Hampshire, England. For Ellen Shales, the job offer from Darnley Hall in early 1919 represented unexpected good fortune. The Great War was over, and army nurses like her were demobilising and competing for a limited amount of private work. Although the new role was limited in duration, it would enhance her résumé of medical accomplishments and promised the opportunity to devote all her time to one patient – the war-wounded, double-amputee Major Owen Altringham, son of the aristocratic estate owners.

The vacancy had arisen upon the accidental death of Miss Mary-Ann O’Connor, a young Irish nurse who had drowned in a local river the previous autumn. Ellen was not surprised, therefore, upon joining the Hall’s war-depleted household, that emotions were still raw among its members. She learned that Major Altringham, in particular, grieved for his late nurse, and she was advised by service staff not to broach the subject with him. 

Nevertheless, as weeks turned into months, any hopes Ellen harboured that she might forge a rewarding relationship with her new patient appeared misplaced. Having struggled in the shadow of her late predecessor, Ellen set about learning more of Miss O’Connor’s time at the Hall, little realising that in doing so, she would change the lives of those around her forever…