After her favorite uncle's fatal accident, Prue postpones her London wedding to good catch Nigel for a condolence visit to aunt Phoebe in Cornwall. In the train she befriends silly, shy schoolgirl Charlotte Collis, on the way to her grandmother Mrs. Tolliver's coastal estate. There they meet up, and another regular visitor, free-spirited, handsome young painter Daniel Cassus, soon becomes fellow nature-lover Prue's intimate friend, even lover. Gradually characters come to terms with Charlotte being unwanted by mother Isabella, who wants to dump her on Phoebe and emigrate to South Africa, while she's a bastard unwanted by her legal (step-)father Leslie, surprisingly unlike the long unsuspecting biological one.