A cholera plague in Victorian London heightens the dark secrets in the house of a well-to-do English family. Every month small, brave sailing ships leave for the outer regions of the new British Empire and on one of those small ships a desperate young girl hides, knowing very little about this new country, New Zealand and what she might find there. And not knowing that she will be followed to the other side of the world by people who - each for their own reasons - cannot live without her.