A chronicle of Gertrude Bell's life, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.
Grieving young widower Santiago convinces his landlord - a disgraced biochemist with a serious hygiene problem - to help him clone his dead wife, using their female housemate as a surrogate mother.
Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who wears an old wedding dress and lives in the dilapidated Satis House, asks Pip's Uncle Pumblechook to find a boy to play with her adopted daughter Estella. Pip begins to visit Miss Havisham and Estella, with whom he falls in love, then Pip—a humble orphan—suddenly becomes a gentleman with the help of an unknown benefactor.
Jane appears to be ideal: attractive, intelligent, unruffled by her employer's abrupt eccentricities. But, gradually, we come aware that Jane has another agenda. Incrementally, Sir Paul's familiar surroundings are altered. His housekeeper is diverted away, strange things happen around the house and he becomes increasingly dependent on his new assistant.