Living in 1920s' Darjeeling, a young woman makes an unforgivable mistake. As we follow her story from India to England, where she determines to build a life worth living, regardless of the past, we're shown a unique glimpse into the social climate that fuelled the British Empire in early twentieth-century India. Once in England, she lives through the Second World War, is married twice and achieves a complete change of lifestyle, eventually living in a mansion with several staff. Her daughter is given the best of everything, including training at a finishing school in Paris and a marriage reception at the Dorchester. As the years go by, however, she can no longer live with the choices she has made during her life in spite of the respectability and security she has found. Tormented by the implications of what she has done she begins to break down and, as time runs out, we follow her urgent search for forgiveness.