The Lords of Discipline (40 page)

On those walks we talked about Tradd and Commerce, God, and politics, as well as the silliest, most fatuous, most inconsequential things. We talked about everything except those things that hurt or damaged or mattered most significantly in our lives. We never took each other to those intimate gardens hidden from the eyes of visitors. When I look back on those Sundays, I believe that Abigail and I each wanted to allow the other the privilege of entering those gardens at will, but we did not know where to find the gates and keys that would permit free and easy access. We knew about those gardens, but we did not know how to enter them.

On the second Sunday in November, I went to say good-bye to Commerce St. Croix, who was leaving the next week to meet a ship in Philadelphia. The dinner that afternoon consisted of those things that Commerce loved the best and would miss the most in his two-month absence. It began with a thick she-crab soup flavored mildly with an expensive dry sherry. The soup was followed by a superb coquille St. Jacques served in a spinach puree, which Abigail had imitated from a meal she and Commerce had enjoyed on a trip to the Dodin Bouffant in Paris years before. The meal ended with a homemade lime sherbet, followed by small demitasses of espresso, which we took in the living room.

The living room was not used, to my knowledge, except on Sundays. The room itself was, quite simply, an accumulation of precious objects. I sat rather stiffly in a Regency chair that had been pictured in a book celebrating the craftsmanship of Charleston antiques. A chandelier, the most famous in South Carolina, hung like a brilliant crystal stalactite from the ceiling, and the smell of furniture polish gave a permanent, opulent odor to the room, a perfume of endurance and nostalgia. Our conversation was rather muted and pleasant. Our voices were like prayers lifted up and offered as invocations to the house, and the house itself was an invocation to slower, more cautious days.

I was privileged to be a part of all this, I thought, as I listened to Commerce talk about his itinerary, and it seemed to me there were far worse strategies in life than to try to make each aspect of one’s existence a minor work of art. But I was also beginning to notice something chilly and remote in an ambiance of such conscious perfection. There was no urgency in the effortless, classical preference for the simple over the ornate and showy. There was no personal statement in the house, no indelible signature of individuality; it was as though the collective unconscious of all Charlestonians, the living and the dead, had formed a committee of restrained equilibrists to design the interior of each room. There was nothing ugly or comical or beloved on the walls, no souvenir of travel, no bibelot or trinket to inspire memory. There was nothing hallucinatory or disturbing in the house, nothing to induce the white desperate blaze that had haunted the houses of my youth. Perhaps it was because my family had no nostalgia for the past, no sense of responsibility to uphold a proud and carefully wrought tradition. I had once bought the St. Croixs a hunting print from an antique shop in Charlottesville, Virginia. The print had cost twenty dollars, and it was the most expensive gift I had ever bought anyone. Abigail had seemed immensely pleased with the print, yet I never saw it hanging anywhere in the house. In fact, I never saw the print again. But something in me always looked for it, every time I entered the St. Croix mansion. Much later, on one of our Sunday walks, Abigail instructed me on the value of some English prints displayed in the windows of Schindler’s. When she had finished I realized I had bought the St. Croixs a reproduction of a famous print, and even I knew that a reproduction would never hang in the house of St. Croix. All of this had something to do with why Pig and Mark seldom attended these dinners on Sunday afternoon. Unlike me, it bothered them to feel like reproductions.

Commerce looked over at me with a mischievous, excited expression. The sound of frail cups clicking into their saucers was the only other sound in the room when he announced, “I want to read something funny I found while re-reading one of my oldest journals last week. You and Tradd will really enjoy this, Will.”

He left the room with his swift, birdlike gait and we heard his footsteps quick and light on the stairs.

“It’s very rare for Father to read from his journals, Will,” Tradd said, sipping the espresso with some slight distaste. “He treats them like Biblical texts.”

“I’ve tried to keep journals, myself,” I said. “Every time I buy a new journal, I write furiously in it for the first week or two. Then I put it away and never pick it up again. I’ve never had any staying power at all. Do you think that reflects badly on my personality?”

“Having roomed with you for four years, Will,” Tradd said, “I think everything reflects badly on your personality.”

