The Wedding Veil(98)

“I know,” she whispered, unable to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks.

Jack and Judge Adams thought her children would have a better education here, but Cornelia wanted her children in London for a different reason. She never wanted her boys to feel the burden that she had, the glare of being in the public eye like she did. Here, she could keep them safe. Here, she could tuck them away and let them grow into the men they were already becoming.

The first step was always the hardest.

She and Judge Adams parted ways, her heart feeling heavy at the separation from her children, but lighter at the idea that she was protecting them. And, with the man she felt lukewarm about at best gone, she was free. Really, truly free, to soar higher and dream bigger, to uncover the path that the stars had been leading her toward since she was a child with her father in the observatory at Biltmore, when she contemplated how numbers governed the universe for the very first time.

She slipped into a table at the first café she saw, fully intent on ordering bread and cheese, wine and chocolate, until she soothed this very uneasy feeling inside her stomach. As she sat inside this old place that felt very new to her, she realized that Cornelia Vanderbilt—and all her disappointment—was gone.

She thought back to the letter she had left for Jack, her once love. Maybe her always love:

Dearest Jack,

I was thinking this evening about the first note you ever wrote me. It is the only personal paper I haven’t burned. I keep it close to my heart, folded in the tiniest parcel inside the locket I sometimes wear around my neck. I think you must feel what I feel—that we have somewhat grown apart. And I do hope that you can forgive me for having to leave you, for having to leave Biltmore, that we can be friendly in the sharing of our beloved sons.

I know that sometimes, in the deepest parts of your soul, you have wanted to return to England, and that it was for me you stayed. The irony that I am leaving to find a new life there can’t be overstated. But I feel as though abroad I will be less of a spectacle. I will be less of the disgraced heiress who couldn’t hold on to her father’s dearest possession and more of a new artist who happens to be philanthropic. Can you ever understand that?

Please do not feel like you need to stay at Biltmore. You have given it more time and attention than anyone could ever ask for, and I am most grateful to you. I know you must long to return home, and when you do, I hope that I will see you on the sidewalks, that we will smile at each other. Perhaps my book will be published in England. Maybe you could come celebrate?

You have been as kind and generous a man as I could have ever hoped to know, but the life we led wasn’t the life that was meant for me. I hope you can understand.

With deepest gratitude and affection,

Cornelia



If he had ever sent it, Cornelia would have read Jack’s reply:

My dearest Nell,

You are right. I have pined for my home country more times in more ways than I can ever say. But now, it is only for you I long in the very depths of my soul. That first night I laid eyes on you, something changed in me, something shifted. And you became the purpose in my life; you became the reason for living. I feel as though you are going through a stage, my darling, much as our boys do, and I have to think that you will snap out of it. When you do, I will be here waiting, at the place you love most, protecting your legacy and enacting your will. And if you do not return, it is still here that I will always be waiting, for it is here that I can be with you, even if you are gone. I meant what I wrote all those years ago. In my mind, in my memory, I am still Mark Antony. You are Cleopatra. And the two of us are, forever and always, Companions to the Death.

All my love, devotion, and fidelity forever,

Jack



Maybe that reply would have changed something. Maybe not. But, either way, now Nilcha ran her hand through her newly pink hair and took a deep breath, lilting her order in a southern accent that contrasted starkly from its British counterpart. Across the café, she met the eye of a man who smiled, one who didn’t know she was Cornelia Vanderbilt, one who had never seen her in the papers, had never heard of Tarheel Nell. Remembering, she got the slightest pang for her old life, could smell the magnolia tree that was hers, the one that was planted in her honor in earth that bore secrets and lies, truths and, for some, the freedom that Nilcha never seemed to find. She could always go back if she wanted, she told herself, even though she knew it was impossible.

As the moon started to rise in the still-blue sky, she, beginning to feel guilty about simply abandoning the place that had meant so much to her father, said, aloud, “We’re still under the same moon, Daddy. Always. But I need a fresh start.”

Here, now, in this café in London, she could be anyone she wanted to, someone of her own making, free of the pressures and confines of her previous life. What’s more, she had broken her children free, prevented them from feeling the suffocating weight of saving a home that was perhaps beyond saving. She pushed away the thought of all the pain she had caused her mother, her husband, her sons. She caught the eye of the man again. All she could think of now was a fresh start. Nilcha, in spite of herself, smiled.





BABS A Sky Full of Stars





If a few months ago we had been fugitives, now Julia and I were a couple of bandits.

“You know, Babs, we could just explain to one of the curators what happened and turn the veil over.”