by Bud Crawford
Master metal-smiths, carpenters, masons, plasterers, tile-setters, painters, and the new trades of plumber and electrician. A thousand men were employed here for seven years, 1888 to 1895. The construction crews eked out some additional years building Biltmore Village, with its church and houses and shops. There were a few related projects up in Asheville, like the Young Men's Institute, established by Vanderbilt to assist the "advancement" of the area's black population. The three-hundred-some servants of the new house found longer-lasting work, some for a decade or two.
George Vanderbilt, a younger son of rail tycoon Commodore Vanderbilt, liked the Western North Carolina mountains. He thought them beautiful and healthful, so he bought them, a hundred-twenty-five-thousand acres worth. From the site he'd chosen for his house, he owned everything he could see: nearly two hundred square miles purchased to preserve his viewscape. Railroads and shipping were among the family businesses. So, propelling boatloads of imported materials from Europe and hauling them to the site along a three mile temporary railroad spur, was an obvious way to move his job along. Richard Morris Hunt designed the house; Fredrick Law Olmstead planned the gardens and grounds. The fancy projects of George's peers in New York and Newport were rendered puny by comparison. To build so far from civilization, as those peers understood it, was strange and rather brave.
George moved in his new bride, Edith, three years after the house was done. Their one child, Cornelia, was born two years later. When George died in 1914, just fifty-one, from an appendectomy gone wrong, his wife carried on. Ten years later she married John Francis Amherst Cecil, a British diplomat, with whom she had three children. The new couple, and then the daughter, along with the other kids, managed the estate for a few years after Edith's death. They lived and entertained in the style the house was designed for. But by the nineteen-thirties there were no longer limitless funds for upkeep. The family moved out and the house was opened to the public, just like most of the great chateaus of Europe that had inspired its design. Nobody was rich enough anymore, to live like that.
Money from visitors, combined with funds from the farm operations (greenhouse plants and flowers, the dairy herd of Guernsey cows and, more recently, the winery) has kept the overall operation profitable. Additional income flows in from the on-site restaurants and hotels and gift shops plus rents from movie production companies. The demand for admittance is mediated by the ticket price, finding its equipoise where income is greatest without undue crowding. The fame of the franchise is worldwide. For much of Asheville's tourist traffic, it's the driving force: see the House, then take in whatever else you care to. Both by receipts and by employment, it's among the largest businesses in the region.
Geoff felt as if he had consumed an enormous plate of food, needed badly to burp, but couldn't quite bring the bubble up his throat. Stef had it right, it was battery of the senses and brain. America's biggest house, the largest private dwelling in the world. Swallowed, but not yet clear that it's going to stay down.
~
Harold said he'd like to settle in the library, on one of the leather easy chairs, with one of the leather-bound books open on his lap. Geoff agreed. But preventing such violations was the principal charge of the watchful fellow by the door, affable, well-nourished, with a trained and melodious voice. You could enter the room, just, constrained by a Plexiglas barrier. You could lean far enough in to see the three-foot-diameter globe and the pair of wrought-iron stairs that spiraled to the upper galleries. Scattered through the room, leather-covered sofas and chairs. Dark wooden tables glowed in the pooled yellow light of the reading lamps. The docent reeled off the numbers for them, ten-thousand books in this room, written in the eight languages George Vanderbilt could read, one of the best-read men in America. Thirteen thousand more volumes here and there, in the other two-hundred forty-nine rooms. When the crowd thinned he had better stories to tell. Geoff and Harold lingered to chat with him, asking questions and speculating about the gilded days before the eruption of a world war in the year George died.
They hurried back through the Tapestry Gallery, except the minutes Harold stood transfixed by Napoleon's chess set, lined up ready for a game. Five-hundred-year-old tapestries warmed the long stone walls. Here a Whistler, there a Sargent, watched their progress. The grand stone steps at the end circled once per story around the glass enclosure of the passenger elevator. The stairs released them into the Second Floor Sitting Room, a room larger than most entire houses in America. At the far end opened a smaller sitting room that linked the master and mistress bedrooms.
