Though I’ve written very little in his voice, I’ve thought a great deal about the patriarch of the respectable, successful middle-class Hawking family, and the father of Justin and Nathaniel. While his younger brother Colonel Reginald Hawking served in the military, Ambrose built the family business from the ground up, turning a series of small investments into a thriving venture capital firm with interests all across the empire. He was close to and very proud of his brave younger brother, with Reginald’s choice to marry the fiery, inscrutable Victoria Stanton being the only difference to ever come between them. This conflict is referenced in Like a Loss, a ten-minute play featuring the Colonel and his valet.
Ambrose is a bastion of traditional Victorian masculinity, accustomed to authority and privilege and very skeptical of the notion of women having agency. The world and its accompanying systems have done well for him, and so he is loath to see them change. His younger son Nathaniel, however, is beginning to question and even reject the assumptions to which his father raised him. It will come as quite a shock when he is confronted by Nathaniel’s new perspective on things, especially when it comes to affect the way Nathaniel decides to raise his own son.
I don’t know if or when Ambrose will ever actually appear in the plays. Even in the upcoming third one, in which I plan for other members of Nathaniel’s family to appear and drive the conflict, I don’t know if there will be room for him. Still, I think the influence of a traditionally Victorian patriarchal father is important for Nathaniel’s sorting out of how he’s going to engage with feminism. If nothing else, I’m sure he will be mentioned, as he is in Like a Loss, or perhaps show up in another in-universe short piece.
Here is a small chunk I felt compelled to write, just as a way of exploring the slightly more human side of him. One thing is clear, he cared very deeply about his brother the Colonel, and what pained Reginald was also pain to him. I also think it serves to make his strong antipathy towards Victoria a lot more understandable. So, in service of that, here is a conversation I could picture them having about the Colonel.
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NATHANIEL: Did you think he ever knew just how… strongly she felt?
AMBROSE: Are you joking? Of course he did. He wasn’t a fool.
NATHANIEL: How do you know?
AMBROSE: Everyone knew. You could read it in her every glance, she never tried to hide it. And it cut him.
NATHANIEL: Did he tell you?
AMBROSE: He didn’t have to. I was his brother, I could see it in his eyes.
NATHANIEL: You never told me.
AMBROSE: By Jove, Nathaniel, do you fancy I hate her just because she’s unpleasant at dinner parties? The woman my brother loved despised him above all else. And he had to live with that. You may have found a way to forgive her, boy, but I never shall.
Interesting. Here’s a question, which you might or might not want to address at some point: how did Ambrose relate to the upper classes, and they to him? England was immensely classist, and I’m not sure how the “new money” fit in day-to-day at this point…
That’s an important thought! At the this time the middle classes were becoming the most important movers in society, and I think Ambrose buys into the new idea that men whose wealth and position were self-made are the ones who truly display worth. At the same time, the old notions of nobility run deep in this society, so for all his talk, there is probably still a fair bit of awe for those who were born with money and power. Though I bet he is still resistant to any implication that his accomplishments and his family are the lesser for it, just for the sake of masculine pride. :-)