Vienna before the First World War: Clarissa Schuhmeister grows up in the monastery. Strict discipline determines her life until she meets the Frenchman Léonard and falls in love with him. Just when she expects a child from him, the First World War tears the happy couple apart. Out of pragmatism, Clarissa marries Gottfried, a deserter, with whom she makes a painful yet realistic agreement so that he will not be sent back to war. But she never feels love for him because she can not forget Léonard.

Colonel Mortimer's son Gregory, his pride and joy, returns to the ancestral Cornish estate by the sea for the summer after loosing that year's only Horse Guards officer promotion to his neighbor-buddy Eric. By ancestral tradition, that means another delay too for his long-planned marriage with neighbor's daughter Rebecca, who already doubts if the are actually in love. Mortimer's new housekeeper Elisabeth proves irresistible for father (platonically) and son, but is held back by a family secret concerning her late mother Catherine. Eric also has a confession to make.