“I guess this was my Disney World.” I smiled.
Babs put her arm around my waist and squeezed me to her side. “I love that we get to have yet another memory here at Biltmore, that this place we’ve always loved so much gets to be a part of the most special weekend of your life.”
I opened my photo book to the first page and Babs clapped her hands with excitement at the photo of Cornelia Vanderbilt, standing by the grand staircase at Biltmore, exquisitely dressed in a satin gown and holding a streaming bouquet of orchids and lilies of the valley. The guide, smiling at the group, said, “If you look at the first photo in your book, you can see that Cornelia’s veil included Brussels rose point lace.” I really zeroed in on it. Babs and I leaned closer, gasping in unison.
“It is a sight to behold, isn’t it, ladies?” the guide asked.
I could feel my heart racing, but that was silly, wasn’t it? I was just so keyed up about the wedding, the excitement of this day. But then again…
Sarah glanced over my shoulder. “Whoa. That’s crazy.”
“Isn’t it?” I replied. “Is Cornelia’s wedding outfit on display somewhere?” I asked the guide.
She shook her head ruefully. “The gown has been lost to history, as has the heirloom veil worn by Cornelia Vanderbilt, her mother, Edith, and Edith’s sisters and mother. Their whereabouts are a mystery. But a team from London re-created Cornelia’s wedding outfit from photographs in painstaking detail and with some difficulty. It is part of the Fashionable Romance exhibit that will be opening here at Biltmore soon.”
“Jules! We should go!” Sarah trilled.
I locked eyes with my grandmother. She had seen it too, hadn’t she? “Babs?”
“What?” Her face was a blank canvas.
Turning away from the guide, I said in a low voice, “It’s just that… don’t you think this looks like our veil?”
“I think so,” Sarah chimed in.
Babs smiled. “Oh, Jules, I think your love of Biltmore has gotten the best of you.” She looked down at the picture. “Won’t it be great that you get to wear something that looks kind of like the Vanderbilt veil on your special day?”
I peered at her, but she just smiled.
“All right, ladies!” Aunt Alice said. “It’s time to celebrate our lovely bride!”
I laughed as my bridesmaids gathered around, champagne flutes in hand, to corral me to the table.
I looked down at the photo again. That veil just looked so similar. Then again, I was at Biltmore—the place where I had spent so many hours dreaming of finding my own happily ever after—the day before my wedding. Babs was probably right: my Vanderbilt obsession had finally gotten the best of me.
EDITH My Solemn Vow
June 2, 1898
On her wedding day, a girl only wants her mother. It is a bit unhinged to want one’s mother when she has been dead for fifteen years, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser thought, during those last minutes before her fate was sealed and she would bear a new last name. Even still, as her sister placed the family veil—the lace point heirloom—on her head, she couldn’t help but wish that her mother was here to help her step into her high-necked satin gown, designed by her favorite French designer. It was a gown fit for a princess. A gown fit for an heiress. A gown fit for a Vanderbilt.
“You’re breathtaking,” Pauline said. “And you’re going to be so happy,” she added, squeezing her sister’s hands as the other two Dresser girls, Susan and Natalie, looked on.
Edith glanced behind her, taking in the court train trimmed in the exact lace her grandmother had worn. As the New York Journal had reported, “It is an admirable thing to have lace, and it is also an admirable thing to have ancestors, but when one can have both lace and ancestors it is most admirable.”
But everyone had ancestors. Perhaps not ancestors with influence, with power, with importance like she did. But how could something as simple as a family name carry so much authority in the eyes of the world? Edith guessed that was for the best. If it weren’t for her family name, she certainly wouldn’t be here now, effectively removing the financial stress of her last several years.
Her mother would have told her not to worry so much, that her privilege was her birthright. And, she reasoned, she’d had more than her fair share of struggles in her twenty-five years.
“Do you remember how we used to play in this veil when we were little girls?” Pauline asked, her bright eyes sparkling wistfully. She was always the romantic.
“And Mother would talk about the wonderful men—men like Daddy—that we would marry one day,” Natalie filled in for her. “That the veil would make us happy forever.”
Edith smiled. Much to her delight, she did remember her mother’s soft, pale hands affixing the veil just right on her daughters’ heads and clapping in glee.
“Those were wonderful days, weren’t they?” Edith asked. She paused. “I barely remember them now.” Pain seared through her. Her parents had, after all, left her an orphan when she was only ten.
Her sister Susan, the oldest, the most serious, was the one to reach out to take her hand. “I feel them, though. Don’t you?”
Edith nodded. She felt her parents’ influence in her life as though they were an invisible presence guiding her toward her next step. She nodded. “I do believe they would have wanted me to marry George.”
Not because she loved him; nothing as frivolous as that. Polite society was abuzz with the truth: She needed his money to continue to live in the manner to which she was accustomed; he needed her prominent family name to continue to insert his family into the right circles. That was the way of the world. Edith told herself that her parents would have approved. She hoped it was true. And her sisters, who were always her strength, had reassured her every step of the way. When their grandmother died, she left behind a letter in which she reminded her family that a house united can never fall. Through all the trials and tribulations they had faced over the past fifteen years or so, Edith and her siblings had been by each other’s sides, the anchors in each other’s lives.
And now, here, today, they would celebrate.
Edith studied her reflection in the mirror, her shoulders slumped slightly, an unfortunate habit created from years of slouching to obscure her nearly six-foot frame. Women were supposed to be petite, pocket-sized—at least that was how it seemed to Edith. She often wished she could be smaller.
“Stand up straight,” Pauline said, standing up straighter herself, pulling her sister’s shoulders back. “Be proud. George Vanderbilt chose you, in all your statuesque glory.”
Pauline’s flair for the dramatic always made things more fun. And perhaps she was right. Their set had been quick to compliment Edith on her poise, her elegance, her beauty. They couldn’t all be wrong, could they? Surely not. Edith kissed her sisters one by one as they prepared to leave for the church. Then she stood up tall, proud.
She stood up even straighter as she entered the vestibule of the American Church of the Holy Trinity in her beloved Paris. The Vanderbilts had all come from New York for the special day. And in minutes Edith would be one of them.