The Wedding Veil(30)
Five days later, it was official: Biltmore had been spared. But it was, perhaps, the only thing that had. The floodwaters had begun to recede in large part, but even still, they were up to Edith’s knees as she made the slow and deliberate walk from her home to her beloved Biltmore Village, which housed hundreds of the estate’s workers and most of the shops they frequented. She wanted to check on each and every building, but first she needed to make a stop at the hospital. It was all she could do not to sit down and positively weep. The time for that would come later, she knew. For now, there was too much to do.
Eighteen years ago, arriving at Biltmore had felt hopeful, charmed even. Edith had felt that all her worries were behind her, the struggles of the life her family had been leading swept away by George and his outrageous fortune. Swept away, Edith thought again as she sloshed through the water filling her boots.
After days of rain and two huge storms, the Swannanoa’s banks could no longer hold the majestic river, and the dams at Kanuga and Osceola had burst. Walls of water had smashed into Biltmore Village and downtown Asheville, nearly fifteen feet high in some parts. The water at Biltmore’s gates had reached nine feet. But she had held it back.
Edith had just begun to believe that finally, two years after George’s death, things were starting to get back to normal. Edith and Cornelia spent the school year in Washington and long vacations and glorious summers at Biltmore, riding horses together, fishing in the streams, playing tennis. Cornelia had become the ultimate comfort for her mother, and staying strong for her daughter was what allowed Edith to move forward, to rebuild, to get creative about saving her beloved home.
But now this. The flood of the century. The paper had reported twenty-nine deaths just yesterday, all people Edith knew. Edith recalled four of them as she placed her hand on a huge maple tree, feeling a sense of sadness wash over her as she thought of those who’d clung to it days earlier, these limbs their only hope against the rushing floodwaters.
“I wouldn’t touch that, Mrs. Vanderbilt,” a man with a rake in his hand called. Edith assumed he’d come hoping to clean up, but the water hadn’t receded enough yet. “All those people who died. That there’s the death tree.”
“Or the life tree,” she said, thinking of the survivor she was going to visit. “It all depends on how you think about it.”
He tipped his hat.
Edith turned to look out over the vast, ruinous landscape. Biltmore Village had been George’s dream and hers. A place where people could come for work, for education, and to better their lives. George had presented that charming community to Edith in its completion as a birthday gift, a sign of happy times, an investment in the community they so desperately wanted to serve. The charming shops and cafés had become the central hub, providing everything the estate workers—most of whom lived in the village chateaus—needed.
Now, the village—like George—was gone. And all the good seemed to be gone right along with it. Homes had been replaced by piles of debris. The nursery—a major source of income for the Estate—was at least eighty-five percent destroyed, including Edith’s cherished herbarium, her collection of almost 500,000 preserved plant species. It broke Edith’s heart. But that was, perhaps, the least of it. People had drowned, and livestock too. Edith could not make peace with it, this senseless loss of life.
As she sloshed her way through what had only days earlier been a vibrant example of goodwill and even better ideas, her heart stopped. The remains of a house—the house, in fact, of the very girl she was going to see in the hospital—which had been no match for the raging waters. Another loss for a family that had already lost so much. Edith’s heart raced with panic. She felt sick, nauseous, and looked around frantically for a place where she could sit to reclaim her composure, but as everything was covered in water, she pressed on.
Edith allowed herself to feel the full weight of her self-pity. If Biltmore—that great and shining beacon that Edith had saved from financial ruin on more than one occasion as of late—had been destroyed, would it have been better?
But on his deathbed, George had proclaimed to her that Biltmore was his legacy, their legacy, a sign that his family, which had struggled so to find their rightful place amid American royalty, had persevered. And she would fight for it at all costs.
“Dear George, please help me,” she said as she opened the door to the village’s hospital, its red roof and stone fa?ade making it look more like a charming mountain home than a place for the sick and injured. The interior of the hospital was light, bright, and airy, with plenty of room between beds so patients didn’t feel cramped or crowded. She was grateful that this building, at least, had been spared.
A nurse in a white uniform—Mrs. Hartwell—stopped her bustling. “Mrs. Vanderbilt!” she exclaimed. “What a nice surprise!” Her perkiness astonished Edith, especially considering she was holding a tray of bloody gauze and instruments.
“I’m so sorry for the loss of Miss Foister and Miss Walker,” Edith said, thinking of two of the women—nurses in this very hospital—who had lost their lives after hours of clinging to that maple tree.
Mrs. Hartwell nodded sadly. “Any news on Captain Lipe?” she whispered.
Edith nodded gravely, suddenly immune to the uncomfortable wetness soaking through her riding boots. “I’m here to see Miss Lipe,” she said.