Even in her prime, in the 1960s, when she redesigned the White House Rose Garden for her friend Jacqueline Kennedy, she avoided the public eye.
So it was a rude shock to her social strata when Mrs. Mellon, known chiefly for her passion for horticulture (she has collected more than 10,000 books on botany) and her decorum, became ensnared in the protracted scandal surrounding John Edwards, the former Democratic candidate for president.
Mr. Edwards was indicted by a federal grand jury on Friday on charges that he violated campaign finance laws in an effort to conceal an extramarital affair while running for president in 2008, mainly by using $725,000 given to him secretly by Mrs. Mellon. Mr. Edwards pleaded not guilty, and the case is headed for trial. Mrs. Mellon was not named in the indictment — she was referred to as Person C — but is essentially an unindicted co-conspirator.
Mrs. Mellon could not be reached for comment. But Bryan Huffman, a decorator from Monroe, N.C., who was the conduit for Mrs. Mellon’s checks to Mr. Edwards, said he spoke to her on Friday after the indictment.
“She’s upset that the whole thing has come to this particular moment,” he said. “She is standing by Senator Edwards but is sorry that the government has pursued these charges against him.” He said she did not understand why anyone cared.
Prosecution and defense officials said Friday that they could not discuss the legal implications for Mrs. Mellon, who is known as Bunny. Her lawyer declined to comment, but her team has said that the money was a personal gift and that she had no idea how Mr. Edwards used it.
Lawyers not involved in the case said it seemed unlikely that either side would try to compel Mrs. Mellon to appear in court, but she could be asked to provide written or video testimony.
Older people are often not perceived as reliable witnesses because their memories can be shaky or they may be easily confused on the stand. But Mr. Huffman, 47, said that Mrs. Mellon was in fine fettle for someone who is 100. “She is strong, resilient and in great physical shape,” he said, noting that she still does Pilates, which she learned from the master himself, Joseph Pilates, more than 50 years ago.
Mrs. Mellon did not appear before the grand jury in North Carolina that examined the Edwards case; federal investigators traveled twice to her 4,000-acre estate in Virginia horse country to interview her. This is typically how the reclusive Mrs. Mellon has socialized, with people coming to her — even Queen Elizabeth II paid a visit — rather than the other way around.
Rachel Lowe Lambert Lloyd Mellon, born Aug. 9, 1910, was raised in privilege. Her grandfather invented Listerine and her father was president of the Gillette Safety Razor Company. Her first marriage, to Stacy Barcroft Lloyd Jr., ended in divorce in 1948. Later that year, she married Paul Mellon, the philanthropist, art collector and heir to the Mellon banking fortune.
Mr. Mellon died in 1999 at 91. Soon after, Mrs. Mellon’s daughter, Eliza, from her first marriage, was hit by a car and left a quadriplegic. She died in 2008. The next year, Robert Isabell, Mrs. Mellon’s frequent companion and a prominent events planner, died; she buried him on her property.
She only recently planned her own funeral, she told James Reginato, a writer for Vanity Fair magazine.
Mrs. Mellon still pays a great deal of attention to her surroundings, friends say. She likes to decorate. And redecorate.
“She once built a pool in Osterville,” on Cape Cod, said David Patrick Columbia, editor of NewYorkSocialDiary.com, a blog that reports on the city’s social scene, of which Mrs. Mellon was once a part. “When it was finished, she decided the deep end was on the wrong side and so she had them take it out and put in a new one.”
Her taste runs to the understated, he said. “When you saw her dress, she didn’t look extraordinary but she did look perfect.”
Mario Buatta, a New York decorator called “The Prince of Chintz,” recalled her low-key style. “I ran into her once, and she was wearing a plain raincoat and a simple rain hat,” he said.
But she can be extravagantly generous to people she likes, as Mr. Edwards would discover.
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