Chud Conduit, the wild grandson of the most successful business woman in Monument, and Anglo-Irish Jack Santry, gentle heir to Main, the big estate on the hill, are unlikely friends. United by their love for Rosa and then by a terrible event that flings all three adolescents from their garden of Eden, Jack and Chud meet again on the beaches of Normandy where acts of bravery and cowardice determine the course of the rest of their lives in ways that none of them can anticipate. One of them wins Rosa's hand in marriage, and in this constellation all three embark on adult life, bound in a triangle of love that is stronger than social convention, beyond even law.
