This is my stop on the blog tour for The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father's Lament, by Don Jacobson. It is always a pleasure when Don Jacobson is my guest. I like reading his thoughts on the Wardrobe. Today though, Don shares with us a character vignette/interview and an excerpt. I think you will like getting to know this Thomas and Frances (Fanny) Bennet a bit better.
The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father's Lament was a MAE Favorite of 2018. I hope you'll take a look.
Enjoy!
Character Vignette/Interview
From
a brief prepared by Adelaide Reynolds, Research Department, Bennet Family
Trust, September 23, 1948.
As I walked into the bookroom, ably escorted by
Hill, the young butler serving this smallish Hertfordshire estate, I was struck
by the floor-to-ceiling bookcases which lined this well-appointed room. The
general atmosphere, light and airy despite dozens of feet of richly-stained
shelves, inspired a sense that this was a space designed for contemplation but
able to accommodate vigorous debate. From time-to-time a gardener’s shape could
be perceived moving through the grounds beyond the windows: their crystalline
panes new from France in the early 1690s, in 1948 still admitting ripping waves
that warmed the library and cast its occupants in a golden hue.
The Founder, Mr. Thomas Michael Bennet, was seated
behind the great oaken worktable which, while its provenance extended back to
the Glorious Revolution and then forward through ten generations of Bennet men,
none-the-less firmly established that this man was now, as he always had been,
the Master of Longbourn. Contrary to the sense which Miss Austen left of the
Bennet patriarch, he showed none of the legendary indolence which had been his image
for nearly a century-and-a-half. His uniquely shaped eyes, hazel-green, alertly
began to scan my figure as if he was seeking to take a preliminary measure of
me before I had a chance to utter a
word.
Then he rose, pushing the wheeled chair back with
his legs.
He stood, perhaps, nine inches over five feet. His
frame was trim and tending toward athletic, which surprised me as, schooled by
Miss Austen, I had assumed that he would have been shaped more like men of his
age in the current where/when,
rounded by too much rich food and drink and too little exercise. Perhaps more
akin to Sir William Lucas. True, his
hair was thinning, however, his face was unlined beneath a skin glowing from
the regular rounds of golf which, my brother Walter had assured me, had become
his passion. I will admit that I was taken by the manner with which his figure
“V-ed” from his shoulders to his hips, made most apparent when he buttoned the
grey jacket of what was a masterly evocation of Saville Row artistry.
His greeting, combined with an outstretched hand,
was awesome in its familiarity. Who was I, a recent hire into the Trust after
my graduation from Oxbridge, to be deputed to interview The Founder and his
Lady? Yet, there I was.
[The
following is an edited literary transcription of three Dictabelts produced
during an hour-long interview. AR]
Mr. Bennet reached out to shake my hand and
greeted me in a rolling baritone, “Ah, you must be another of that remarkable
clan we have come to call ‘Research Reynolds.’ I am aware of your brother’s
role in the Department. I must admit that my sensibilities, rooted as they are
in the late Eighteenth Century, still find women in academic roles unique but
not unsettling.
“However, I must allow that t’was my wife who
schooled me in the modern way in which ladies move through society.”
Then his voice lowered into a conspiratorial
whisper, moderated by an impish twinkle in those arresting eyes of his,
“However, you will have to forgive me if I slip and act in an antediluvian manner.”
Returning to his normal voice, he continued,
“Permit me to gather my wife. Mrs. Bennet was quite excited to learn that you
wished to speak to us about her roses. She will organize the seating once we
return.”
He left me standing to admire the tooled leather
bindings encasing the hundreds upon hundreds of volumes in the Longbourn
collection: while smaller than Pemberley’s vast hoard was well-curated and
tailored for a family of more modest means. However, I had little time to
contemplate for Mr. Bennet returned with a woman upon his arm.
I was stunned; for, while I had perceived The
Founder as a total entity in our brief conversation, I now could sense a
soaring of spirit when this woman’s presence was combined with his. They were,
to use a hackneyed phrase, a force of nature.
They fit together.
Bennet provided the offices of introduction. Soon
we were seated in three leather wingbacks around a low table on which rested a
simple bowl filled with cut flowers.
Frances Lorinda Bennet, born Gardiner, was a delightfully
shaped woman of middle years. She was clearly a lady who had birthed children
but had been fortunate to retain a semblance of her figure that bespoke of the
astonishing beauty she had been when she had first discovered the tigress power
of Eve. As with most blonde women of a certain age, her hair was streaked with
the purest white that added highlights to her tresses. A gentle dusting of
freckles graced her lightly tanned cheeks and the bridge of her nose bespeaking
of a love of the outdoors in her much-vaunted gardens.
Taking her appearance as my cue, I asked about her
fascination with gardening.
