Anna and Her Daughters

When their father dies, none of the three Harcourt girls Helen, Jane and Rosalie are particularly upset. Gerald Harcourt was a distant figure in their lives and he is easily forgotten. The loss of the family’s income, however, is not something so easily overcome.

When their mother Anna discovers that they have been left penniless, she decides to move them out of London and back her hometown in Scotland.

Helen, the demanding and selfish eldest sister, decamps almost immediately to Edinburgh in search of the excitement and refinement Ryddelton cannot offer but the others remain and begin to make very happy lives for themselves.

Rosalie, having always lived in her more beautiful eldest sister’s shadow, begins to come into her own.

Anna, freed of the formalities of her London life, is happier and more relaxed than her daughters have ever known her.

And Jane, our narrator, finds an education she could never have gotten at Oxford in her work as a secretary for Mrs Millard, an eccentric biographer currently residing in the village.

Her daughters seem to be settling down to their new life too, until Jane meets Ronnie. Ronnie appears to find all the Harcourts attractive — but he can only marry one...