Teenager Tamahine grew up in the South Pacific the only legitimate child - she with many illegitimate siblings, which is typical of the only culture she knows as marriage is considered forever - of her British father Julian, with her Polynesian mother passing away when she was a child. After Julian passes away, Tamahine, as was her father's wishes, travels to Britain to learn of that side of her family and their proper British customs. She is to be the ward of Julian's widowed cousin, Charles Poole, the headmaster of Hallow, a proper upper class boys' school, he who has two offspring living with him: his twenty-something unhappy and soon to be divorced daughter, Diana, who is secretly, or not so secretly, dating the school's indecisive art teacher, Tim Clove; and his eighteen year old son, Richard Poole, a student at the school.