Hawdon: A Prequel to Bleak House

By Ralph F. Smith

This novel is about Nemo, a minor character who dies early in Dickens’s Bleak House and is buried in a pauper graveyard in London. It turns out that Nemo, originally Captain Hawdon, has important relationships with the main characters of the novel. Lady Dedlock, mother of Hawdon’s child Esther Summerson, flees from her husband and dies at the gates to this graveyard. Hawdon: A Prequel to Bleak House brings Nemo to life, consistent with the clues laid down by Dickens. Included in this, we follow Captain Hawdon in Afghanistan during the first Afghan war of 1839 to 1842 and then in Ireland during the great famine of the late 1840s. This is a novel about dedication in relationships, the scourge of disease, and anticolonialism in Victorian times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638298144

Ralph F. Smith

When Ralph F. Smith was 13 years old his room teacher read the students David Copperfield. Ralph immediately became a fan of Dickens, rereading all his fiction every decade. In the 1970s, he wrote a MA thesis on Dickens’s portrayal of the Victorian Underworld. Later, he registered in a PhD program at the University of Ottawa and wrote a dissertation on Dickens’s portrayal and metaphoric use of fever. An article derived from this dissertation appeared in Literature and Medicine in 2015. Ralph also worked as a policy director for the Governments of Saskatchewan and Canada, receiving the Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee Medal for his work on homelessness. Ralph has been writing articles, short stories, poetry, and novels for decades. His previously published novels are Bright Deep (2013), Concession Street Secrets (2019), and Twitch: The Foundling’s Quest (2021). His poems and stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He has been living in Ottawa since 1987, has two children, three stepchildren, and is married to Dr. Fionnuala O’Kelly.

Book preview

Chapter One

1839, Colchester, England

The banter going around the card table does not interrupt my thoughts about how, tomorrow night, I will dip my saber for the first time ever into a peer of the realm. Lady Gribney gave me the money I am using to gamble, and she said she will double it after our assignation. My heroine is the queen but this may be as close as I get.

In Bucking, the Tiger each card has a Bengal tiger on its back. Sometimes the game is called ‘Faro’. Pasted on the table is the suit of spades. Our dealer shuffles the deck, places it in the shoe. No one is allowed to look into this wooden box because the cards are face up. The first one is the soda, a dead card. This seven of hearts does not dampen the men’s shouts, some from my troop, as they boast of their exploits with gambling, drink and women. The second card is a king, the losing card. Curses and groans fill the room while the dealer removes their counters, each worth five shillings. Third, the dealer draws the winning card, the queen, one of my bets. I leave my original counters and the two I have won to parley, as I believe the queen will be faithful this round.

Only a few entities on earth are capable of loyalty—take women out of the equation as they are never faithful to their spouses or children, as I found out when I was very young. They are weak and frivolous, never capable of being in an army or government. There is one glittering exception—the queen. She is faithful to everyone throughout the empire as she enriches and improves their circumstances and minds. A cavalryman’s troop and flag are faithful to the queen and she is faithful to them. Cavalry horses are faithful, ours the finest, truest of their breed. Also, every gambler knows that there are nights when the cards are faithful, and he wins again and again. When he loses, he knows that the cards will welcome him back and, eventually, if he has the money, they become faithful again. When he loses, he feels the same as when he wins—he honors the cards because there is no question of their loyalty over the long run.

It’s time for the second round. I put four counters on the deuce and a copper on top of it. I feel that the deuce will lose and, if it does, I will collect. The queen will win once again. The house is still while the dealer shuffles the cards and men place their counters on the cards. We are shoulder to shoulder. The youngest player is from my troop, a fat and short fellow with the unfortunate name of Rumbly. He looks at me for approval as his chubby hand hovers over the table. I nod, and he puts his counters and copper on the same cards as mine. Observing this, the casekeeper frowns. He is a tall, heavy-boned man with a battered face who keeps track of the cards played on an abacus-like apparatus and maintains order in the house. I have seen him knock down men who have taken too much gin or play too rough with the ladies. Some of my men who arrived with me are no longer in sight. No doubt they are upstairs enjoying the other diversion at Mrs. Wakely’s. She makes a tidy profit on both the gambling and the whoring.

