Paul Mellon and Rachael Lambert Lloyd, called Bunny, married when she was thirty-eight and he was forty-two. It was a second marriage for both of them and they each brought two children into the marriage. However the family never actually blended. It was the 1950's. by 1955, their marriage was severely strained. Page 93: The fifties were still a world where expensive wives, however diplomatically ad insincerely, almost always deferred to their well-heeled husbands. As for therapy the general run of marriage counselling in the fifties basically involved telling the wife it was all her fault ad treating her for depression, anxiety, and "frigidity" with one of the psychopharmaceuticals new to the market ...
Paul's Freudian therapist told him to stop having sex with Bunny. She asked him if he wanted a divorce and he said no. He wanted her to be his wife, care for the children, and she could have all the money she needed. As Queen Elizabeth had the year earlier when her husband, Prince Phillip, was up to high-jinx with women, Bunny decided to go forward with this agreement in 1957.
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In this book Bunny Mellon told the author she "found a girl for him" meaning Dorcas Hardin. Page 92. Dorcas became Paul's lifelong mistress. "If Bunny's memory can be believed, she didn't have to look very far. Dorcas's brother-in-law, Taylor Scott Hardin, was a member of Virginia's horsey set. Diana, Dorcas's daughter, also went to Foxcroft (Bunny's school), graduating a year ahead of Eliza (Bunny's daughter by her first husband) and me in 1959." In other words Dorcas was a member of society and from a world similar to that of Bunny. "Dorcas owned a fashionable clothing boutique in Georgetown." Which is near Washington, D.C.
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Missy here: I would love more details on how exactly Bunny found Dorcas. Did she herself go to Dorcas and ask her to be her husband Paul's mistress?
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