1899: Ursula Brangwen, a schoolgirl of 16, lives with her family in the village of Cossethay in the Erewash Valley. Nearby lies Marsh Farm, the Brangwens's ancestral home and source of so many family memories. Haunted by these and the ghosts of her grandparents, Ursula's adolescent awareness grows as she is strongly drawn to the son of a family friend, Anton Skrebensky, an army cadet.