Tiger Men (40 page)

But much to Eileen’s chagrin, Shauna had remained resolute. She had continued to refuse Mr Billing, despite his relentless pursuit, for Melvyn, who was besotted, did not intend to give up easily. Then, a further six months later, to her mother’s utter astonishment, Shauna announced she was moving to the house in Montpellier Retreat.

‘I have accepted Mr Billing’s offer of a position as live-in governess to the children,’ she said and, as her mother stared at her in open amazement, she added the obvious: ‘I have agreed to become his mistress.’

Eileen was astounded. She could not for the life of her understand her youngest daughter’s reasoning. If mistress, then why not wife? But she welcomed the arrangement nonetheless. Shauna was bound to give in and marry the man eventually, and in the meantime she had found herself a wealthy benefactor.

Shauna’s reasoning was actually simple. She wanted to experience sex. Her sister Mara had told her it was the height of pleasure: ‘Not a duty at all. Mother is quite right, one should please the man, but oh Shauna,’ she’d said, her face radiant, ‘in pleasing the man, how one does so end up pleasing oneself. The sensation is utterly indescribable,’ she’d added with a hopeless shake of her head. Then she’d gone on to describe it anyway, recounting each erotic moment and sparing no detail.

For years Eileen O’Callaghan had drummed into her daughters the value of their bodies. They had been warned not to give themselves to some hot-headed young rake, but to keep their virginity as a treasure for one who could afford it. They were bred for wealthy men, she’d told them. She’d told them about sex too, explaining the way they could use their bodies and the tricks they could employ; she’d been quite graphic. Their duty was to please, she’d said. ‘Do not seek your own gratification. Focus at all times upon the man. Remember always, the more you pleasure your man, the more he will desire you and the less likely he will stray.’

Mara’s version of sex differed considerably from their mother’s. Shauna found it arousing and couldn’t wait to experience the joys her sister so vividly described. Besides, by giving herself to Mr Billing she was not disobeying instructions. Mr Billing was no hot-headed young rake but a wealthy man who was offering to keep her in style, albeit in secret style to avoid undue gossip, which of course was understandable.

Sex for Shauna proved every bit as enjoyable as Mara had promised it would be. The O’Callaghan girls, all three, did not suffer their mother’s inhibition. They practised the tricks she had taught them indeed, but they were sexually abandoned creatures who gave themselves up wholeheartedly to their own pleasure as well as their partner’s.

Melvyn Billing’s life would never be the same. A conservative man, the radical step of taking a mistress had been most out of character, but his infatuation with Shauna O’Callaghan and her refusal to marry him had driven him to make the offer. He now found himself awakened to an insatiable lust he hadn’t known he possessed. He wanted to have her morning, noon and night, and be it morning, noon or night when he visited her quarters, she was ready for him. More than ready: she was always eager and waiting. Melvyn lived in continual states of arousal, ecstasy and exhaustion. Throughout the ten years of his marriage sex had never been like this.

The governess’s quarters were in a separate wing of the house, but the situation was nonetheless obvious to the servants. The cook, the housekeeper and the maid knew exactly what was going on. The cook and the maid, who both liked Shauna, thought it was lovely that Mr Billing, a lonely widower for two long years, now had a companion, but Flora, who had kept house for the past ten years, was of quite a different opinion. Flora had hoped that she might replace her former mistress in the master’s affections and she found the current arrangement disgraceful. She strongly disapproved of Shauna, whom she considered no more than a whore, and she made her disapproval evident, although never in the presence of the master.

Shauna didn’t care in the least. She thought it rather stupid of Flora to make an enemy of her when she could so easily have had her dismissed – for Melvyn would do anything she wished – but she did not exercise her power. A good-natured, easy-going girl, she chose instead to let the insults bounce off her and ignored the woman, which was an added irritant to Flora, who had wished to provoke her.

As the months passed Melvyn was faced with a dilemma. He remained obsessed with his young mistress’s beauty and sexuality, but he was now captivated also by the woman herself. Infatuation had become love. Melvyn loved everything about Shauna: her carefree nature, her feistiness, her sense of humour. He desperately wanted her to become his wife, and a mother to his children, who clearly adored her.

But the more Melvyn sought to legalise their relationship, the more Shauna backed away. She wasn’t altogether sure why. She liked Melvyn and the lifestyle he provided, and she very much liked his children, but she found herself instinctively balking at the prospect of marriage. Somewhere in the back of her mind was the vaguely romantic notion that marriage involved love and that love meant forever. She preferred to live for the moment, even accepting the fact that it was quite likely she would never experience love and never marry; at least as a mistress she could always walk away.

Melvyn had no option but to accept their relationship on Shauna’s terms, and the arrangement continued for a whole two years. Then Shauna moved back into her family home. The move was governed by a certain sense of fair play on her part for she had decided that if Melvyn was so keen to have a wife it was probably not fair of her to remain his mistress. However, her action was not as altruistic as it might have appeared. Melvyn’s love had become stifling and the sex not as exciting – and, having left, she quickly found that she missed the children she’d been teaching far more than she missed the man she’d been sleeping with.

‘You foolish, foolish girl.’ Eileen was dismayed. ‘A fine man like that with a respectable position in society – he would have made the perfect husband.’

