At the start of the Second World War, ten-year-old Georgia has to leave her close-knit family in London's Docklands on an evacuation train bound for the dubious safety of an east coast village. Phoebe, who has a mysterious past of her own and is rumoured to be a scarlet woman, takes in the bright and irrepressible child. As Georgia becomes cheerfully involved in the complicated love lives of Phoebe and others, she unwittingly courts danger and secrets that are destined to threaten her, and her future happiness.