In July 1939, a top-hatted deliveryman from Fortune and Weedon brings a basket of quail to Beauclerk House. The birds travel a long, ceremonial route to the dinner tables of Lady Christabel Beauclerk [Margaret Rutherford] and her nephew, Sir Cosmo Brandon [Roland Culver], a British delegate to the League of Nations in Geneva. A fanatical bird expert, Lady Christabel identifies the “quail” as a thrush and sends the tortured friend away in horror. She commands the third-generation butler Tom Gilbey [Michael Wilding] to accompany them to Geneva, where she intends to propose sanctuaries for British birds. Gilbey, proud and wary, almost quits, but his father and grandfather urge him to see it as his duty. Home from school, Lady Christabel’s niece Joan Heseltine [Penelope Dudley-Ward] speaks with surprising ease about equality with the staff, and she harbors a quiet, ongoing crush on the loyal butler.
In Geneva, the party encounters Felix Dembowski and François de Freycinet, a Polish political cartoonist and a French romantic novelist, respectively. Their table-side banter, spiced by translations from the Norwegian interpreter Brigid Knudsen [Lilli Palmer], provides a wry dose of dark humor that lightens the tense atmosphere.
Lady Christabel’s insistence on sanctuaries and strict oversight of oil pollution is read by some delegates as a thinly veiled bid for British imperial reach. One delegate recruits Knudsen to probe the situation further by toying with Gilbey’s assumptions about relationships. A romantic misunderstanding flares during a row on the lake, ending with Gilbey appearing, soaked, carrying Brigid Knudsen. The family debates the issue, but the matter remains unresolved. Joan defends Gilbey once more—and she tells them that she will love him forever.
2 October 1939 marks the outbreak of war. Gilbey leaves to join the Territorial Army. Misled by a friend, Joan confesses her love in a nearby tea shop, only to hear that his love is unlikely to be returned due to youth and class. She refuses to give up, and in May 1940, Brigid Knudsen is seen crossing paths with François de Freycinet at a train station. Beauclerk House becomes The Sanctuary, a haven for European Allied officers. Gilbey, now a second lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps, returns home to find Lady Christabel occupying his old room. He asks if there is room for him, and discovers a mature, confident Joan teaching English to a large class of officers. At the tea shop, he explains how he has changed; he is now in love with her, but Joan no longer loves him. He once seemed “cold and inhuman and godlike,” and she notes that hundreds of other second lieutenants share that impression.
Meanwhile, de Freycinet asks Brandon for another endorsement so Knudsen can join the Free Norwegian Forces. Brandon sends Gilbey to her apartment to confirm his belief that de Freycinet is her lover. Dembowski, de Freycinet, and Joan arrive, and the misunderstanding escalates; Joan storms out. The three men hatch a plan to confront her, but cowardice wins, and they retreat to The Sanctuary’s bar, where they drunkenly reconcile and vow to renounce women. Joan overhears and resolves to give up on men. On 18 September 1940, she joins the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In December 1942, she is assigned to a notorious RASC major who, in a volatile month, cycles through six typists—Gilbey, now brusque, rude, and intolerant, insists that a staff member who has just given birth return to work. He orders an aide to get Joan a job she can do, and in tears, she confirms to a sympathetic corporal that he is “wonderful.”
On a New Year’s Eve, a top-hatted Fortune and Weedon man delivers a basket of canned spam to Beauclerk House for the UN Dance, where many couples come together. Tom and Joan “argue” about him being “out of reach.” He leans in, presses her against a pillar, and they share a kiss. The scene cuts to the couple now married, running down the steps to cheers from friends and family. Joan’s new job: Gilbey’s driver. With a smile, she salutes and declares, “I endeavor to give every satisfaction.”