“Slap your mouthy son, Abigail. He’s trying to hurt my feelings.”

“I’m glad you can’t keep a journal, Will. I wish Commerce didn’t keep one,” said Abigail, listening to her husband’s footsteps coming back down the stairs. “I’m sure he says dreadful, unforgivable things about me. It puts such pressure on me. Every time we fuss or have a fight, he races up to his study. I’m sure he records it all in such a way as to make me sound positively beastly. I do wish he would get another, more reputable hobby.”

Commerce listened to her last sentences as he entered the room again, wearing his glasses, and leafing through the pages of a leather-bound journal.

“My journal is a record of my life, Abigail,” he said defensively, “a complete record. I’ve been as diligent as a scientist in recording everything of significance that has happened to me since I was a cadet at the Institute. I mark down time and place. I note the weather conditions. If I have been fishing, I record the number and type of fish caught, what kind of bait I used, and where I caught them. When I die I’m leaving these journals to the Charleston museum. It might be interesting to some future historian who wants to follow an old Charlestonian through his daily life around the city and his tours around the globe.”

“It sounds unimaginably dull to me, Father,” Tradd said, staring into his cup as though examining it for flaws. “It sounds like a cookbook written by someone who doesn’t like food.”

“It is dull in many places. But it is accurate, and accuracy is all that really matters. The log of a ship is dull to anyone but a seaman, but a seaman finds it fascinating and filled with information. I record in my journal like the mariner I am.”

“I would like to read your journals someday, Father,” Tradd said. “I would learn a great deal about you, I suspect.”

“You’ll never read my journals,” said Commerce sharply to his son. “A journal is the most private form of communication in the world, and it would be a violation of the form if I let you or Abigail or anybody read the journals. I will put a stipulation in my will that no one opens the journals until all of us are dead. Why do you think I have my door to the study padlocked when I’m at home? It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that I don’t wish to tempt you.

“I achieve accuracy. That is all. Now let me read Will and Tradd this rather interesting passage I found the other day. I think they will find this particular entry rather amusing. This scene took place on February 6, 1934, when I was a junior at the Institute. It reads as follows: ‘Last night my roommate, Obie Kentsmith, and I, under the influence of Edgar Allan Poe and “The Cask of Amantillado,” attempted to brick in our First Sergeant, one Bentley Durrell, who was not demonstrating the proper respect for his classmates. To wit, he was holding surprise room inspections whilst the rest of us were in class.’ ”

“Whilst?” Abigail said.

“I went through a very affected writing style while in college,” Commerce explained.

“Whilst you were in college, Father,” Tradd said without meeting Commerce’s eyes.

“ ‘Obie and I,’ “ Commerce continued, “ ‘armed with trowels, brick, and mortar, waited until 0200 hours, then proceeded to build a brick wall in front of Durrell’s door on second division. Alas, the mortar did not have time to set properly . . .’ ”

“Alas?” Abigail interrupted again, highly amused.

“ ‘And Bentley managed to beat his way out to freedom using the butt of his rifle as a bludgeon at reveille,’ “ Commerce read, ignoring his wife. “ ‘All the talk in the barracks is speculation as to the identities of the perpetrators of this perfect crime. Obie and I do our best to keep from laughing right out loud during these discussions. Bentley came to our room all in a huff this morning and asked our help in finding the villains who had performed this dastardly deed. Obie and I gave our solemn word that we would help track down these odious criminals and bring them to justice.’ ”

“I can’t believe you bricked the General into his room,” I said.

“If the mortar had had another hour or two to set, Bentley would have been in real trouble,” Commerce cackled. “They’d have had to call a demolition team in to get him out of there.”

“That seems rather odd behavior for the scion of one of Charleston’s oldest families, Father,” Tradd said. “What would you say if I went around the barracks bricking up every poor soul who tried to do his duty? Why, you wouldn’t be able to open a single door in fourth battalion.”

“I wouldn’t say a word if you didn’t get caught, and I didn’t. No one suspected the scion of one of Charleston’s oldest families to be capable of such shenanigans,” Commerce said delightedly, still enjoying the success of his prank so many years after the fact.

