It is 1913 and the world is on the brink of war. Yet on the estate of Cresswell Manor in Devon, the summer seems endless. Hannah, only daughter of the Cresswells, becomes involved with the suffragettes and dreams of falling in love; headstrong and spoiled Esmerelda deceives her husband for the strangest of reasons; Lettice longs for freedom from her brute of a husband; young Mortimer Cresswell appals his mother by falling in love with an estate worker's daughter, while his brother, Felix, causes heartbreak in his pursuit of pleasure. Caught up in their own lives, the Cresswells seem ignorant that war is looming, and that soon the world will alter beyond their wildest dreams - or fears...