~
Beth-Ann met her sister just off the main staircase, as everyone else regrouped in the Sitting Room. They examined each other briefly but thoroughly, as if looking in the mirror reaching out to make tiny adjustments. They stepped in close for a quick quiet consultation, then walked past each other. Truly an amazing place, Beth-Ann thought, filled with enough distractions to allow them to play, but also distracting enough they had to be watchful. So beautiful, this place and every single thing in it, but so insane in its opulence. What presumption that Vanderbilt man had! She shook her head and walked up to the third floor, letting her fingers trail against the roughness of the stone. Let's see what these folks did for their visitors, members of the same social class. That's a structure for understanding: first, what they thought appropriate for themselves, then for their guests, for their servants, for the villagers. Maybe at the end, for their livestock, their machinery, their soil. Beginning with the Vanderbilts, of course, just one step down from god on the great ladder of being. I'll suggest it to Geoffrey, there's a context for him, labels for his drawers.
~
Ellen was first into Edith's bedroom. Had Cecil just taken over George's room when he married Edith, or did he share a bed with her? Did Cornelia, later, presume to inhabit her mother's room? I wonder whether the guides know such stuff, whether they'd say if they did? It involves real people, some still living, not storybook. She asked the next guide she saw. The poor kid was so startled by the question Ellen believed her answer, that she didn't know, she'd try to find out, nobody ever asked that before. Two months, was her answer to the next question, which made the last answer likelier. Ellen patted the girl's arm and said, there was so much here, you couldn't learn it all at once.
Stephanie asked, "Do you think she did know, but wasn't sure if it was okay to say?"
"Maybe, but I'd guess not. Though when some of those people are still around, and they're your ultimate bosses, you'll be careful what you spill."
"I'm afraid that's the sort of thing that interests me, the personal gossip stuff. I just jump right over the furniture and the art," Stephanie said. "I'm People Magazine, not Architectural Digest. For me it's about fairy princesses. I want me to be in the story, stage center. Cornelia, watch your butt!"
"What's entrancing," Honoria Staedtler said, "is that you have all these levels here. The personal is the core interest, for me, too. But I relish all the people: the royalty, then their guests, similar but smaller, the help, the villagers, the little people from Asheville, the wild folk up in the hills. Stable boys, mechanics, overseers, groundskeepers, there's an altogether Shakespearian range. Vander-castle and environs."
"Honoria, you are a piñata of surprise," Geoff said, "but was there ever any great thing at stake here? Councils of war, new inventions, a symphony, a murder? Anything up to the scale of the house? I'm asking because I really don't know; but my impression is of rather ordinary lives lived in an extraordinary house, no achievements commensurate with the place."
"That may be a fair assessment, calibrated that way," Honoria said. "But you're conflating art and history, aren't you? What if Weaver and Bottom labored below stairs here, or it was Anna Karenina's house. Or Penelope's, with Odysseus slipping in at the kitchen door? To put it another way, help yourself, if it's truly unclaimed property."
Mary-Beth giggled. "I know what it is, it's a real-life board game. It's Clue, the butler in the library, with a
lead pipe. Plus the period thing, the dresses, the intrigue. I want to be a guest here, snooping on the family, solving mysteries. Nancy Drew all dressed up in the castle."
Harold said, "I can't really think about the people, it just isn't real to me that this was ever somebody's house. It seems like a museum or a Disney thing."
"Maybe," Geoff said, "it's performance art. Or an appreciation engine. The Vanderbilts ran a spa and sports facility for their friends. No charge, except awe and gratitude, which made George and Edith swell up like marshmallows in the microwave. Payment enough."
"Every room you're in," Stephanie said, "you could either spend a week digging into the details, or hurry on through to keep from losing the main thread. I do think I'd have enjoyed running it, either as the princess or the queen."
"Would you have been nice to the little people?" Ellen asked. "Clueless guests, scullery maids, tradesmen?"
