At Marks Priory, Lady Lebanon is eager for her son, Lord William Lebanon, to marry Isla Crane, his cousin. But Isla is reluctant to do so, and is also frightened by the two footmen of the household who she suspects of locking her in her room at night. Following a village dance, the household's chauffeur is found strangled with an Indian scarf.

The story revolves around the efforts of the middle-class family Fairweather, newly impoverished by the financial panic, to survive against the villainous banker Gideon Bloodgood.