Gilbert writes about a young woman, Helen Graham, who arrives at the old house, named Wildfell Hall with her small son and a servant. She doesn't want to talk about her life with her new neighbours, so they decided that she did something wrong in her past. No one, except Gilbert, his sister Rose and Mary Millward, her friend, believes that she is a good woman. Someone thinks that she has an affair with Frederick Lawrence (who is actually her brother).