Alden Patterson, the last living member of a once-wealthy Toronto family, is haunted by the legacy of her grandfather, William Patterson, whose suicide taints the family name. She lives in the decaying Patterson House with Constance, a foundling, and John Hunt, an injured war veteran and the family's former gardener. When Alden is reduced to taking in boarders, she thinks she has found a way to survive until the crash of 1929 leaves her truly desperate and one particular boarder threatens to destroy everything she thinks she wants.