The Sailor's Rest and The Bennet Wardrobe

Wentworths' affinity to the Bennets

This interview with Admiral Alfred Croft was conducted by a researcher from the Bennet Family Trust and first appeared on April 10, 2023 in My Vices and Weaknesses blog.

NOTE: I cast Iain Glen as Admiral Croft in my imaginary movie.

This interview is transcribed from dictabelts of an interview conducted by Margaret Reynolds, MA, of the Bennet Family Trust Research Department on December 29, 1940.

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The Old Admiralty Building

REYNOLDS (Opening paragraph of ‘Executive Summary of a visit from 1819’ prepared for the Board of Life Directors, June 15, 1941.) My first image—and one that has stayed with me in the months since his departure—of Rear Admiral Lord Alfred Michael Gabriel Croft, KCB, Baron Nore, was of his back as he looked out the window onto Whitehall, the Thames, and the great city beyond. The pitch-dark room was open to the world, the thick blackout curtains were thrown open, and his figure was backlit against the fires raging throughout the city. His shoulders, broad but not overly so, leaned toward the roiling blazes on the other side of the glass as if he could somehow will the explosive eggs laid by the Nazis to be stillborn.

CROFT: Bastards! At least in my day, most outrages were confined to killing crapaud matelots and mustaches. Our jacktars had little opportunity to sack towns. If we were to shell a port, we’d give them some notice so the civilians could head for the hills. If the garrison decided to follow, all the better. As for the army, after Badajoz, Wellington instituted brutal disciplinary measures to end the traditional rape and pillage.

For this monstrosity, I have no words. Like get my hands on that fat bastard Goering.

REYNOLDS: This is what we have come to expect of the Hitler gang.

CROFT: What little I have read about this corporal since I arrived makes our little Tyrant look the epitome of nobility.

However, like all who see themselves as the infallible heritors of Alexander and Charlemagne, this one makes the same mistake as ours. He underestimates the resolve of a free people to remain in that blessed state. As was with the Greeks, so again will it be with today’s Britons!

The admiral pulled shut the drapes, felt his way to his desk—not cautiously enough to avoid barking his shin—and flicked on the desk lamp. He motioned me to sit opposite.

The light was dim, not relieving the shadowy pools thrown by furniture. However, even in the watery yellow, I could sketch the man. Of medium height, his build was that of someone used to rigorous living. Although he wore a well-tailored navy blue suit, civilian clothing could not disguise his martial bearing. His eyes bored into me to measure my debits and credits.

He sat.

CROFT: Now, Miss Reynolds: I understand that you are one of the breed known about the Trust as a “Research Reynolds.” The only Reynoldses I know of are Mr. Reynolds, Larchmont’s butler, and his daughter Mrs. Adelaide Reynolds, the Pemberley housekeeper. Might they be kin of some remove?

Iain Glen

REYNOLDS: Both are, indeed. We are indeed proud of our tradition of serving the Families. My branch has found a home in the Research Department.

CROFT: And now you are here to add my story to your library? I admit some unease at being pinned like a butterfly to one of my wife’s wax boards.

You look surprised. Were you unaware that the baroness is an avid collector?

REYNOLDS: There is a paucity of information about your family. Most researchers have written their theses and dissertations on the senior of the Five Families. Perhaps you will indulge me if you have the time later. However, the Managing Director is most curious about why you and the baroness stepped out of the Wardrobe and into the middle of the family Christmas celebration.

CROFT: Do you cultivate that air of imperturbability? You sit there blinking owlishly and make Earl Michael sound like a confused schoolboy seeing a gypsy maiden make his new shilling vanish. Given the number of stern young men who surrounded Sophie and me when we dropped in unannounced, I imagine the Earl is more than a little impatient to have his ‘curiosity’ satisfied. I have no doubt he is wondering if he ought to lock that fey cabinet in the Tower lest those people invade and find a way to use it for foul purposes!