Mrs. Bennet settled back into her chair and smiled
brilliantly, “Well, Miss Reynolds, it seems that word of my love of rosa floribundae has made it to Town.
Fine…I will satisfy your curiosity.
“My Grandfather Gardiner, I am not certain how
many ‘greats’ he would have been, returned from the Far East—he was with Mr.
Christopher Bennet, you know—bearing a number of cuttings from rose plants
cultivated in China. His wife planted
them in her first garden, and when they installed themselves in Hertfordshire,
she uprooted her best and favorite bushes and transplanted them in their garden
behind their Meryton house.
“Every Gardiner woman, even my sister Mrs. Philips,
has made the cultivation of roses her particular mission.
“When I married Mr. Bennet, my mama allowed me to
take my own cuttings from her plants. That was the beginning of Longbourn’s
rose beds! Mr. Bennet’s papa, Mr. Samuel Bennet, had allowed the original lawns
behind the house to go to seed. T’was his grief over having lost Mr. Bennet’s
mama, Mrs. Lizzie Bennet, on top of having his eldest son simply vanish, that
had laid low the poor man. He had already passed on before I had married his
son.”
The lady subsided into a thoughtful pause, so I
broke in with another question, “Is that why your daughters were referred to as
‘The Roses of Hertfordshire?’ Was it their love of the plant and their carrying
on of the Gardiner heritage that led to that moniker?”
Mrs. Bennet snorted and proudly replied, “No, my
dear, they were so called because they were the beauties of the county! I am
beyond certain that you have seen the portraits at Thornhill, Pemberley, and
Selkirk. I defy you to find another collection of young ladies with whom they
could be compared.
“Even my darling Mary, and I will ever forgive
myself for the way I assailed that poor girl, who was the plainest of the lot
was still a stunning woman in her own right. And, to think I would have
considered aligning her with that slugworm, Mr. Bennet’s cousin, Mr…”
Here Mr. Bennet broke in, “Fanny, that is a name
no Bennet will ever utter!”
Looking slightly abashed, Mrs. Bennet continued,
“Tom, I was only seeking to offer an example of how beneath our Mary was that
awful man.”
Then, directing her sky-blue, nearly purple, orbs
back at me, she continued, “But, in answer to your slight misconception about
my girls and roses. While each of them certainly loved the flower, only one, as
I understand it, Lydia, whom all seem to refer to as the Dowager Countess, assumed my mantle. I would commend a tour of
the hothouses behind Selkirk. There you will see the extent to which she
carried the Gardiner legacy.
“On top of that, the family apparently gave her
free rein over all of their houses, the Beach House at Deauville, and, beyond
the beds here, the Longbourn cemetery.
“Her handiwork is evident at Pemberley, although
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy’s mother, Lady Anne, had been the prime mover.
“Mr. Bingley, my Jane’s husband, averred that the
sunshine yellow Lady Anne roses reminded him of his wife. Lydia made sure there
was an ample supply of those transplanted from Pemberley over to Thornhill so
that Bingley could grace his wife with a bouquet any time he was so moved—which
was nearly every day.
“Lydia’s work at Pemberley included creating a
special hybrid for Mr. Darcy. She named it Lizzy’s
Own Red Bourbon. That rose was such a rich red that only a lady with the
darkest of brunette locks and eyes could do it justice. That was my Lizzy!”
During this oration, I glanced over to Mr. Bennet.
His eyes had assumed a faraway look and swam with unshed tears. Mis wife’s
speech was shaking his memories of young girls in their first bloom of
womanhood.
Mrs. Bennet’s speech broke through my own reverie,
“Lydia also found a way to create a hardy, late blooming white cultivar,
suitable for outdoor plantings. Look at the Kympton Vicarage. Mr. Benton and
his Mary adored late afternoon walks amongst the bushes. Of course, the white
rose was perfect for my middle girl. It symbolizes purity, and if I have
learned anything of the woman into whom my daughter grew, her spirit and
motives were of a kind with fresh-fallen snow, unblemished.
“Of Kitty, well, I would suggest you visit the
Beach House. Lydia planted hundreds of plants along the grey fieldstone wall
surrounding the compound. Apparently, she once told Kitty’s husband, Lord
Henry, when he was but a boy, that Kitty reminded her of all of the roses she
had chosen to represent her beloved female relatives.”
At this, Mrs. Bennet quieted until I asked, “But,
Mrs. Bennet, I have visited Deauville
as I was researching roses and the Bennets. There are five varieties planted
there.”
The lady nodded and replied, “You have the right of
it. Lydia had originally planted four, but I chose not to mention the last for
she did that to honor me, calling me the Mother plant. I would not wish to draw
undue attention to myself as I have always felt that my girls were the ones who
climbed to great heights.
“My rose, you see is Rosa Chinensis.”
“That would be the one which tends toward a
tangerine or salmon hue,” I added.
