Alastair Glennie

Role EIC writer, shipping office Nationality British Status alive Age 24

Description

Twenty-four. Junior Company writer in the shipping office. Scottish, freckled, and trying desperately to grow sideburns. Third son with no prospects at home. Works hard, saves carefully, drinks moderately.

Slightly dull and completely reliable.

Background

Came out as a writer and has been in the shipping office since. Will be rich in ten years and tedious for all of them.

What Meg Says

Alastair Glennie will be rich in ten years and tedious for all of them. Every fishing fleet girl’s mother has noticed him. He hasn’t noticed any of them because he’s too busy calculating compound interest.

Connections

• Custom House Calcutta — his professional world
• Emma Wentworth, Georgiana Wentworth — whom he cannot approach

In Play

Chapter 4, Session 9 (9 October 1814) — introduced, and immediately smitten. He was presented to the Wentworth sisters during the churchyard hour at St John’s and hovered around Emma for most of it without managing to say anything useful.

He is eighteen, freckled, ambitiously side-whiskered, and a writer in the Company’s shipping office. Nobody has yet costed what a smitten clerk with access to manifests and lading is worth.

Chapter 4, Session 11 (10 October 1814) — drifting back into orbit. He attended Hugh’s evening gathering and, per his established pattern, drifted awkwardly back into Emma Wentworth’s social orbit. (Session 11’s play notes spell his first name “Alistair” — an export variant of this file’s “Alastair.”)

Appearances

Campaign Log

• Session 12 - The Governor’s Ball — Tried for a place on Emma’s dance card, counting his steps under his breath and treading on the hem of her gown. Thomas had already pencilled himself in for the first and last dances, and dismissed him afterward as “a little squid.”