Sophie Pembroke - The Last Days of Summer - The best feel-good summer read for 2017

“But I want to hear a story,” Caroline said, twisting in Nathaniel’s lap.

“Ah, but that is a different matter entirely,” Nathaniel said. “I may not be able to tell you about the book I’m writing now, but far be it for me to deprive a young girl of a chilling tale of betrayal and murder when she wants to hear one!”

“That’s quite enough, Nathaniel,” Isabelle said, standing abruptly. “Now, who wants to help me clear the table?”

Caroline shook her head. “Not me, Grandma. I’m listening to the story.”

At the end of the table, Ellie got to her feet with her usual grace, before the vein throbbing at Isabelle’s temple burst. “I’ll help,” she said, and began systematically gathering up plates, clanking them together loudly.

Fifty years of marriage had obviously instilled some sense of self-preservation in my grandfather, because he waited until Isabelle had carried the first load of plates out of the room before he began to tell his story. Greg had apparently learned the same in less time – he was already taking the plates from Ellie’s arms and whispering something to her. They left the room together, and I couldn’t help but watch them go.

“Now,” Nathaniel said, his eyes on Isabelle as she disappeared into the kitchen. “This story is a special story.”

“Why’s it special?” Caro asked, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them.

“Because it’s about this house,” he explained, “and the people who used to live here.” At his words, I knew instantly the tale he would tell. I wasn’t entirely sure it was suitable for a nine-year-old, but maybe Nathaniel would edit it for Caro. A consummate storyteller, he always was a great judge of his audience.

As the others disappeared in search of digestifs, I pulled my chair in closer to better hear the story. Across the table, I realised, Edward was doing the same. I raised my eyebrows at him and he shrugged. “I’m a sucker for a good story,” he said. “How else do you think I got pulled into this gig?”

“If everyone is quite comfortable,” Nathaniel said, feigning considerably more patience than I happened to know he possessed, “then I’ll begin.

“This house has stood on this land for hundreds of years.” His voice had dropped into a cadence I recognised from childhood – that of a storyteller, rather than a writer. The sound of it, warm and familiar, washed over me and I shivered as I listened to his tale. “There are so many stories in its walls, I could never have time to tell them all. But this is a story of the first family to live here.

“Long ago, a man named John Harrow, a merchant, bought this land and commissioned a fine house to be built. But what is a fine house without gardens? So once the house was finished, Harrow hired a head gardener, a man of impeccable reputation. And that gardener brought with him his apprentice: a boy with incredible talent, a boy who, local people said, could make dead plants bloom.”

“Is that possible?” Caro whispered loudly, leaning back towards Edward.

“Absolutely,” he replied, straight-faced. “But very rare.” I hid my smile.

Nathaniel raised his eyebrows until Caro settled back down, then continued. “Now, Harrow had only one child, a daughter, the apple of his eye. She was young and beautiful and ready for love.”

“Did she fall in love with the apprentice?” Caro asked, bouncing slightly. Nathaniel ignored her.

“The moment she set eyes on the apprentice, one summer’s day in the new Rose Garden, she fell in love. And he, by return, worshipped her from the moment he saw her.”

“I knew it,” Caroline whispered, to me this time.

“The young couple knew that John Harrow wouldn’t approve,” Nathaniel said, raising his voice a little. “So they kept their love a secret, and met only by moonlight, in the Rose Garden where they first fell in love. And as summer turned to winter, the apprentice picked impossible flowers from the dormant rose bushes for his beloved.

“All was wonderful, until the day John Harrow saw roses in his house at a time of year when nothing blooms, and his daughter watching the apprentice from the balcony of what is now the Yellow Room.”

“And you complained about sleeping there,” Edward murmured across the table to me. He raised his eyebrows and I blushed, remembering exactly what he’d seen on that balcony that afternoon.

“I didn’t realise I was part of a literary tradition,” I whispered back. I was fairly sure that detail was a new addition to the story. Nathaniel never could tell a story quite the same way twice.

“Suspicious, Harrow lay awake that night, listening for his daughter. When he heard the staircase creak in the darkness, he picked up his gun and silently followed her to the Rose Garden, where he saw her kissing the apprentice.”

Nathaniel’s voice dropped again, and we all leant in closer to listen. “Harrow went crazy with rage. His beloved daughter, kissing a gardener? It was unthinkable. He called to her to get away from the apprentice, but the young man put himself between his love and her father. Harrow wasted no time. He pulled out his gun and shot the apprentice.”

Caroline jumped as Nathaniel’s voice rose suddenly at the shot being fired. “Was he okay?” she asked.

Nathaniel shook his head sadly. “The apprentice died that evening, and that same night Harrow’s daughter took to her bed and stayed there. She wouldn’t eat, would drink nothing but a little water, no matter how much her father begged her.”

Caroline’s eyes were huge, now, with all her attention on Nathaniel. “What happened next?” she asked in a whisper.

“Nothing happened. Nothing happened for eleven days and eleven nights. She stayed in bed all over Christmas, and refused to move until New Year’s Eve came around. Then, that night, she asked to be taken out to the Rose Garden.

“Her father, hoping that she might be ready to forgive him, agreed, and she was carried out in her blankets. There, she asked to be placed on the bench where she’d sat with her love. ‘There are no more flowers,’ she said, looking around the garden. Her father tried to reassure her that they’d be back with the spring, but the young woman said, ‘No. There are no more flowers for me.’ Then, with a final breath, she died.”

Caroline gulped a sob, and it occurred to me again that this possibly wasn’t the most appropriate story for a nine-year-old, just before bedtime. But Nathaniel wasn’t finished.

“It’s said,” he continued, his voice almost inaudible, “that she walks there still, on moonlit nights, looking for her lost love.”

“A ghost?” Caro asked, all excitement again. “We have our own ghost? That’s brilliant.” Slipping off Nathaniel’s knee, she skipped towards the door. “I’m going to go see!”

Was that the explanation for the strange girl I’d seen in the Rose Garden that afternoon? Even for Rosewood, it seemed impossible.

Nathaniel stretched his legs out under the table, and pushed back his chair. “Well, now I’m in trouble.”

“I think you already were,” Edward pointed out, before finishing off the wine in his glass.

From the hallway, we all heard Isabelle saying sharply, “Caroline Ryan, you are not going out in the garden now. It’s past your bedtime. You are going to go up those stairs and put on your pyjamas.” There was a short pause, before she added, “Now,” over whatever objections Caro was trying to raise.

I checked my watch; it was almost eleven – more than past Caro’s bedtime, it was very nearly mine. It had, after all, been quite the day. “I think that might be my cue,” I said, and got to my feet.

Nathaniel stood, too, and put his arms around me, pulling me in close so I could smell the pipe smoke on his jumper. “It’s good to have you home, Kia.”