Vanessa Ratcliffe was sixteen, and for all her convent education, had a provocative manner She lived in a big house on Brampton Hill, and her powerful and avaricious family were considered 'big' folk in the town Angus Cotton was a rough diamond from Ryder's Row, among the goods yards and dirty streets, but worth his weight in gold as an engineer at Affleck and Tate, and the manager, Vanessa's father, knew it He had ambitious plans for his future, and though they had never included Vanessa, events drew them together