"Oh," Stephanie said, "they would have loved me so much. I would have been the nicest princess ever, so long as my modest needs were met. Universal adulation, perfect service in all areas, that would have been enough for me. Heck, I'll start tonight!"
"Too many ages under the bridges, Stef," Geoff said. "You can't get there from here."
That's the biggest smile I've ever seen on Harold's face, Ellen thought, he actually does appreciate his wife sometimes. She said, "Two more floors, going up, who's ready to climb?"
"Catch you on the way down," Harold said. "I'll rest on the bench here a few minutes and think about the library. I'd like to have that one room, you-all can divide up everything else. I've seen enough bedrooms."
He watched them turn into the stairwell, disappearing from view, grateful for the bench to rest on. Stairs took such a concentrated effort, especially long flights like these. He was fine on a flat surface, could walk all day if it wasn't rushed. It was good for him, Doctor Ritsche said. Well, a couple months from now, that would all be fixed, got to have a little patience. It wasn't this building that impressed him, he realized, not the architecture. It was the stuff that Vanderbilt had filled it with. Mostly in areas Harold didn't know much about, paintings, furniture, rugs. But he could feel the soul of the collector living on in his stuff. Would it be the same kind of fun, he wondered, if you could just buy anything you saw? You'd never know the pain of losing out, of being out-bid. But would the game still be fun if you won every time, guaranteed?
Like those coins James had turned up. A fair market price for all four would be at least ten thousand dollars. He could afford it, the last couple years had been good ones for all the Centurions at Metrocor/Charlotte. He had it in cash, even, cash equivalents. But that would pretty much be it for the year, for him. He could make that choice, but it shut off other choices. Point was, it would cost him something. Vanderbilt could just keep on saying, yes, wrap it up, send it to my house.
Was James ever going to give him a price? He did understand the game James played: a scheme of overlapping, interlocking obligations, with all transactions in the air, never quite finished, each one feeding into the next. It made his head hurt to think about, and he didn't like it, but the concept wasn't difficult to grasp. For him, it was better if each exchange had an end; stamp it paid, put it in the drawer. Next deal that comes along, you look at fresh, not tangled up with every prior one. Quantify things, don't hide their value in an imaginary, unnecessary fog. He rubbed his palms down along the creases of his trousers and breathed in as deeply, as slowly, as he could.
He was glad he had come to see Biltmore. It meant a lot to Stephanie. Not much of an anniversary for her, so far. But his mind kept slipping back to the other James question, those fees. Geoff said maybe if he took his mind off it for a few hours, when he got back the answer would be obvious. Things rarely worked that way. The best way to solve a puzzle was to keep at it until he figured it out; plain old concentration, not little Zen tricks to whistle up his subconscious. For him. Remember that, Harold told himself: things true for you aren't necessarily true for other people. It's not right or wrong, just different approaches for different people. Stephanie was helping. He could believe in something as much as ever, but he needed to accept that other people might not see it the same, and that was okay. She was good for him. He hoped after Doc Ritsche fixed him up, he could be better for her. The past few months he'd had enough energy to get his work done, but not much after that. She deserved a livelier mate.
He saw Madison before she saw him, maybe because he was sitting down, but she was headed straight towards him, he couldn't hide. She wore a snug tan skirt, just above the knee; her legs were bare. Probably all of her was bare, under the skirt. Harold felt a blush spreading from his chest up to his forehead, the image wasn't unwelcome, exactly, but with no time to prepare, it overwhelmed him; he had to fight it off, as he made himself smile and wave back at her. She clapped her hands, looking delighted to see him, then opened her arms wide as she walked quickly towards him. At least she was wearing a bra, he knew because he could see it, dark red under the pink blouse. He stood up.
"Dear Harl, I'm so happy I found you!" She cupped his cheeks in her hands, and tilted her head left. "It really took just a few minutes, I was afraid I'd be wandering the halls of this ghastly place for hours, but I just came up the steps and here you are." She leaned in to kiss him on the forehead. "Oops," she said, "we can't leave you like that, lipstick all over your face." She pulled a tissue from her purse and leaned forward to rub away the traces.
