A little more

 Continuing to resist the urge to skip the rest of the downstairs, and head up the stairs, I made the decision to make my way over to a large, wooden, door next to the staircase and head through. This room was another impressively sized room with a polished laminate floor, instead of the marble in the entrance hall. With more paintings along the walls, again of a couple in the countryside, and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, the room had a huge table surrounded by ten dark wood chairs.

Clearly, this would have been the dining room but whoever my relative, who owned this place, was he must clearly have been more than financially secure and, judging by what I had seen so far, either had a large family or was an extremely popular person.

Yet another door was over the far side of the room and after having a quick look through I found it to be the kitchen, which was clearly designed to prepare either large family gatherings or parties hosting numerous guests.

With a couple more doors, one on either side of the room, I decided whatever was through them could wait for now and I turned to head back to the entrance hall and up the stairs when I saw yet another door. This one though seemed to be out of place. It was in the centre of the wall I entered the room through and its position would, when opened, lead under the staircase.

Walking over to it I saw this door had two locks on it but tried the handle anyway. To no surprise this door didn’t open so I reached into my pocket, and pulled out the huge bunch of keys Mr. Jackson had given me before speeding away. For the next five minutes, I tried every key on the bunch but not one of them unlocked the door. Shrugging my shoulders I made a mental note to get in touch with the estate agents, to see if they had forgotten to give them to me, headed back into the entrance hall, stood at the foot of the staircase, looked up and felt a shiver run through my body.

 

Two

Gripping the banister tightly, for some reason, I slowly made my way to the top of the stairs. Once there I turned to look down at the entrance and imagined my relative where I was now, and greeting numerous guests. Standing in front of a large double door I looked around and could see three doors on either side of the landing, which I assumed would be bedrooms and bathrooms.

Yet again there was more artwork. They were not as big as the downstairs paintings, but they all contained the same scene and were hung between each of the doors. Moving down the right-hand side of the landing I opened the first door and stepped inside. Dominating the room was what looked like a king-size, wooden, four-poster bed which looked as if it had never been used.

Either side of the bed had a plain wooden door and, on opening them, I found one was a walk-in wardrobe and the other an en-suite bathroom. Assuming all the rooms on each side of the landing would be the same I headed to the double doors at the top of the stairs, and pushed them both open.

This was clearly the master bedroom, as the bed was another four-poster, yet each post looked to have been hand-carved instead of the plain posts in the room I’d already been in. It seemed to have been made ready for someone to sleep in. Unsurprisingly, there was also another huge walk-in wardrobe and an en-suite bathroom, the size of which was unlike any I had ever seen.

Taking a look at my watch, I saw that it was almost nine o’clock. I realised I’d been in the house for close to three hours and still hadn’t managed to visit every room. Deciding to leave seeing the rest of the rooms for tomorrow, I headed back downstairs and towards the front door. Only when I went to open it and leave did I stop and look behind me, convinced I had heard a female voice begging me not to leave.