In Pequot Landing, there are two sights to see: The largest elm in America, which dominates the stately old village green, and the house of Lady Harleigh. When the Great War ended, she was the most beautiful bride in the village, and though she was widowed soon after, mourning dampened neither her beauty nor her spirits. By the time the Great Depression rolls around, she is the unchallenged center of Pequot society - lovely and energetic, but subject to bouts of grim melancholy that hint at something dark beneath her surface.