“Yes, it has always been my favorite. If you step
out into Longbourn’s garden right now, you will find R. chinensis in full bloom.
“The fifth rose at Deauville was not planted by
Lydia, but rather in her honor just three years ago. The two Countesses,
Georgiana of Pemberley and Anne of Matlock, added the fifth rose as a memorial
to her for all that she did for her sister.
“So, the final rose in the garland is the blush,
and I think it suits Lydia perfectly. The tints of pink are redolent of
happiness. That was my Lydia. No, she was not virginal, the other context for
blush, but rather she embraced life—the good and the bad—with unfeigned joy.
She had limited pretentions. She was neither haughty nor proud.”
Mr. Bennet interrupted his wife’s flow of thought
saying, “Yes, our youngest ate life with a large spoon. Of course, Miss
Reynolds, you must realize that we have only known her as a young girl, prone
to an adolescent’s failings.
“In our where/when
she still trusts to easily and judges based upon surface traits rather than a
deeper reading of character. I imagine that she changed considerably as she
aged.”
Mrs. Bennet chimed in, “What little I have been
able to learn about Lydia’s life in the years after she left home, it seems
that she drew closer to her sisters and built a life with her husband and their
sons.
“But, she never stopped, as Mr. Bennet has
reminded us, eating life with a big
spoon.”
With that, the discussion of roses ended, and the
couple rose to bid me farewell. As Mr. Hill escorted me from Longbourn’s
bookroom, I caught Mr. Bennet reaching down and pulling a salmon-colored
blossom from that bowl on the low table, embellished his wife’s short coiffure
with a perfect Rosa Chinensis.
&&&&
Thank you for this
opportunity to present this character vignette that might have appeared in The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s
Lament. I look forward to your comments.
I hope you will enjoy this little excerpt that
offers a bit more about Mrs. Bennet and her roses.
This
excerpt is ©2018 by Don Jacobson. Any reproduction—either in print or
electronic—without the expressed written consent of the author is prohibited.
Published in the United States of America.
From
Chapter XXIX
Fanny Bennet carefully brushed dirt clumps and
grass clippings from the knees of her pantaloons, what her grand-daughters and
nieces called slacks, as she finished
her afternoon’s attention to the manse’s rose beds. She stood and knuckled her
lower back with clenched fists, trying to relax middle-aged muscles unused to
being stretched as they had been for the past several hours.
What would Mathilda Lucas
and Louisa Goulding have said if they spied me wearing a pair of Annie’s
jodhpurs. The two of them probably would have fled down Longbourn Lane cackling
like a pair of prize biddy hens. T’would be the stuff of Meryton gossip for
weeks, if not months.
I could not care less! Back
in my day, t’was always near impossible to do the right type of weeding around
the base of the plants. Ground-length skirts and stays were never intended to
permit a lady to drop to the ground. Of course, the gardener and grounds’
servants could be tasked to do the job, but oh lordy, they would make a
first-rate mess of things.
Now, in this age, I can get
down amongst my plants, making sure that the fall fertilizer is worked into the
soil around the roots.
The reaches behind the manor house had always
been special to Mrs. Bennet. Before she had moved to Longbourn after her
wedding, the pretty little wilderness stretching
away from the kitchen garden had become overgrown, having been ignored by Tom’s
father, Samuel, in the decade after Mrs. Lizzie’s death. His heir, while a
farmer, concentrated his agrarian efforts upon wheat and barley as well as
turnips and swedes instead of ornamentals. The young matron had been given carte blanche by her new husband when
she suggested that, in addition to redecorating their home’s public rooms, she
begin the recovery of the eastward-facing acre.
Fanny had always lived with a purpose. Once she
had set her mind to a project, she would not let it drop by the wayside.
Longbourn’s distinctive beds were the first of many schemes she undertook as
Mrs. Bennet.
Upon Bennet’s say-so, she descended upon her
mother’s garden behind the Gardiner residence on High Street: a walled space
that was a riot of sharp-edged greenery. While Longbourn’s workers chopped
brush and stripped back turf to reveal Hertfordshire’s rich, dark loam, the
newly-increasing young wife began thinning her parent’s largess, carefully
splitting away excess runners and then taking cuttings of the more unusual
varieties before removing about one in every three mature plants. All were
carted back to the estate to eventually grow into broad-shouldered bushes
filled with the scents and colors determined to calm even the most troubled
soul.
In her mind’s eye, she could see her five girls,
each in brilliant white gowns and broad-brimmed bonnets, moving sedately
between the beds. The older ones were armed with shears while the younger
carried the baskets into which Jane and Lizzy would drop the flowers destined
for the countless vases and displays throughout Longbourn’s halls.
Now they are all gone.
Nothing is left in this time to comfort me except my memories…and my roses. Odd
how my work still lives after over 150 years. I guess that is the best sort of
immortality.
