Smartly he pulled the muzzle up, pointed it at the ceiling and tried to look casual as if he'd just been carrying the gun around for some innocent purpose. These were no intruders. One, a dark-skinned young woman dressed raffishly in loose shirt and trousers was struggling with her full weight to push the doors shut against the swirling gale outside and slide the bolt home. The other, a tall, pale, cold-eyed man with streaks of white in his black hair, was casting about vaguely for somewhere to discard a pair of hooded grey coveralls, sort of shiny, probably waterproof. He turned his head at Carstairs' approach, and with a flick of an eyebrow his gaze fell on the gun.
"Ah. Thankyou."
He hung the dripping capes over the gun barrel.
Carstairs was a thickset, round shouldered man in his fifties, clad in the heavy tweeds which were the uniform of his status, with a bushily sprouting moustache that contrasted with the scattered fluffy white remnants of the hair on his head. Red-faced, with the marks of broken capillaries clearly visible in the skin of his nose and cheeks, he stood and stared for a moment longer while the young woman got the better of the doors and strolled up to join her companion. Then, thankfully, years of experience in the art of hospitality kicked in and the genial host's patter flowed out of its own accord.
"Oh, good evening to you, sir. I'm Lord Carstairs, I'm the owner of the estate. Sorry to have kept you waiting but we're training up a new maid just now and I'm afraid everything's running a little slowly. It is terribly late to be out and about on a night like this, caught in the storm I suppose? Rotten luck. The weather really is unseasonably poor just now. Where were you headed, might I ask? The roads must be in a terrible state by now, I do hope you're not in any urgent haste, I don't think you'll get much further tonight. Is your carriage out front? Or did you have a breakdown, perhaps? There's a very good, reliable blacksmith in town who I'm sure could help you. Where were you headed, might I ask?"
The stranger listened with a strange curl of a smile at the edge of his mouth and left a pause just a fraction too long for comfort before replying.
"Breathe." With a blink he was chirpily civil. "Yes, quite. How do you do, your lordship, I'm the Doctor." He indicated the young woman with a hand on her shoulder. "This is the princess Alison of Ethiopia. I'm engaged in showing her the wonders of the old country."
"Oh!" Carstairs straightened, on his best behaviour in his new role as a representative of empire. He passed the cloak-draped gun furtively into his left hand and extended his right to the royal visitor. "Welcome to our country," he said, making close eye contact and enunciating loudly and slowly.
"Thanks," said Alison.
"Yes. Ah..." Carstairs' eyes slid over to the gun he was still clutching, replaying guiltily in his mind the faux pas of charging out heavily armed to greet his guests. "One moment. Let me just, er, dispose of these."
Left alone for an instant while Carstairs slipped into a side room, Alison rounded on the Doctor.
"African princess? What the hell's all that about?"
The Doctor was wandering off, inspecting their ornate but cramped surroundings, admiring the craftsmanship of the hand carved mahogany stairpost. He spared her a glance.
"This is the nineteenth century, Alison," he said mildly. "Do you want them to make you eat in the kitchen?"
"No," she admitted.
He gave a nod.
"Then you're an African princess."
An instinctive protest at the injustice of this was forestalled by two doors opening simultaneously, Carstairs reappearing from the side door, gunless but still holding their cloaks draped over his arm, Jenny making an excruciatingly nervous re-entrance from the end of the passage.
"Ah, there you are," Carstairs called out accusingly. "Where have you been? This is Doctor... um... Doctor, and this is the Princess Alison. You've kept them waiting."
"Sorry sir," said Jenny with a distracted curtsey to the visitors, her eyes flitting about the hall. "I... I thought I heard Cook calling me."
She focussed in bewilderment on the bit of floor where she had left the clinker bucket. Bad enough to be caught carrying it, or leaving it while she attended to the door, but to leave it here, forgotten, while she wandered off to the other end of the house, that would be very bad. But it wasn't there. She looked around confusedly, unable to shed the feeling that it must be here somewhere, waiting to reveal itself at the worst possible moment for her. She found herself catching the scary looking stranger's eye.
With a motion of his head he drew her gaze over to the hidden servant's door in the panelling of the wall, and with a draining wash of relief she realised what he'd done. She curtseyed again, this time with feeling, and without a hint of a smile on his chilly features he returned his attention to Carstairs.
"Yes, at any other time we'd be glad to offer you hospitality," his lordship was saying. "But as you've no doubt gathered we're having terrible servant trouble just now. It's just Jenny and the cook, and I'm afraid my little family and I work them far too hard as it is."
He shuffled the cloaks invitingly between his hands, and when this brought no response pressed on:
"What I would suggest is that you head back up the main path, turn right at the church, and that'll take you all the way down to Lower Ellisbrook. Marvellous inn there, excellent roast hog's head, often go down there for lunch myself."
His bonhomie became more forced with every word, withering under the Doctor's cool, appraising eye. When he ran out of words and stood quiet, still trying to look jolly, the Doctor let him swing for a moment before saying:
"But it's raining."
Carstairs stilled awkwardly, and a barely audible croaking sound emerged from his half open mouth as he sought something to say. With an ill-concealed look of defeat, he submitted to the inevitable and smiled wanly, taking a half step back as a gesture of welcome.
"Of course. So it is, how silly of me, naturally you must both stay the night. Jenny, run down and tell Cook there'll be two more for dinner, would you?"
Of course, of course, we're always stocked up with food for an extra two people at five minutes' notice. Jenny kept the scowl off her face until her back was turned, and headed off towards the kitchens.
The Doctor was all cold charm.
"Well, if you insist, your Lordship, that's most kind. Certainly looking forward to paying my respects to the rest of the family."
"Yes." Carstairs scratched his fingers agitatedly through his sparse hair. "Yes, that'll be nice."