On Christmas Eve, six months after having bolted from Shepherd's Delight, Clementine Kemble makes a surprise appearance at The Old Vicarage. Looking out of the window, the Kembles see a beautiful woman clad in mink alighting from a London taxi, her baggage in tow. Only gradually does Harry Kemble accept it when his wife informs him that she has made up her mind to stay for good now. Immediately she takes over the regime again, having been used all her life to getting her way in all decisions big and small, whether they concern her own person or another family member. She gets rid of Gloria Perkins by inviting her husband's literary agent for the weekend and having her run off with him back to London without even doing so much as saying good-bye; she subtly prepares for the family's move from Derbyshire to the island of Sark, where she has just inherited a beautiful house but where no one except herself wants to go and live; and she vehemently forbids Viola to marry Chisholm.