However, Fanny Bennet knew she had no cause to repine. While her children
had gone on ahead, she still had two of her grandchildren, Tommy and Eloise, as
well as a fleet of great grandchildren who were of an age to call her
‘Grandmother.’ Those children were blessings…as were disparate nieces and
nephews.
And, then there was Eileen.
Try as she might, Fanny could not separate the
image of her Jane and Jane’s
descendent. As Mrs. Bennet stood by the tilled ground, she looked across the
sward to the oaken boundary under which branches Miss Nearne rested, nose buried
in a book—probably another deep study of the human condition. The last time
Fanny had asked after Eileen’s reading, the quiet young woman simply held up
the slender tome which was entitled Pour une morale de l'ambigüité. [i] Eileen's curiosity about the nature of Man's navigation of life grew from her own trials.
And, thus, an inner difference from Mrs. Bingley was added to the more obvious man-made physical ones.
While Mrs. Bennet had undergone many changes since Lizzy and Jane had married and her husband had once again refocused his ardor upon her, she was still much her old self in terms of her interests. Chief amongst those was seeing her girls well settled. And given that she saw Miss Eileen Nearne as her daughter separated by one hundred-odd years, she had recently been sorting the cards of her memory.
A powerful resolve now gripped her. She straightened up and called out to Miss Nearne saying that she was going into the house to bathe before the planned trip into Town for dinner. She reminded Eileen that she was included in the invitation and should not tarry in the garden. The younger woman never looked up from her book - how like two of my other daughters - choosing simply to wave in acknowledgement.
[i] Pour une morale de l'ambigüité (The Ethics of Ambiguity) by Simone de Beauvoir was originally published in 1947.
Blurb:
Bennet looked at his wife’s
swollen lips, softly bruised from several deeply loving kisses, and her flushed
complexion, as alluring when gracing the countenance of a woman of
four-and-forty as that of a girl of nine-and-ten. He was one of the lucky few to
have fallen in love with the same woman at both ages.
Thomas Bennet, Master of Longbourn, had always counted himself
amongst the few educated gentlemen of his acquaintance. But, he had to travel
over 120 years into the future to discover how little he knew about the woman
sharing his life.
Once again, the amazing Bennet Wardrobe proved to be the
schoolmaster. Tom Bennet’s lesson? Mrs. Bennet had been formed especially for
him. Yet, t’would be the good lady herself who taught him the power of the Fifth and Sixth Loves: Redemption and
Forgiveness.
Fanny Bennet also would uncover deep wells of courage and
inspiration as she stood by her man’s side in the bleak years after World War
II. Together they would lead their descendants in pursuit of the beast who had
wronged every member of the Five Families.
The
Bennet Wardrobe series stands alone…
The Avenger takes us on a new journey through The Bennet Wardrobe – an alternate
universe rising from Don Jacobson’s vivid imagination and based upon the
immortal Pride and Prejudice. The Avenger is another important step
leading to the culmination of this enchanting trip: one that has drawn us into
its reality to travel side-by-side with richly sketched characters. Each book
has left us wanting more.
The Bennet Wardrobe series stands alone as a unique result of
originality focused on beloved characters as they move—and grow—through
surprising plotlines.
Lory
Lilian, author of Rainy Days
Author
Bio:
Don
Jacobson has written professionally for forty years. His output has ranged from news and features
to advertising, television and radio.
His work has been nominated for Emmys and other awards. He has previously published five books, all
non-fiction. In 2016, he published the
first volume of The Bennet Wardrobe
Series—The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s
Extraordinary Journey, novel that grew from two earlier novellas. The Exile is the second volume of The Bennet Wardrobe Series. Other JAFF P&P Variations include the
paired books “Of Fortune’s Reversal” and
“The Maid and The Footman.”
Jacobson
holds an advanced degree in History with a specialty in American Foreign
Relations. As a college instructor, Don
teaches United States History, World History, the History of Western
Civilization and Research Writing.
He is a
member of JASNA-Puget Sound. Likewise,
Don is a member of the Austen Authors
collective (see the internet, Facebook and Twitter).
He
lives in the Seattle, WA area with his wife and co-author, Pam, a woman Ms.
Austen would have been hard-pressed to categorize, and their rather assertive
four-and-twenty pound cat, Bear. Besides
thoroughly immersing himself in the JAFF world, Don also enjoys cooking; dining
out, fine wine and well-aged scotch whiskey.
His other
passion is cycling. Most days from April
through October will find him “putting in the miles” around the Seattle area
(yes there are hills). He has ridden
several “centuries” (100 mile days). Don
is especially proud that he successfully completed the AIDS Ride—Midwest (500
miles from Minneapolis to Chicago) and the Make-A-Wish Miracle Ride (300 miles
from Traverse City, MI to Brooklyn, MI).
Contact
Info:
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