The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer

ran over his protégé’s attire, that his real purpose was to assure himself that no sartorial solecism had been committed. It was a pity, but not a solecism, that the Major had not provided himself with knee-smalls, but his long-tailed coat was by Scott, and well-enough; his linen was decently starched; and his shoe-strings ironed. He favoured a more modest style than was fashionable, wearing no jewellery, sporting no inordinately high collar, and arranging his neckcloth neatly, but with none of the exquisite folds that, distinguished the tie of a dandy or a Corinthian. Grooby regretted the absence of a quizzing-glass and a fob, but on the whole he was inclined to think that so large a man was right to adopt a plain mode.
    The Major entered the saloon one minute before the stipulated time, thereby winning a measure of approval from his grandfather. Lord Darracott’s brows shot up; he said: “Well, at all events you’re not a dawdler! I’ll say that for you. Make your bow to your aunts, and your cousin! Lady Aurelia, Mrs. Darracott, you ’ll allow me to present Hugh to you; Anthea, you’ll look after your cousin: show him the way about!”
    The Major, receiving a formal bow from a Roman-nosed matron in a turban, and the smallest of stiff curtsies from a tall girl who looked at him with quelling indifference, turned his eyes apprehensively towards the third lady. Mrs. Darracott, her heart wrung (as she afterwards explained to her daughter), smiled at him, and gave him her hand. “How do you do?” she said. “I am so happy to meet you! So vexed, too, that I wasn’t dressed quite in time to welcome you when you arrived. Not but what that might have made it worse for you—I mean, so many strange new relations! I daresay you must be perfectly bewildered.” He did not kiss her hand, but he shook it warmly, and thanked her, smiling down at her so gratefully that she almost wished she had braved my lord’s displeasure, and placed Hugo instead of Matthew beside her at the dinner-table.
    She and Chollacombe had arranged the table, and an arduous labour it had been, necessitating the use of a slate and much chalk. The result was not ideal, but, as Chollacombe very sensibly pointed out, the ideal was not to be achieved with a party of nine persons, all of them related, and too many of them brothers. In this unexceptionable way Chollacombe was able to convey to Mrs. Darracott the unwisdom of placing Claud within Vincent’s orbit. She perfectly understood him; and he perfectly understood that when she said that his lordship would certainly wish to have Vincent on his left hand she meant that she was not going to expose the hapless newcomer to the full force of his lordship’s trenchant conversation. In the end, though the table was necessarily uneven, with Lady Aurelia, Richmond, and Claud on one side, and Vincent, Anthea, Hugo, and Matthew on the other, Claud was as far removed as was possible from Vincent, Hugo from Lord Darracott, and Anthea had been placed between Hugo and Vincent, in which position she must willy-nilly shield Hugo from Vincent’s tongue.
    The arrangement was not entirely happy, however, as Mrs. Darracott soon perceived; for although Vincent was keeping his grandfather amused, and Richmond was nobly trying to entertain his aunt, Matthew divided his attention equally between herself and his plate; and Anthea, determined to cold-shoulder her intended-suitor at the outset, replied to his tentative attempts to engage her interest with icy civility, and in a manner that did not encourage him to persevere. Mrs. Darracott, scandalized by such a display of gaucherie, tried several times to catch her daughter’s eye, but never once succeeded.
    Hugo, with a hostile uncle on his left and a frozen damsel on his right, meekly ate his dinner, and took stock of as many of his relations as came within view. Of these the most attractive were Mrs. Darracott, and Richmond, who was not quite obscured from Hugo’s sight