‘I’m a queer lot,’ says Matty Dearingroyde, a second-hand clothes merchant, practical, romantic, adventurous and apt to ‘break out’ at inconvenient moments. She’s a ‘bedizened little creature ... an odd little creature’ descended from the affluent Dearingroydes but forgotten by them. ‘That’s life all over,’ she admits. ‘Some are born to negligees and the rest to flannel dressing-gowns. And you can’t do anything about it.’ When she is reunited with her family they take her away from her rakish life much to the concern of the shop: ‘The ghostly ranks of garments seemed to flutter in mingled dismay and approbation.’ She is subsumed by the very respectable and proper world of the Dearingroydes and in return they expect Matilda, ‘the family revenant’, to be a grateful and helpful poor relation. But ‘Meddlesome Matty, my mother used to call me’, sees beyond their graceful lives to their secrets and hidden desires. Matty with her ‘monkey smile’ becomes confessor, keeper of confidences, rescuer (there’s a hilarious blind date) and fairy godmother – the lives of the Dearingroydes will be changed forever.