David Sumner moves with his glamorous young English wife Amy to her home village of Wakely in the Cornish countryside. Amy's ex-boyfriend Charlie Venner, along with his cronies Norman Scutt, Chris Cawsey, and Phil Riddaway, immediately resent that the meek outsider has married one of their own.They hire Scutt and Cawsey to re-roof its garage, and when impatient with lack of progress add Venner and his cousin Bobby. Tensions in their marriage soon become apparent. Amy criticizes David's condescension towards her and his escape from the volatile, politicized campus, suggesting that cowardice was his true reason for leaving America. He responds by withdrawing deeper into his studies, ignoring both the hostility of the locals and Amy's dissatisfaction. His aloofness results in Amy's attention-gathering pranks and provocative demeanor towards the workmen, particularly Venner.
The men invite David to go hunting the following day. They take him to a remote location and leave him there with the promise of driving birds towards him. With David away, Venner goes to Trenchers Farm where he attempts to initiate sex with Amy. She resists at first, then submits. After, Norman Scutt enters silently, motions Venner to move away at gunpoint and rapes Amy while Venner reluctantly holds her down. David returns much later, smarting from the practical joke the men pulled on him. Amy, though clearly upset, says nothing about the intruders and what they did to her, apart from a cryptic comment that escapes his attention.