“You have outdone yourself, Edi,” George said.
She felt the slightest pang for her parents. Even now, even all these years later, she wished that they could be there to meet her baby daughter inside this intricately designed room with a view of the esplanade unrivaled anywhere in the house. She wanted them to see how she had grown up, where she had ended up and, most of all, that she was okay.
“What do you think she’ll be like, George?”
He stroked his daughter’s small cheek. “I think she will be headstrong yet kind, willful yet wise, strong and energetic but with a true soft spot for the less fortunate and aggrieved.” George turned to smile at his wife. “In short, my darling, I think she will be quite like her mother.”
It warmed Edith’s heart, as George handed the tiny child back to her, that her husband thought those things of her. More than anything during her time at Biltmore she hoped to show her husband—and the whole world, really—that her soft spot was not only for Biltmore Estate but also for its people. Building a lasting legacy had meant everything to George; now it meant everything to her, too. And she had to think that this new baby was another step toward that goal.
It was clear, from the moment she was born, that Cornelia was not only the child of Edith and George Vanderbilt but also adaughter of Asheville, North Carolina. The people of the town had claimed her from conception, and there was something incredibly calming in that fact. They would watch out for her and love her always. TheCharlotte Observerhad already gone so far as to publish a poem about “Tarheel Nell’s” beauty, charm, and grace.
George kissed his wife. “I’ll call Nanny in. You need your rest.”
“Not yet,” she whispered, almost uncertainly, as though she were a child asking a parent for more time to play before dinner.
George patted Edith’s leg and simply said, “Whatever you’d like.”
When he had left, closing the door behind him, Edith looked down at her new little girl. “See all that out there, outside that window?”
The tiny infant yawned, which Edith took as a yes. “That is your home. More than inside this house, more than your bedroom or the great hall or the banquet hall, these woods, this land, these mountains are yours. They will become a part of you, just as they did your father, just as they have me, and no matter where you go or what you do, they will always beckon you back home.”
As Edith stared down into the face of her daughter, she already understood that she would never have another worriless day, that she would never stop wanting the best life had to offer for Cornelia. She prayed quickly, silently, that this place, this house, this land, would always call her daughter home, back where she belonged.
George must have held the same prayer in his heart. Because, some two months after Cornelia’s christening, George arranged another special ceremony for his daughter, a baptism of a different kind entirely. Whereas she had been baptized in the church by holy water, now it was time for her to be washed in mountain airand soil and foliage, to not only be marked as Christ’s own forever but also Asheville’s. George erected stained glass windows at All Souls for many of the people he wanted to honor, but for Cornelia, he instead planted a tree.
The mountain magnolia, with its broad, flat leaves, seemed quite a good fit. It was a hearty tree, one that would take root in the soil and, though twelve feet tall now, likely reach five times that height in its lifetime. It grew quickly and gracefully, as George and Edith hoped Cornelia would. Its blooms, while fragrant, possessed a more down-to-earth beauty than the full and flowing perfection of its southern magnolia counterpart—a fitting symbol, it seemed to George, of the luxury and ruggedness that would form Cornelia’s childhood.
When the tree was in the ground, Edith reached out her hand, adorned with the large opal pinky ring George had given her to denote Cornelia’s baptism, and touched the tree that would stand forever by the bass pond, commemorating her daughter’s life long after all of them were gone. The ring was an estate piece that, curiously, held Edith’s original initials ofE.D.and a setting that was, as legend had it, the same as the one Josephine wore as a gift from her husband, Napoléon. As Edith held her tiny baby in a single arm, she thought of Napoleon and his now-famous proclamation: “Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will move mountains.”
Edith and George had had many talks about Cornelia’s future and what it would hold. Would she move mountains? Would they move her? Looking down at her little girl, her heart so filled with joy, it seemed that both would most certainly come to be true.
Now, twenty-five years later, in a church across an ocean, Edith looked into the eyes of her grandson. George’s legacy. She thought again about that day, about that tall, broad mountain magnolia.The tree, which was hearty and vibrant, was more an embodiment of Cornelia than any stained glass window. It was a fitting tribute to a little girl who refused to be contained in glass, whose wild and wondrous spirit would cause her to fling farther, to climb higher than they could have ever imagined.
Edith looked at her daughter again, no longer the tiny child she had once been but the mistress of Biltmore with a baby of her own. It took Edith’s breath away, all they had been through, all they had lost. But some things remained. Today, she still wore that pinky ring George had given her the day of their daughter’s christening. A new George Vanderbilt was here and poised to take on the world, though he would know a different man as his grandfather. And Biltmore still stood, tall and proud amid the mountains that had witnessed centuries of stories, the mountains that would remember them long after they were gone.
Edith took a deep breath and vowed to put the past behind her. Peter was her husband now. Together, they would change the world. As she began her walk down the aisle, that tiny motion became the crossing of a chasm, a leap of faith. Edith was walking toward her future.
JULIAThe Vanderbilt Veil
Leaving paradise had been difficult, but I knew I was ready. I wasn’t like Trav; I couldn’t leave the real world behind for a life of island relaxation. In fact, after three weeks, the laid-back feel and lack of schedule were starting to stress me out.
I called Babs the night before I left, sitting on a stained wooden bench in the terra-cotta-tiled hut that served as the resort’s lobby. The long phone cord of the landline stretched from the reception desk to the bench, and the attendant who had told me I had only three minutes eyed me warily.
“Babs!” I practically shouted into the phone.
“Jules, I thought you were never coming home!” Babs exclaimed when she answered. “How I have missed you!”
“I’ve missed you too, Babs. And I can’t wait to see you in a couple days. I have so much to tell you.”
“Oh! Tell me now!”
I gave my winningest grin to the woman in her resort-issued polo shirt. In return, she started tapping her pencil on the desk impatiently. “Sorry, Babs. I only have a minute. But I wanted to see if you would meet me at thatFashionable Romanceexhibit at Biltmore. You know, the one with all the famous wedding outfits they mentioned during myspectacularbridesmaids’ luncheon?”
We both laughed.
“Including Cornelia’s?” she asked, a smile in her voice.
I wrapped the phone cord around my finger, a childhood habit I’d all but forgotten in the age of cell phones. I had thought about that veil we had seen at my bridesmaids’ luncheon so many times on this trip. We might never know the truth about our wedding veil, but if we were going to try, this exhibit might be our only chance. How else would we ever see Cornelia Vanderbilt’s wedding veil up close?
