Beginning in 1861 England, and moving through a number of years, a maid helps raise two children, a boy and a girl, all the time talking about her methods in doing so.

A costume drama / satire about financial skull-duggery, and confidence tricksters in both the upper and lower classes in Victorian London. A working class man impersonates a lord who is supposedly very rich and a financial wizard. As such he is invited to all the best peoples' parties.

Adapted from the short story "The Mouse and the Woman" by Dylan Thomas, it is a story set in the secluded valleys of Wales during the 1914-18 war. The story of a man who is as handy with his fists as with his poetic fantasy. His masculinity fascinates Gilda, the wife of the owner of the mine.