Jane Osgood runs a lobster business, which supports her two young children. Railroad staff inattention ruins her shipment, so with her lawyer George, Jane sues Harry Foster Malone, director of the line and the "meanest man in the world".

In post-war Cape Breton, a doctor's efforts to tutor a deaf and mute woman are undermined when she is raped, and the resulting pregnancy causes scandal to swirl.