Well, my dear, his interest tells me that he is less concerned about why a rear admiral of the White landed in 1940 than how I was able to arrive at Matlock House in the middle of The Blitz.

Miss Reynolds, I had little to do with it. ’Twas all Mrs. Croft…and Mrs. Mary Benton, the Keeper.

REYNOLDS: Your wife? Mrs. Benton?

CROFT: Come now, do not be coy: ’tis unbecoming in anyone. Least of all a well-educated woman like you.

Have you ever looked into Mrs. Croft’s eyes? Have you seen their shape? Mrs. Benton pulled her aside for something she called The Keeper’s Talk. Ring any bells?

My wife is a descendant of the Hunters line. Her great-grandmother was the daughter of Benjamin Bennet and married a Hunters. Her granddaughter—Sophia Hunters, my Sophia’s mother—married Reverend Wentworth and settled in Bristol. Thus, my wife is of Bennet blood.

REYNOLDS: As is Captain Wentworth!

CROFT: Yes, Miss Reynolds, as is Captain Wentworth. Both my wife and Baron Balears can avail themselves of the Wardrobe’s unique properties, as can the baron’s and baroness’s children. Mrs. Benton confirmed it.

But, before my brother could exercise his infuriating sense of duty and undertake a mission to gain a glimpse of the future, I prevailed upon Sophie to use the same method as will Thomas Bennet with his wife. She carried me forward.

REYNOLDS: Why, Admiral?

CROFT:  “Because England needs Frederick Wentworth in his here/now, not this where/when. The man is still young and has much to do shepherding Rochet in the West Africa Squadron while preaching the Navy’s cause in the Lords.

Your Admiral Pound has the fleet well in hand. And the Prime Minister’s arrangement with the Americans to exchange Caribbean bases for fifty of those small ships you call destroyers allows His Majesty’s Navy to concentrate the fleet on convoy duty to the Island.

While I am not a child of the Wardrobe, Mrs. Benton explained that those close to the Families can benefit from the cabinet’s penchant to teach. My time here will serve to remind me how the industrialization of my time will mature in yours. I will do what I can to keep a leash, although apparently not well enough, of the impulse to build machines of mass destruction.

If I can apprehend the danger, what would someone like Frederick Wentworth learn?

I did not want Wentworth playing dice with the universe and running the risk of injury or death because the Wardrobe sent him where he learned what he needed about the service’s future. He will be an essential man as we relinquish sail and wood for steam and iron in the coming decades.

“I knew I had one more campaign in me and took the risk myself. What is happening on the other side of those curtains tells me I was correct.

“So I put on my number one rig like I was going rail-to-rail with a frog, took my wife in my arms, and—how did Mrs. Benton put it—oh yes: a thousand bees buzzed, and the pressure built.

“I have done my part for King and Country. If I died right now, if one of Hitler’s bombs found its way to this room, I doubt if little would change. Sophie could return Home or take her chances here, although I wager she would find her way back to Kellynch, Anne, and the children.”

REYNOLDS: However, sir, and I do not mean to be disputatious, what will prevent him from using the Wardrobe? Certainly, you know that he only must lay his hands on the doors.

CROFT: Ah, my earnest young lady, Mrs. Benton of my where/when and the Earl in this here/now explained that, while the Wardrobe can send folks with Bennet blood into where/whens so that they may learn what they must, it is not obliged to do so. I think that if you explore your archives you will find instances where the Wardrobe refused to act.

REYNOLDS (note later appended to the file) The admiral fell silent as a warden pounded on the door, ordering us to evacuate to the shelter. We removed to the bunker below Whitehall. Later I checked the Archives and the story of the 1815 travels of the Countess of Matlock when she was still Lydia Bennet revealed the truth of his assertion.

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https://mybook.to/SailorsRestPandP

The universal link for the first book in the Bennet Wardrobe series—The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey—is

mybook.to/MPKeeperwardrobe

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Please enjoy this brief excerpt from The Sailor’s Rest—©2023 by Donald P. Jacobson. Reproduction in any form is prohibited, published in the United States of America.