“Well, I certainly don’t think it’s anything to be proud of,” Abigail said. “Why don’t you strike that passage so that future historian, whoever he is, does not think the St. Croix family was composed of men with absurd and childish senses of humor?”

“He will get the truth about the St. Croixs, Abigail, whatever that is.”

“You mean, however you personally interpret the truth.”

“Yes,” Commerce said, immensely pleased with himself. “The truth, as I see it. But that’s only fair. I’m the one who takes the time to keep journals. I deserve some reward. Now if y’all will please excuse me, I have some packing to finish. Don’t leave without telling me good-bye, Will. I’ll send you something nice from Europe.”

He left the room and ascended the stairway again. For a few moments we sat in complete silence, the pleasant lassitude of Sunday overcoming us and a fragrant breeze pouring through the open first-floor windows. I looked about me again and said, “I want to catch what you’ve got, Abigail.”

“Catch what, Will?” she asked.

“This thing that you’ve got. This Beauty Disease. I want to spend my entire life perfecting the art of making everything around me as beautiful as possible. I want my furniture to be beautiful, my house to be beautiful, my gardens, my children, my wife . . . everywhere I look I want to be stunned by the sheer absolute force of physical beauty.”

“You’re such a slob, Will,” Tradd said with conviction. “You don’t even shine your shoes or keep your part of the room clean.”

“Please get your son to hush, Abigail,” I appealed, with a gesture of dismissal toward Tradd. “I’ve already suggested once today that you slap his uppity mouth. The subject is beauty, Tradd, and I’m telling you how I’m going to go about getting it in my life. It’s going to be very simple. I’m going to mold my life on the St. Croix family. I’m going to stop being excitable and flamboyant. I’m going to quit horsing around. From now on I’m going to be reserved and silently filled with wisdom. I’m not going for the cheap laugh anymore or make any attempt to amuse the herd. I’m going to dress impeccably. I’m going to shop for charming objects in antique shops and learn to prepare exquisite meals. I’ve got to make myself susceptible to the Beauty Disease. I want my whole life to be infected by beauty.”

“Beauty Disease?” Tradd winced. “It sounds like some fungus Mother finds on her roses.”

Folding her large bony hands on her lap, Abigail said reflectively, “I wouldn’t call it a disease. I call it a search for quality. I’ve looked at my life carefully and I’ve made solicitous choices about what is truly important to me. I would recommend it to both of you as a way to improve your daily life in immeasurable ways.”

“You have me for a roommate, Tradd,” I said in a voice far too loud for the formal atmosphere of the room. “Your search for quality is over. You’ll never be able to do any better.”

“Oh, please, Will.”

“I know,” Abigail announced suddenly. “Let’s perform a ceremony. It’s one that I would love to share with the two favorite men in my life.”

Abigail left the room as Tradd and I went into the dining room to clear the table and extinguish the candelabra. When she returned she was carrying a silver tray with a set of wine glasses and a crystal decanter filled with a pale liquid upon it. She filled three wine glasses with the fluid.

“What is this concoction, Mother?” Tradd asked, eyeing his glass suspiciously.

“When Commerce and I were first married, we went on a long honeymoon to Europe and both of us fell in love with Greece and especially the Greek islands. When I went to those islands I felt that I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don’t mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home. Something ancient and pure inside me responded to the life and spirit of those people. We brought back a jar of water from the Aegean sea, chilled it in a decanter, offered toasts to each other, and drank the water. Every time Commerce goes to the Aegean, he replenishes our supply. Each time he leaves to meet a ship, we drink some of the water for a bon voyage and a safe return. We’ll drink our toast tonight together, but I don’t think he would mind if I shared it with you two. I’m sure he’d be pleased.”

“How romantic, Abigail.”

“Mother,” Tradd said, “Greeks urinate directly into the ocean, and that’s the very least of what they do.”

“My son, the antiromantic,” she sighed, winking at me.

“Your son, the enlightened realist.”

“Will will drink it with me,” she said.

“So will Tradd,” I said, raising my glass in a toast. “To the Beauty Disease.”