The writer Vera Sackcloth-Vest has to tear herself away from her beloved garden just at the moment when her mammillarias are about to open.

She and her husband Henry have been summoned to London by her bosom chum, the novelist Ginny Fox. Ginny and her husband Lionel have realised that they have never had what is known as "fun" and they beg Vera and Henry to provide it.

Simultaneously, Vera's ardent acolyte Venus Traduces asks Vera to educate her, so she can be taken seriously by the Gloomsbury set. Exhausted by her efforts to educate and entertain, and haunted by the fear that her beloved Henry will soon be posted to the Balkans, Vera endures an emotional crisis at a picnic in Kensington Gardens.

Rescue arrives unexpectedly, and she escapes back to her beloved Sizzlinghurst, just as her mammillarias lift their saucy little faces to the sun.