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From Chapter 39

Persephone Great Cabin

Despite the damage wrought upon the frigate, Persephone’s carpenter’s mates had returned the cabin to its former state. Fresh timber’s aroma pervaded the captain’s lair testifying that new wood replaced the splintered remains of the larboard quarter. Walinsham’s Berber carpets softened the deck, and walnut-stained chairs faced the stump-legged desk before the transom seat. Chests and bureaus lined the walls. The cabin could have been a satrap’s throne room, although naked of silken ceiling hangings.

Croft groaned as he dropped into the desk chair and planted his hands on the waxed desktop. The late afternoon sun poured through the windows warming his shoulders beneath his topcoat. He looked around the compartment, and his eyes squinted in disgust.

Looks like a bordello, or at least what some tradesman showing off his newly-earned wealth thinks a whorehouse plying its trade to ducal sons would appear. Tasteless—not that I would know! Sophie would have my guts for garters and hang my tanned hide on the stable doors if I abandoned her arms for the ‘pleasures’ of one of those places behind St. James!

The admiral grimly considered the creased sheet framed by his meaty paws. His jaw thrust forward pugnaciously, giving his glower even more menace. Wilson and Tomkins lounged against the opposite bulkhead. The cox’n had planted a foot proprietarily atop an enameled writing slope.

“Is this thing,” Croft pointed at the letter like a viper coiled to strike, “representative of the lot?”

Since this was a naval matter, Tomkins straightened and answered for the other subaltern. “Th’ sarn’ ’tis bett’r at siftin’ through trait’rous commun’cations. ’owever, Ad’m’r’l, from what I can divine, Walinsham’s been th’ puppet and nay th’ mast’r, doin’ the bidding of another an’ ’opin’ for some sort o’ return.

“What I find most ’ncredible is that ’e kept ev’ry letter—or so it seems—’e ever received from ’is controll’r.

“Found ev’ry one o’ ’em in ’is writin’ box.”

Croft snorted. “Arrogant bastard: that’s all he is. Like a fair number of his class.”

The admiral looked directly at Wilson. “I am excepting General Fitzwilliam. The son of Matlock learned humility at both his sire’s and dam’s knees. I would ride to war any time with the general. Walinsham undoubtedly is your everyday, garden-variety-privileged popinjay and looked for every way to avoid coming to grips with the enemy.

“My Lord, Byng may have been shy, but only after his fleet had been well-chewed, and he paid the blood debt for his indecision.

“This slug was never indecisive. He ran.”

Croft warmed to his topic and returned to the more profound question. “His actions today will be his undoing, but his crimes against decency are older.

“Like all those who live a cossetted life, he thinks his private correspondence was private. Thus, he was unguarded and ignored operational security basics. Never commit anything to paper that you do not want printed on the front page of The Advertiser! Then again, I wager he is typical of those who sneer at your Jermyn Street fellows, Sergeant. It would never occur to him that gentlemen would read another gentleman’s mail.

“I am a gentleman only because His Majesty has deemed it so. As for you two miscreants:” Croft shot a humorless grin across the room, “you own more gentility than this bastard. ’Tis society’s loss that neither you nor your ladies will be considered gentle. That will be the lot of your children. However, wherever Mrs. Croft and I reside, you and yours will have a place at our high table.”

The admiral shook his head. “What is more incredible, and I say that in its crapaud sense, incroyable, is that Walinsham kept true copies of his letters to his principal, including the bottom feeder’s name and direction.

“And now everything that has happened in the past months becomes clear.

“But, before we can take on the canker at the center, we must deal with this pustule.

“Bring him to me.”

With Tomkins and Wilson absent, only his dark thoughts sat with the admiral: the cabin’s silence was broken only by the gentle slap of water against the ship’s stern.