When Marjorie Fitzpatrick is forced to leave her teaching post in Jersey due to the outbreak of war, she finds herself working for the Admiralty in their London headquarters. It's there she meets Captain Tristan Melville, a young officer waiting for his ship to be fitted with revolutionary new guns. They fall madly in love and Marjorie agrees to marry him when he returns on his first leave on shore. On New Year's Day, Tristan takes Marjorie to the London apartment his father has given them to begin their married life. There they plan their lives together, but it's wartime and Marjorie's dreams are shattered when Tristan's ship is attacked at sea. Years later, Marjorie meets Claudette Gilbert, a teacher from Rouen in France. Claude, as she is known to her friends, is vivacious, stylish and modern, everything Marjorie is not. Their friendship takes them from a cottage in Portbradden on the North Coast of Ireland to an apartment in Paris. Marjorie is feeling alive again and the arrival of Philippe and Madeleine in their lives provides her with the family she never thought she'd have.