‘I know, Mother,’ Shauna replied with a sublime lack of concern, ‘but I’m not sure I would have made the perfect wife. I fear marriage would bore me. In fact I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m designed more to be a mistress than a wife.’

Her words proved prophetic for over the following five years she was to become mistress to two men, each relationship lasting two years. Shauna found relationships tedious after two years and was driven to move on.

Bernie was delighted to have his favourite sister home again. Since Col’s departure he hadn’t become the focus of his father’s affections as he’d hoped he might. Quite the opposite in fact: the harder he’d tried to win favour the more he’d seemed to disappoint.

Mick, to give him his due, had done his best not to let his irritation show. He was aware the lad was trying to emulate his brother, but he wished like hell he wouldn’t. Bernie wasn’t Col and he never would be – he simply didn’t have it in him.

Col’s letters were by now few and far between, but whenever one arrived it provided immense excitement, for he would write in great detail with the deliberate intention of entertaining. Col could tell a story as well on paper as he could in real life, and his letters were read out loud over and again whenever one of the girls called in or when there was a family gathering. It was as if Col was right there with them.

Bernie could not compete with his brother’s letters. Even in absentia Col was the clear family winner. So Bernie decided he would try winning friends elsewhere. Shortly after his sixteenth birthday he left school and moved out of the cottage; his radical behaviour appeared to his parents an overnight rebellion, but Bernie had long had enough.

He got himself a room in a hostel in George Street, just around the corner from Salamanca Place, and found work as a docker, loading cargo on and off ships and in and out of warehouses.

‘So much for an education,’ Mick complained to Eileen. ‘What on earth does the lad think he’s doing with his life – at least Col had the brains to finish school.’ Mick couldn’t fathom the behaviour of his youngest son.

Bernie grew up quickly on the Hobart docks. With no older sisters to baby him and no older brother to overwhelm him he became his own man. Or at least he thought he did. His body filled out, certainly – the physical work was demanding – and given his good looks he was popular with women. Bernie never had to buy sex: it was there for the taking and he certainly availed himself of the offers. He drank and he womanised and when he had enough spare cash he gambled. In fact he did everything his brother had done, but Bernie’s problem was he didn’t do it with style. He couldn’t handle his drink the way Col could and, although women gravitated to him, they didn’t stay long. They didn’t fall in love with him as they had with Col. Perhaps they sensed his weakness.

By the time he was twenty, the drink was starting to get a grip on Bernie. When he visited the family home, as he regularly did for a baked lunch on Sundays, his parents were worried by the way he knocked back the hard liquor he brought with him.

‘You want to watch it, boy: you’re turning into a drunk.’ Mick’s method of dealing with the problem was to be harshly critical in an attempt to shock his son.

‘Come home, Bernie.’ Eileen, not sure Mick’s severity was the right tack to take, chose a motherly and more caring approach. ‘Come home where you belong, love.’

Both tacks were wrong. Bernie was sick and tired of not meeting his father’s expectations, whatever they might be, and he wanted no more mollycoddling from women. He was a man now and he lived by his own rules in a man’s world.

The only one who seemed neither to stand in judgement of him nor to fuss over him was Shauna.

‘Would you like a game of draughts, Bernie?’ she’d say.

Shauna also visited the family home regularly for the Sunday baked lunch; in fact it was one of the stipulations she set in place when coming to an agreement with a benefactor. She was between patrons at the moment, however, her two-year boredom threshold having recently run out, and had shifted back in with her parents. Once again she was teaching, but this time on a voluntary basis at a school for orphans, a position that had been arranged by her sister.

Mara Dimbleby was deeply committed to the Hobart Orphan School Association, one of the many philanthropic causes of which her husband’s business was a major supporter, but she had an ulterior motive in seeking to engage her sister’s involvement. Aside from Dimbleby’s there were any number of other wealthy businesses that funded the association, and Mara thought it an excellent means through which Shauna might hopefully meet the right husband. Mara, like her mother, considered it high time Shauna embraced the security of marriage.

Mara had certainly selected the right way to introduce her sister to wealthy men, but as it eventuated, Shauna’s personal choice proved not to be of the eligible kind. Shauna’s choices rarely were these days. She was not attracted to safety.

‘Reginald, may I introduce my wife’s sister, Shauna O’Callaghan? Shauna, this is Reginald Stanford.’

Archibald Dimbleby made the introductions. Reginald had demanded he do so the moment he’d seen her from across the other side of the ballroom.

‘You don’t happen to know that glorious creature do you?’ he’d muttered. He and Archie had been standing right beside their wives, and a number of other wives whose husbands were currently mingling, but Reginald had been unable to take his eyes off the woman in the green taffeta gown, her flame-red hair swept high, her neck and shoulders flawless. He’d seen her in the street on the odd occasion and admired her beauty, but their paths had never crossed socially. And now here she was: it was a God-given opportunity.

‘Of course I know her, old man,’ Archie had whispered. ‘She’s one of the O’Callaghan girls, my sister-in-law what’s more.’ Archie never strayed himself, why would a chap bother when he had a wife like Mara, but he knew Reginald did. Reginald Stanford was continually unfaithful to his wife. His affairs were brief and discreet and nothing that would damage his image, but most of his business acquaintances knew that Reginald simply could not resist a challenge.

‘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.