worried that Archie might be cheating on you, Mara?’ Shauna found the notion absurd – Archibald Dimbleby was besotted with his wife – but she couldn’t understand why else her sister would pose such a question.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mara said dismissively. She was supremely secure in the hold she had over her husband. She made it her mission in life to keep him satisfied. Archie would never stray. But in her heart of hearts, there were times when Mara secretly wished that she could. Sex was no longer the delirious, heady experience it had once been and, if the truth were known, there were occasions when she found herself actually envying her sister’s freedom.
She curbed her impatience. ‘I’m merely saying that I know Evelyn Stanford and she is a good woman.’ It isn’t fair of me, she thought, to blame Shauna for escaping the tedium of marriage. ‘Reginald’s multitudinous affairs have caused his wife quite a deal of pain over the past year or so.’
‘Then just imagine how much happier her life will be when he has a regular mistress,’ Shauna said. ‘He will make a far better husband if he is not out seeking fresh conquests.’ She was not being in the least facetious: the argument made perfect sense to her. And she would become Reginald Stanford’s mistress, she decided. Mara’s warning had only served to further whet her appetite – indeed she found the prospect of the challenge he presented most exhilarating.
Mara could see the eager light of anticipation in her sister’s eyes. ‘I worry for you, Shauna,’ she said. ‘You cannot spend your whole life chasing excitement.’
‘Why not? If love isn’t present, excitement is surely the next best thing. In fact I am of the opinion excitement may even surpass love.’
‘There is a compromise, you know,’ Mara drily suggested. ‘There is marriage.’
‘Not for me.’ Shauna jumped to her feet. ‘I shall become Reginald Stanford’s mistress, thereby doing his wife a great favour. I shall keep him off the streets for a whole two years.’ She laughed. ‘Who knows, if he doesn’t bore me, perhaps even longer.’ She grabbed her sister’s hand and hauled her to her feet. ‘Now come along, Mara, do. The lecture is over. Lunch must be nearly ready, and I’m starving.’
Four years later, Shauna was still keeping Reginald Stanford off the streets. But their relationship was not at all as she had anticipated. Within just one year it had taken a turn she could never have foreseen. Shauna was in love.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘How is Evelyn?’ she asked.
The late afternoon sun streamed through the heavy lace curtains of the bedroom window as they lay together naked, side by side, holding hands while they talked. Reginald, a private man, had never been comfortable in his nakedness. Even with his wife he had observed the niceties, never appearing unclothed before her, and sex, be it conjugal or adulterous, had always been a furtive affair conducted under the cover of darkness. Things were different with Shauna. In defying convention herself, Shauna had freed him of the inhibitions of a lifetime.
‘She is strong,’ he said. ‘
The doctor is most pleased with her progress.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ When their time was limited, as it was today for he was not staying the night, they didn’t allow themselves the luxury of drifting off to sleep. Instead, they talked, and she always asked after Evelyn.
‘Only several weeks now; God how I pray all goes well,’ he said fervently, ‘and how I pray it’s a boy.’
‘All will go well, dearest.’ She could see the innate fear in his eyes. ‘Evelyn has carried the baby to nearly full term and the doctor says she is strong. I am sure there will be no cause for concern.’ She propped on an elbow and smiled down at him, the glare of her hair startling in the sun’s rays. ‘And if by chance the child is a girl,’ she said challengingly, ‘do not demean her, for we women are remarkable creatures.’
He laughed. ‘Some of you are, my love.’ He pulled her to him and kissed her. ‘Oh yes, indeed, some of you certainly are,’ he said as he felt himself becoming aroused. Again, he thought, and in such a short time. She was remarkable – there was no doubt about that.
During the four years of their relationship, Reginald had not once felt the desire to seek fresh conquests. In his eyes, no woman could match his mistress’s beauty, and he doubted there were any who could match her sexual expertise. But there was another service Shauna offered that over the years had proved of inestimable value, more than even he could have realised. Shauna was his confidante, and as such she was possibly his very sanity.
Reginald had shared his feelings with no-one throughout the whole of his life, his anger and resentment remaining bottled inside, fermenting, occasionally exploding in a flash of rage or a black mood that seemed to come from nowhere. Now finally there was someone with whom he could communicate, someone he could trust. He had found an outlet.
