[1] Set in the South of England at Downs Park, a small fictional preparatory school for boys, it follows the lives of the members of the staff over a couple of years.

The teachers see themselves as a close-knit community; however, time and again antipathies, rivalries, personal problems, tragedy and death affect the peaceful and harmonious life at the school.

Elspeth Murray, the middle-aged French mistress, has been feeling extremely lonely since her husband's death and has only taken up teaching recently to find some sort of distraction.

At first, her irrational sexual attraction to Betty Cope, a pretty young lesbian who assists Grace Annick in her capacity as Matron, causes some eye-rolling.

In the meantime, she is courted by the father of the youngest staff member, a baronet called Sir James Pettifer whose aristocratic ways she finds quite alluring.