A cast of characters quickly gathers around the Winters, including many faces familiar from Thirkell's earlier Barsetshire chronicles. Among the young and unattached are Charles Belton, newly-hired school master at the Priory School, and his elder brother, Captain Freddy Belton of the Royal Navy; Susan Dean, the Red Cross Depot Librarian and her sister, Jessica, an actress in thrall to the theatre; Lucy Marling, and her brother Oliver.
