The Wedding Veil(53)
Cornelia had never thought of herself as the type of woman to be caught up in a whirlwind romance. But Jack had changed everything. He understood her. He took care of her but also knew when she needed to take care of herself. Not a month ago, he had announced, on one of their daily long and rambling walks, “Connie, I’ve decided to leave my post.”
Jack was the first secretary of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Cornelia was shocked. In their strolls around Washington—solving the world’s problems, as it were—they had daydreamed about leaving it all behind, about trading newspapers and political functions for the serenity of Asheville. She hadn’t believed it would actually happen.
“Jack,” she argued, “you love your post. You can’t give that up.”
“I can’t be happy without you, my dear,” he replied. “And you cannot be happy without Biltmore.”
She slipped her hand in his. How true it was. Biltmore was Cornelia’s playground, her birthplace, her birthright. It had always been her safe haven from the insatiable eyes of the press that, whether she was in New York or Washington, Newport or Maine, seemed determined to eat her alive. Most of all, it was her remaining connection to the father who had loved her above anyone or anything else—even the dream home he had created in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“What will you do there?” Cornelia asked hesitantly.
Jack looked over at her, never slowing his pace, matching her step for step as they kept their heart rates up, warming themselves against the chilly March air. “I’ll manage the farm, oversee the dairy. I’ll work with your mother and the lawyers and the estate managers and superintendents to ensure that Biltmore lives to see another generation.” He paused. “And what about you? What do you dream of when you think of our lives at Biltmore?”
“Art, maybe. Motherhood, perhaps?”
Jack stopped walking and pulled his future bride close, kissing her for all the world to see.
“Motherhood will suit you quite nicely,” he said. “I am sure of it.”
Looking at her reflection now, on her wedding day, Cornelia smiled, thinking about what a wonderful father Jack would be. She believed in her heart that he would be almost as good as her own father.
“He would have loved to walk you down the aisle,” Edith said, appearing behind her in the large gilt Louis XV mirror, speaking almost as if she could hear what her daughter was thinking. Edith and Cornelia had spent months renovating many of Biltmore’s spaces in preparation for the wedding, ensuring their family and more prominent guests would have places to stay. On Cornelia’s wedding day, there were certainly plenty of spaces to choose from to dress. But Edith’s lushly appointed room was large enough to hold both the bridesmaids and her aunts. Plus, Cornelia loved imagining her father having this room outfitted for her mother, George seeing Edith in every marble-topped commode, plush chaise, and the Pierre-Philippe Barat clock on the mantel. She only hoped that Jack thought of her in the same way.
Her father was so prominent and so present in her thoughts that Cornelia felt as if he could see her now. Plus, he was in all the details here. Darling Jack had proposed to her on the anniversary of her father’s death, hoping to give her a happy memory of that day to help balance the devastatingly sad one. Last night, her mother had presented her a gift, a framed photograph of her father that sat on the dressing room table now. He was wearing his dinner jacket and black tie, holding an infant Cornelia swathed in her long white christening gown. They were on the loggia at Biltmore, and her father’s ink-black hair, slightly askew, indicated a windy day.
He was looking at Cornelia in the photo like she was the only person on earth who mattered, looking at her in the way that every father—even one with everything in the world at his fingertips—should look at his baby girl.
“No man has ever loved a little girl the way that George loved you, Nell,” her aunt Pauline interjected.
“What?” Aunt Susan protested. “I believe Daddy loved us as much as George loved our Cornelia.”
Edith rolled her eyes good-naturedly at Cornelia. The Dresser girls, as they would always and forever be known, were Cornelia’s favorite relatives.
“I don’t know…” Natalie chimed in, her tone light.
“Isn’t it strange that none of us had our wonderful fathers with us on our wedding days?” Pauline asked her family.
The morning sun streamed through Edith’s bedroom window, and it was only as Cornelia caught the eye of Bunchy, her maid of honor—who was lounging on a gold-and-purple-covered chaise—that she realized she was a little tired. The pair had stayed up entirely too late the night before. Among the topics of conversation? How Cornelia should use the marabou throw her friend had given her as a wedding gift, along with a crepe de chine negligee and lace sheets and pillowcases.
“Lady Cecil,” Bunchy teased, standing now. “How do I look?”
Cornelia grinned broadly at her friend. “You know Jack is the third son. I’ll never have a silly title.” She rotated her finger, indicating that Bunchy, in her white organdy gown with full sleeves, should turn. She did so, giggling merrily. She was lovely. But not as lovely as Cornelia, in her simple straight gown of white satin and lace, her cropped hair perfectly styled. But the outfit mattered little. It would be covered by the pièce de résistance: her family wedding veil.