Hester Lowe agrees to act as governess to spoilt self-willed, little Lonnie Hetherington-Smith when they leave India to live with Lonnie’s elderly aunt in Shaw Street, Liverpool. Hester speedily realises that her new employer dislikes her niece and means to make life uncomfortable for both of them. When the regime in Shaw Street changes, Hester is forced to leave the comforts of a middle-class household to make her own way in what is, to her, a strange country…