As she prepares for an influx of wounded
soldiers at a London military hospital, American-born Red Cross
volunteer Lady Susan Ashwood worries about her son John, who is
fighting overseas, and fondly recalls her arrival in England many
years before. In April 1914, Susan and her father, Hiram
Porter Dunn, a small-town newspaper publisher from Rhode Island,
arrive in London for a two-week vacation. Hiram detests
everything English, especially the rainy weather, which quickly
aggravates his lumbago and keeps him in his boardinghouse bed.
On their last day in London, Colonel
Walter Forsythe, an elderly boardinghouse resident, invites Susan to
accompany him to a ball hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Waverly,
and she eagerly accepts. At the ball, the colonel tricks young
Sir John Ashwood into dancing with Susan by leading him to believe
she is his friend's Australian cousin, whom John has been asked to
entertain. John is immediately taken with the down-to-earth
Susan and spends a long, romantic evening with her. Just
before parting, John begs Susan to stay in England, but she
tearfully insists that she has to leave with her father.
The next morning, however, John shows up
at the boardinghouse and announces that his mother, Lady Jean, has
invited both Susan and Hiram to their country manor. After
much cajoling, Hiram finally gives Susan permission to stay in
England without him, and she is whisked away to the country.
Although they give Susan a warm welcome, John's family, including
his brother Reggie, is unsure about her relationship with John and
one night invite his childhood sweetheart, Helen Hampton, who is
still in love with him, to dinner. John, however, is sure
about his feelings for Susan and proposes, but she is too stunned to
give an immediate answer. Susan then receives a telegram from
her father, pleading with her to come home, and when John's family
makes seemingly anti-American comments in front of her, she explodes
in anger. Although Lady Jean apologizes and assures her that
the English are reserved by nature, Susan prepares to sail home,
convinced that she is too "American" for John. As she is about
to board the ship, however, John appears and talks her into marrying
him.
In the midst of their honeymoon, war
breaks out, and John, who, following family tradition is an Army
officer, is sent off to fight. After three years of
separation, Susan and Lady Jean learn that the government has
arranged for soldiers' wives to be reunited with their husbands for
a brief leave in France. Their joy is short-lived, however,
when a telegram announcing Reggie's death in battle also arrives.
At an elegant resort in coastal France, Susan and the war-weary John
relish every moment of their reunion. A year later, Susan, who
now lives in London, watches hopefully with her newborn son, John
Ashwood II, as American troops march through the streets. Just
before peace is declared, however, John is killed in action, and
Susan is devastated. Lady Jean finally brings Susan out of her
embittered grief by impressing on her that John sacrificed his life
in order to assure his son a peaceful future.
Many years later, Susan and Hiram, who
now lives at the Ashwood manor, become concerned when they hear
German acquaintances of young John predicting that Germany will soon
"finish" the business of the previous war. Sure that another
war is coming, Hiram convinces Susan to return to America with John,
but while they are on the train to the coast, John, who takes
seriously his duties as master of the manor, persuades her to stay
in England, his home. When war finally breaks out, both John
and his childhood sweetheart, farmer's daughter Betsy Kenney, go to
the front.
Back at the hospital, Susan's reveries
are interrupted by the arrival of the wounded soldiers. As she
had feared, John is among the injured and has only a few hours to
live. When she sees American troops outside, marching side by
side with English soldiers, however, she assures John that his
sacrifice, like that of his father, will not be in vain.
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