The losing card is a two. Rumbly and I are the only winners. He cheers in his screechy, adolescent voice and looks at me as if I was his father. The man sitting beside him gives him a shove.

Don’t you elbow me, the ruffian says to Rumbly.

I stand and see that the man, who has a scar on his cheek, is an infantry sergeant. He jumps up and forms his rough hands into fists. The casekeeper intercedes. If you’re going to brawl, get outside!

We don’t want to leave the game, do we? I smile and both of us resume sitting. I leave my winnings to parley. So does Rumbly. Deuces are doomed.

The game goes on. I keep winning. There is a racket from upstairs and the casekeeper flies off like a ball fired by a canon. The dealer says, Gentlemen, we will continue. After he deals the losing card, a ten, he looks away for a few seconds and a man moves his hand back as if he is about to scratch his nose. His counters move down from the ten to the four. Horse hair! These cheaters are rarely caught. I do not cheat, as that would betray the cards. I would chastise any of my men who try it. The dealer blinks and looks confused. However, the bank is making money as usual and, when he plays the winning card, he observes the table in steady concentration. He says we must wait for the casekeeper before resuming.

I close my eyes, imagine the winning and losing cards. Tonight, it works like magic. Two nights ago, I lost my savings doing the same trick. I knew the cards would come through for me. The other men are surely using this break to look around at Mrs. Wakely’s women. While most of us wear our uniforms, the women have varying tastes in their garments, or perhaps Mrs. Wakely has orchestrated the wardrobe for her group. The women are often to be found watching us playing and congratulating the winners.

Soft fingers move up my neck, caress my ear and move down into my moustache. Oh, Captain, you are such a lovely young rake. Any woman in this house would have you but I want you now. It’s Sophie, the leading lady of Mrs. Wakely’s flock. I recall several visits to the luscious charms of her body. She smells like a rose bush, always in bloom. I wonder if any of her customers think they might encounter thorns. I think it possible—there is a story going around that she has a case of the clap.

Not now, Sophie, I need to concentrate. The casekeeper returns, and the dealer draws the winning card. Once again, I am lucky. Sophie moves around the table to Rumbly who is all eyes on the game, twitching his shoulders with glee, face turning red when Sophie touches him. He looks like a ripe tomato next to a bending willow tree.

So goes the evening until the dealer announces that the game is over. I have won almost one hundred and fifty guineas and Rumbly just less than that. I collect my winnings only to find Sophie and another member of Mrs. Wakely’s stable have come over to try and seduce me.

Oh, Roxy, don’t he look handsome.

The handsomest in town with his straight shoulders, uniform, brown eyes, perfect moustache and noble nose. I could kiss it right now in front of everyone. Roxy waves a handkerchief before me, heavily steeped in eau de cologne.

Sophie moves in and grasps my shoulder. I recall the soft feel of her skin. He’s not for you, wench, he’s mine. You may have the chubby boy over there.

There is no question that Sophie has the most superficial attractions, but I cannot spend myself tonight when I must serve the Lady tomorrow. Rumbly comes to my side like a well-trained sheepdog.

We disengage ourselves from the ladies and go toward the barracks. The late spring air shows promise of the coming summer. Rumbly is afloat with his triumphant evening.

You could have stayed with the ladies. Roxy was taken with you.

Well, sir, I think her interest was more in the money I won. And I haven’t, Rumbly says.

No need to say more. He’s still a virgin and he’s frightened.

Look at all the stars out there. Are not they beautiful? I say to distract him.

He looks up and almost trips over a paving stone.

What do your parents think about you being in the cavalry? I say.

Oh, they’re proud. You should see the letters they send me. He bounces along beside me. If you don’t mind me asking, your parents must be even more proud of you, aren’t they?

I ought not to have started this discussion. My parents have both passed away, I say.

Sorry to hear it, sir. Rumbly looks for any other obstacle that might lay in our path.

As often as I try to dismiss it, my past comes flooding back. When my father died, he left our farm to my brother, his favorite son, because he saw me as a wild scallywag. My brother paid for my education but no trade appealed to me other than the cavalry. My brother, fed up with me dallying around our village in Sussex, paid the nearly three hundred guineas to buy me this commission and made it clear that it was the last pence I could expect out of him.

