Once a year cousins Madge and Paul visit Goldengrove, their grandmother's idyllic Cornish home. But one year as Summer turns to Autumn and as they are drawn from childhood to maturity, their seemingly indomitable grandmother turns to Winter, and the precious moments of innocence begin to be leached away...

The recent heir to her grandmother's house, a young girl rents it for the summer to a professor and a group of students whose long, abstract, philosophical discussions become meaningful to her as the summer wears on.