As summer fades, young telegraph clerk Arnold Nettle arrives in an unspecified English village. Sickly and shy, he hopes that the season will be far less damaging to his frail disposition than another winter spent in town. Repulsed by the crude behaviour of his working-class landlady and her brood, he becomes enamoured with the middle-class Neran family, who live in a large white house on the hill. But they're not without problems of their own...
