Laura Gethryn spends the first 7 years of her life in Monmouthshire where her father's family have been landowners for centuries. Her horsey mother idolizes the absent soldier and his return a broken man, emasculated by the Great War, leaves them destined to remain the disappointed parents of a single girl child. Welsh speaking, working-class and intellectual, he, his talented daughter, Mair, and disaffected son, Idris, open Laura's eyes to a surprising new world.