A voice shatters the stillness. Please misters, can you spare some pence for a man who has not ate for two days.

A ragged beggar seated against a stone wall has an old, ratty straw hat pulled down on his head.

Rumbly stops and looks at me. It’s your choice, I say to Rumbly. He steps over and gives the man a shilling.

Why thankee, sir. T’other gentleman’s not so kind.

My captain is a generous man. I had the money to give you because of him, Rumbly says.

As we approach the barrack, Rumbly says that it feels good to help someone get through the week and I respond that his money will no doubt be drunk away within a few hours.

Chapter Two

The next night, I lie in a creaky bed at the East Gate Inn with Lady Gribney. The noise from the street ebbs. In the candlelight, I see her long, black hair on the pillow and her bare back. I have ravished her as many times as I can. My tall horsehair hat on the small oak table sits as if it were a spy. Her sham clothing is scattered about the room. She told me she borrowed the disguise from one of her maids. I wanted her to be dressed like Queen Victoria and the Lady asked if I was one of those queer men watching the queen’s bedroom light go off in Windsor Castle, imagining they were with her. The Lady starts in her sleep. I guess she is worn out by our physical activities we had before she fell back chortling. I doubt Sir Gribney gives her such thrust exercises.

I give her arm a hearty shake and she mumbles, Let me sleep.

No, my Lady, you need to return home. You said you had only an hour.

She sits, scowling and exposing her shapely breasts. Captain, you know very well I am not one of your men that you can command.

I bow slightly. She lays her head back on the pillow. I hope she does not want another round. Earlier, after all those glasses of gin, she was like a starving pup, slavering over my body. She said she loved my moustache, my broad chest, my tight bum and, of course, my friendly instrument of war. We played under the covers of the creaking bed, in a tent reeking of eau de cologne, before I entered her and then she wanted more and more. I said I was the officer for the job.

We shall not do this anymore, the Lady says, her face stern.

That is, of course, your choice my Lady. I am surprised at this. Only a few hours ago I was the fox caught by the yapping hound. She has so disappointed me—I expected that intimacy with nobility would be utterly different from horseplay with common women.

Sir Gribney suspects that I am having dalliances. He warned me, even though I paid the manager of this hotel to keep secret my comings and goings.

My Lady, if I may—do you know if your husband is faithful to you? Do you have him followed? She stares at me. I have overstepped my place.

Please avert your eyes, she says. I hear her getting out of bed and scrabbling around on the floor, collecting her array of clothing, drawing out some pounds to leave with me. Now put your fingers in your ears.

I do as she says, knowing full well that she is drawing the chamber pot from under the bed. I hear the dribbling that goes on for a long while. When it is safe to take out my fingers, I hear the shuffling of her donning her clothes.

We were talking of my husband. Of course, I do no such thing as have him followed. A woman of quality does not do that. It is my role to believe my husband’s oath of fidelity.

May I make an observation? Being lectured by this woman on morality is something I cannot take lying down. On the other hand, I do not want her watching me rise naked out of bed, enough of her admiration.

Yes, she says this warily, waiting for me to send off a charge that she can shoot down.

I cannot speak for the gentrified class but married men I have known in the cavalry have little hesitation in being unfaithful when an enticement is offered to them. I am not casting aspersions on your husband, but is it not possible to think he is accepting such sweet invitations?

You are right in one thing—you cannot speak for members of our class. You cavalrymen are a breed apart, charging around here and there on your horses. Married cavalrymen will be unfaithful when they think the next moment they will be ripped away from their wives and sent off to another country and wind up skewered by some foreigner. She straightens her dress and bundles her hair under her hat.

You are wrong about that. Wives and children are allowed to follow along to other soils. I need to set the record straight although morality in a marriage is a grand myth. Loyalty to country is another thing. The sun will never set on the empire even though it will on her bodily attractions.

I am going now. You are still invited to come to the ball on our estate and you may bring another cavalier with you, as long as he is handsome. However, you need to remember these words—tell no one about our dalliance or I will see that you are destroyed. She looks like a Medusa on her way out.

