Edward typical of country gentry – owns a minor business (turning sphagnum moss into medical dressings), pious and defender of traditional values (gives a speech at every Sunday service), loves and listens only to Beethoven and has a passion for inventions and mechanical improvements all over the estate.

All of which are laughed at by Morris, who lives in London but comes back to visit often, as he is competing with Edward to inherit the estate after Gamma passes away; they mutually loathe each other.

Morris and his beautiful and charming French fiancée Heloise (Irène Jacob) introduce jazz to the children ("the sound of the devil speaking" according to Edward).

An emergency landing brings the eldest daughter Elspeth's (Kelly Macdonald) first suitor – French show pilot Gabriel Chenoux (Tchéky Karyo).

Edward finds him relaxing in a chaise longue in the library, looking at one of grandfather MacIntosh's pornographic books with a cognac glass filled with milk in one hand and a lit cigar in the other, swaying his head and body to Louis Armstrong's "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (a secret gift from Heloise).