This is a domestic tale of country gentlefolk, between the Wars, and their families, friends and acquaintances, mostly in their beloved Scottish Borders, but occasionally in London.

There was only one spot in the whole rambling length of Eliotstoun where Katharyn Eliot felt that she could be sure of being left at peace for any time. That was the small circular room at the end of the passage which contained her bedroom and Tim's dressing-room; it was called for some unknown reason "Jane's Parlour."

No one knew who Jane was. There was no mention of any Jane in the family records: Elizabeths in plenty, Elspeths, Susans, Anns, Carolines, Helens, but never a Jane. But whoever she was Katharyn liked to think that she had been a virtuous soul, for there was always a feeling of peace, a faint, indefinable scent as of some summer day long dead in that rounded room with its three narrow windows (each fitted with a seat and a faded cushion), its satiny white paper, discoloured here and there by winter's damp, on which hung coloured prints in dark frames ...

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