Valmouth
 Two wealthy elderly Valmouth-area ladies, Mrs Hurstpierpoint and Mrs Thoroughfare, are concerned with the marriage prospects of the latter's son, Captain Dick Thoroughfare. Captain Thoroughfare, away at sea, is rather scandalously engaged to a black girl, Niri-Esther, but he also favours his 'chum', Jack Whorwood. Thetis Tooke, a local farmer's daughter, is obsessed with Captain Thoroughfare. Meanwhile the exotic Mrs Yajnavalkya, a black masseuse and chiropodist, attempts to procure a sexual dalliance with Thetis's virile brother David for the centenarian Lady Parvula de Panzoust. Eventually, Captain Thoroughfare returns to England. It comes to light that he has virtually married Niri-Esther, that they have a baby, and that she is also pregnant with his second child.