An elderly antiquarian bookseller has just died at his home in the country. His two daughters come to attend to things. Isobel, who has been nursing him, is a partner in a small design studio. Marion is in politics-- already a junior minister. It is Marion's profession to provide answers, and to back those who offer solutions, but not all human situations yield to a professional approach-- least of all when they involve their junior step-mother Katherine, a drop-out whom their father quixotically rescued.