After securing a grant to study Stellar structure, American Applied mathematics David Sumner moves with his glamorous young British people wife Amy to her natal village of Wakely in the Cornwall countryside. Amy's ex-boyfriend, Charlie Venner, and his cronies Norman Scutt, Chris Cawsey and Phil Riddaway, immediately resent that the meek outsider has married one of their own. Scutt, a former Convict, confides in Cawsey of his jealousy of Venner's past relationship with Amy. David meets Venner's uncle, local drunkard Tom Hedden, whose flirtatious teenage daughter Janice seems attracted to Henry Niles, a mentally deficient man hated by the entire town.