Jocasta Oaks is excited to start her new job as a schoolteacher, but her move to the country is equally motivated by her desire to reunite with her fiance, Peter Ryder. When Peter is a no-show at the station, Jocasta figures he was momentarily delayed. She soon discovers, however, that he has disappeared entirely, despite making arrangements for her to stay at his family home, Croft House, with his cousins. At first Tim and Agnes seem perfectly pleasant, and the house charming, but soon both house and people take on an eerie quality that sets Jocasta's senses on edge. Determined to fit in, she gets to know the village and, in the process, learns about the home's mysterious past and perhaps the reason for Peter's disappearance.