Jack raised his eyebrow. “When Mr. Noble discovered that he could hoist a tray with a martini up to me while I was inside, I thought I might die of happiness.”
Cornelia laughed and Jack sat down beside her and smiled. But there was something in that smile that Cornelia didn’t quite like. It was a smile that meant bad news.
“Your mother and I have been talking…” he started.
“No good sentence ever began that way,” Cornelia said, more snappily than she meant to. She knew she had been snappier than she should with Jack quite often lately. The stock market crashing certainly wasn’t Jack’s fault. But things had been strained between them all the same.
Jack, as if he hadn’t even heard Cornelia, continued. “Your mother mentioned that the Chamber of Commerce and Judge Adams had an idea…”
Judge Adams was Edith’s most trusted advisor. Cornelia trusted him even if she had never particularly warmed to him. He was cold and abrupt to absolutely everyone—well, to everyone except Edith. Even still, Judge Adams never missed a thing when it came to the estate, and his solutions were generally good even if Cornelia didn’t like them. She had a feeling deep in her gut that this might be one such idea.
“With tourism down since the crash and the town struggling—and well, us struggling right along with it, they thought that Biltmore might be a draw.”
She took a deep breath. “Please tell me you aren’t suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”
Jack turned to look her in the eye. “Neely, we live in the bachelors’ wing anyway. If we open the house to the public, it will bring considerable revenue into the estate. We would only have to put a few of the main rooms downstairs on display. We’d hardly even notice a few people walking in and out.”
Cornelia felt her jaw drop. “You can’t be serious! What about Biltmore Forest?” The creation of the Biltmore Forest neighborhood out of a parcel of land on the property had been another of Judge Adams’s ideas—and it had been going well the past few years. “I thought that was going to be the solution to all our problems. A grand neighborhood where people could have their own piece of the Vanderbilt lifestyle.”
Jack shrugged. “No one has the funds to invest or build right now.”
Cornelia felt her stomach turn. Increasingly, the bad news, the struggle to maintain Biltmore, felt impossible. She tried one more tactic. “But I thought the dairy was doing so well!”
“It is, Neely, but the taxes on the house alone are fifty thousand a year. It was hard before the crash, and now…”
She wanted to say that she knew damn well what the taxes were because she was the one who paid them. But that seemed overly unkind, so she bit her tongue. “What about the appraisals?” she asked. “What if we sell off the art and furnishings from some of the rooms we never use anyway?”
Jack nodded. “That might buy us a few months, a year. But then this beautiful house will be forever altered. It will be dismantled piecemeal, sold off for parts. You don’t want that, do you?”
The sadness of this moment overwhelming her, Cornelia said, “Jack, this is my home.” She didn’t say that this felt like the final nail in the coffin, the last step toward her childhood oasis not being hers anymore. And she ignored the truth that was impossible to ignore now: the fabrics were tattered, the curtains faded, the carpets worn, the leathers dry and cracking. Everything needed to be updated and refreshed. And updating 250 rooms was staggering, a monumental feat. In their current financial state, it was impossible. It was such a tremendous responsibility that Cornelia could feel herself shrinking under the weight of it.
“It will always be your home, Connie. I’m trying to keep it your home for a long, long time.”
Cornelia thought of her family lunching at the small table set up in front of the fireplaces in the banquet hall, the grand Christmas tree lording over them. She remembered laughing with her parents when she was young, so happy and carefree as they fished in the bass pond and the river. This home was theirs, was hers. How could she possibly give it away? The thought of people traipsing through her sanctuary tore at her soul. She could practically feel her father, the father whose memory she had tried so desperately to hold on to, rolling over in his grave.
She shook her head, feeling her dangling earrings hit her neck. “There has to be another way.” Jack took her hand so gently it made the tears she was holding back spring to her eyes. She didn’t want any of this. “Jack, Biltmore is a place for dignitaries, for nobility, for family, for friends. It isn’t a place for strangers, anyone with a dollar bill in his or her back pocket to gape and gawk. It’s such a violation of our privacy.”
Biltmore wasn’t the place of her youth. Living in the bachelors’ wing wasn’t ideal. But this? It was more than she imagined, even in those moments when she felt this massive home crushing her.
As if he could read her mind, Jack said, “Connie, Biltmore has already changed for you. We only open the largest rooms for parties now, and we’ve already had to let go of most of the staff and cut the wages of those left. This is just one more small piece.”
She put her head in her hands. “Maybe it is just one more small piece for you. But this was my father’s dream, Jack. And we have ruined it.”
It was an ending. She knew it. Cornelia could feel Biltmore slipping from her grasp, her memories crumbling all around her.
“Things will turn around,” Jack said, soothingly. “They always do. But, for now, we have to do what we must to save your father’s dream. Don’t you see?”
She looked down at the book in her lap and took a deep breath, steeled herself, felt her heart rate calm. Jack was right, as usual. This would just be a temporary solution until the economy recovered. It wouldn’t be long now. It couldn’t. She could do this. It was the only option.
She nodded up at her husband. “Maybe if we do this I can reinstate Mr. Noble and his charges’ wages—maybe even give them the raises they deserve.”
Jack only nodded and squeezed her shoulder.
Either way, Cornelia knew for sure now that she had to make this the best Christmas Biltmore had ever seen. It had been a trying time, but there was nothing like sitting around a warm fire by a fragrant tree counting your blessings. She would savor all of it this year. Her children, her husband, her friends, this house. Because, if she had learned anything, it was that life was full of lasts. And you never knew when yours might be.
BABS Fugitives
Back in my small living room at the Asheville mountain house that had been my parents’ since I was a little girl, the wood-paneled walls and roaring fireplace making it cozy and warm, I sank down into the comfortable couch and studied Julia’s face.
“Have I ever told you how much you look like my mother?”
She turned and smiled at me. “No, but I love that.”
“I think you might just have a little of her gumption too,” I said. “I’m so proud of you for going back to school, for finishing what you started.” I slipped my shoes off, much to my tired feet’s relief, and Julia followed suit.
She grimaced. “As long as Professor Winchester says it’s okay,” she said. “And that’s a big if.”