This story is based around the late 17th century estate of an English merchant manufacturer. Driven by the desires of his wife, the machinations of her cousin, and the good offices of a talented young Dutch architect, he is persuaded to stake all in the glorious project of converting the wild expanses outside his country mansion into the precisely planned lines of a fashionable 17th century garden. The sophisticated horticulture forms an allegory for the web of relationships and deceit that lies below the carefully mannered etiquette of the household.