Synopsis - Lady Mary orphaned and brought up by a guardian was prevailed by him to marry him. Normally a bright gay girl she put aside her own feelings and devoted herself to her husband to make herself the perfect wife and mother. Only to find years later that her son Peter decides to go to Africa to fight in the war without so much as a goodbye. Her elderly husband also passes away at the same time. Her life begins to open up from the formally reclusive life under her husbands strict regime and she falls in love with John Crewys.

However the possibilities for the future change when her beloved son returns from an arduous campaign in Africa and needs to be nursed back to health and fitness. However he has quite rigid ideas about he believes his poor mother should live her life even though he himself falls in love and prepares once more to desert the family home, leaving his poor mother under his instructions to remove to the Dower House along with two elderly aunts with whom she has never got on.