The story of Mary Knighton is played out in the rural backwater of North Bedfordshire and describes the lives and often harsh existence of the yeoman stock from which she comes. It starts in 1898 as she is ending her schooldays and contrasts the rural idyll with the isolation and cruelty that country life can bring. Mary is headstrong, passionate and alluring, but after a promising start to a career in fashion, circumstances conspire against her and she is eventually forced into a hapless marriage. How she copes and overcomes her misfortune is compellingly told and her relationships with others develop as the story unwinds.