After five years of marriage, Priscilla Truesdale Coleman realized that she was tired of being pampered.
In the days when she had been Prissie Truesdale, she had been a rather good paralegal, living in an apartment alone and sleeping with a succession of men, though not a very long succession. She thought of herself as normal, and she expected to settle down with one man and raise children with him, and perhaps work on and off over the years as it became desirable or possible.
That had changed when she was twenty-three. Her widowed mother had married into a minor (which is to say un-moneyed) branch of a wealthy family, and had always taken this fact much more seriously than her late father had. Priscilla had been repeatedly introduced to members of local society at events which neither she nor her mother could really afford to attend.
At twenty-three she caught the eye of William Warner Coleman, of the legal and financial Colemans. Little Willie, as he was called to distinguish him from his uncle, was a stockbroker with a great appetite for detail and planning. He gave Priscilla several elegant and expensive evenings out before asking her to marry him.
She was quite startled at this coming from someone who had known her only six weeks, and had not yet even hinted at taking her to bed. But she was feeling overwhelmed by this unaccustomed glamour, and she said yes.
William Coleman almost instantly began to plan their wedding, to take place in two more months at the end of May. Priscilla barely got to say a word about it, since everything was going to be far more elaborate than what was in her occasional daydreams. It was a magnificent spectacle, and Priscilla's mother was supremely happy. Priscilla was too dazzled to know what to think of it herself.
Little Willie spent the evening with Priscilla two or three times a week in April and May, but at no time did they spend the night under the same roof -- nor even a quick and dirty half-hour behind a locked bedroom door.
So when Priscilla entered the bridal suite in the hotel in St. Croix, several hours after the wedding, she discovered three things. Firstly, that William Warner Coleman at twenty-six had had no experience of women. Secondly, that he had presumed her to be virginal, but with a little acting on her part he did not really notice the difference. Thirdly, that "Little Willie" was more accurate a name than she liked.
That last Priscilla could have taken in her stride, so to speak, but Willie was also not interested very often, not even in the kissing and cuddling and fondling which she wanted as the mortar between his bricks. When they returned to the large house which he had purchased, with its acre or so of ground, Priscilla found that there was little for her to do -- or even to be allowed to do.
She had accepted with equanimity his decision that she not work, since there was a certain appeal to not having to and he certainly did not need the income. She did convince him to not have a full staff of servants; she talked the cook down to only coming in for dinner, and the maid to only being there twice a week.
After a while, she wanted to take on all those duties herself, but Little Willie insisted that doing so would be improper and undignified.
Shopping for supplies and clothing and so forth was permitted to her, but only within the broad outlines which Willie had planned out for her. (In truth, his plans were worked out in very small scale, but he did not notice when Priscilla ignored them.)
But going to shop was not permitted. Willie explained that the charge accounts were good at every store in town, or any nearby one, and anything she was unsure about wanting could be sent on approval.
Priscilla found that Willie loved to go over all the charges and bills, adding everything and looking for errors, quibbling at times over the prices paid for useful items but ignoring those of luxuries. Especially things for Priscilla. But this made it impossible to keep any sort of secret from him except by paying cash, and her cash was limited to $50 of household money.
If she wanted to leave the house to do charity work, that was certainly in the best tradition of the best families. But Priscilla found that the women running the local charities resented someone so young and attractive, and someone who actually knew something about the people who were to be uplifted.
Her old friends were for the most part still working at regular jobs, and those who had married and had (or planned) children were only irregularly available during the day.
Raising children was something that Priscilla knew would occupy her time in a very worthwhile endeavor. But Little Willie did not want any, and his infrequent interest made pregnancy unlikely anyway.
To sum it all up, the world of Priscilla Truesdale Coleman was elegant, expensive, and boring. It grew on her that what she spent on luxuries did not matter to Willie because she was one of his luxuries; pretty but not useful and mostly kept on the shelf.