Not the kind of bra that hides things, he saw as he stared down into it. Harold could not step back, Madison had pinned him against the bench. He moved right, away from the tissue. "It's fine, I'm sure," he said. "Did you come here looking for me?"
"I did, isn't that silly? I didn't mean to. I told David that I'd look you up. Then when I went to your motel, they said you-all had come down here." She shook her head shaking out dark red curls. "I was driving back to the office, about to give up, when I thought, oh, why not, Maddy, give it a try, you could use a little break."
"David has my cell number, probably you do, too. It's in the database. Even if I didn't pick up, I'd have got a message. Or I would have seen an email, maybe in an hour or two."
"I know, Harl, exactly what I told him. But you know our Davey, gets a notion, can't let go."
"Okay, here you are. What's so important?"
"You are, silly man. David wants you to stop fooling with work during your vacation. He says you work too hard anyway. You need to pace yourself better, but especially on your anniversary holiday. Anyway, he asked me to tell you he's already looked into your thing a little, and he thinks he knows what's happening. He'll show you when you get home. But it just isn't an emergency and he won't have you wasting your vacation on it." Madison pressed her palm against his cheek. "He acts all gruff and businessy, David does, but he's really just a pussy cat."
"Well, he's right, I'm sure, Madison. But for me you know it isn't so much about work or vacation, it's a puzzle. Gets under your skin, like an itch. You want an answer, especially if you think you almost have it worked out."
"But that beautiful girl you've married, sweet little Stephanie, you need to be paying attention to her. I guarantee men are checking her out, right now. You don't pay enough attention, they'll step up."
"One of your areas of expertise?"
"You know it, baby. I'm all about stepping up when it's time." She placed her hands under her breasts and lifted them towards him. "You remember, I didn't waste a minute when I knew the time was ripe for us." Her hands dropped to her sides, her breasts bounced down up down. "Two minutes, three minutes, and everything's different. You do remember." She swung the back of her right hand forward gently brushing his crotch, bumping the flesh rising towards her. "So, unless you want to move on, put your attention back where it belongs. Can I tell David you promised to let it go?" She stepped back, and Harold sat down on the bench.
"I always saw you, Maddy, more in the home-wrecking business than home-repair. Are you turni
ng a new leaf or just talking out of both mouths?" Harold was more surprised than Madison was at what he'd said.
She laughed, delighted. "I knew there was a nasty boy, somewhere in there. That's my gift, setting mister nasty free." She smiled down at him. "I'll tell David we talked." She turned and walked away; just before disappearing around the landing of the stairs, she turned back and blew him a kiss.
Well, Harold thought, she's good at what she does. I understand that now better than I did. I'll sit here and think about baseball for a minute or two, then get up and look for Stephanie.
~
James was pleased. Despite the deal set up yesterday, Marston the bookseller really didn't want to let it go. The man was a lover, James realized, not a trader, and made a slight tweak of focus to pull the transaction through. Joyce's Poems Pennyeach, won't be so hard to find, except for the autograph. But that was someday, this was now. He took the slender volume from the gnarled still reluctant fingers, slipped it into a kraft-paper envelope, thanked his new friend, and watched the struggle of anticipation with regret in the man's bright old eyes. There was a cafe across the street, where he grabbed a tuna sandwich and a plate of fried potatoes, half regular half sweet, to make up for the breakfast and lunch he'd missed. He used the clear cell-phone signal there for his calls. Same kind of push-me-pull-me, but by the end the chef was on board for the interview, and had given him the address for the sack of fungus. Luckily it was directly on his way back to Asheville. He was building up a pile of things he would have to deliver on, in the not distant future. But today's Jell-O salad was just about set. Even got a call off to sweet brown freckle-candy Marti about tonight; she was ripe and ready. Got the seeds for Toni and picked up the other trinkets from the galleries in Cashiers. Anything else he had to do, besides snagging the fungus and making his way to Juniper House for tea time? Fill the gas tank?
