Emma Sykes and her husband Paul - by now a well-known psychiatrist - are almost perfectly happy, except that they seem unable to conceive a child. They also miss Bea, now with her twins in America. Then unexpectedly Eileen Grade, their housekeeper, becomes pregnant, and her soldier husband Mick vows to avoid the developing crisis in Korea at all costs.

Clare Dewar, bitterly resentful that Emma has abandoned her to marry Paul, dies without making peace with her daughter, and leaves her estate in the dubious hands of a stranger. Mick intervenes just in time, saving Emma's inheritance when illness and the threat of German measles to Eileen's baby prevented her from acting alone.

Meanwhile, in her haven on the Isle of Wight, Emma's Aunt Emily cultivates a unique Christmas Rose, guaranteed to bloom at a time of bleak scarcity in gardens - a sign of hope and future promise.