Why ever would she think I might inform on her? This I do know—she will be inviting other military officers to this very hotel to play.

*

Major Dobson is fidgeting, keeping close watch on a bee that has entered the room without his permission. He is a short curmudgeon who the men call, behind his back, Old Crank, because of his poor posture and moods. I am tempted to grasp a journal from off his desk and decimate the innocent insect but he would probably see that act as insubordination.

Captain, he says as if the word has bubbled up to his lips, an order has come down from Colonel Millard.

I expect we will be stationed in one of the colonies. That would be good—we are trained for it. However, not much has been going on in the colonies. That is why we spend our time training and parading.

It concerns the antics of the young bucks stationed here. They, especially the cavalry, have been going overboard in the town, with their gaming, whoring and, something worse, seduction of honest, married women. The colonel says he has heard these complaints from the most legitimate sources, men of good standing whose wives and daughters have been seduced by cavalrymen. He continues, A man carrying a lance and riding a horse is intended to be a threat to our enemies, not to our innocent women!

Last night I was hunted down by a gentrified woman but I cannot tell the major that. I will convey this concern to the men in my troop, I say.

I have not finished, the major says, turning red, still keeping his eyes on the bee. I hope I can form an alliance with the little creature to get it to sting my superior. He is a disgrace to his uniform. If only the queen knew!

A man of ultimate importance on an estate near Colchester, a peer of the realm, was the spokesman who lodged a complaint with the colonel. He is Sir Gribney and his chief personal complaint was that cavalry officers have been attempting to consort with his very own wife, Lady Gribney. She is a woman of unimpeachable virtue.

I look down at my knees to disguise the smile I could not repress. No, she is a corrupt peach.

Look at me, Captain. I have other sources than Sir Gribney and I will not tell you who informed on you. To my great disappointment, because I always thought you were among the best of our officers, I have been informed that last night you were seen accompanying Lady Gribney into the East Gate Inn. Prove me wrong if you can!

If he decommissions me, all will be lost. There must be a way out. I cannot knock on my brother’s door.

You commandeered her there, did you not? the major says.

Major, the Lady invited me to accompany her.

The bee lands on the major’s desk causing him to move his hands ever so slowly away and to stare at it as if it were a cobra. I draw out my sword stealthily and decimate the poor little victim with the flat, scrape the remains off the desk. The major holds his heart and breathes heavily.

After I re-sheath my sword, the major says, You are a good soldier and your men will follow you anywhere out on the field. I will inform my source to smother last night’s dalliance. You will reform your behavior. You have not boasted of your conquest to anyone?

No, I have not.

Very well, keep it that way and instruct your men on morality. Become a model for them.

I wonder what he would have said if I had not killed the bee? Can a mouse move a mountain?

When you leave, the major says, you will find a young man waiting outside my door. He is a new recruit for your troop and can replace Rawlinson who died of the fever.

Thank you, Major. I will welcome him to the troop, instruct him in the fundamentals, and, of course…the new morality. The major frowns when I say this. My dressing down is over for the day.

The man stands at attention outside the door like a king’s guard. He salutes and informs me his name is George. He is tall and in his mid-twenties. There is not a single crease in his regimentals, a bright, new sparkling trooper.

Mr. George, come along with me to our barracks. I like to get to know my new men.

He picks up his kit as if it were a feather pillow. Once we are out of doors, he breathes in deeply. I can see he is in his element.

I assume George is your first name. Within the troop, the custom is to call each other by family name. Mine is Hawdon. What is yours?

Sorry, Captain, on the estate where I was raised, we were given one name. Even my mother called me George.

He has a northeastern accent. Lincolnshire? Suffolk?

Where is the estate?

It no longer exists, sir. Dissolved…due to a court case.

He reddens around the ears and looks away. I can tell that he is an honest sort, and this is perhaps the one question that makes him lie. Men sometimes sign up to escape their familiar lives. Other times they run away from a pregnancy, a theft, or a dangerous liaison.

We are obliged to stop while a troop goes by in single formation, their captain barking out orders as they proceed toward the field. A sergeant gives me a sideways glance—it’s the same man who raised a