Sherida Binyon (Phyllis Thaxter) is driven by Mallory St. Aubyn (Alexander Knox) to Bastions, his family estate on the western coast of England, where she is to serve as a secretary to Mallory's wife Leah (Susan Peters). Leah is a poet, confined to a wheelchair due to an accident when she rescued her step-children (by Mallory's first wife) from drowning. Mallory and the three children—Jane (Allene Roberts), Logan (Ross Ford), and Christine (Peggy Ann Garner)--all seem devoted to Leah, perhaps out of guilt. Leah, however, manipulates the family's affections through her own condition while also flirting with her doctor (Ron Randell), Besides the doctor, the family is frequently visited by a gossipy neighbor, Clara Brastock (Dame May Whitty).
