Violette Bushell is the daughter of an English father and a French mother, living in London in the early years of World War 2. She meets a handsome young French soldier in the park and takes him back for the family Bastille day celebrations. They fall in love, marry and have a baby girl when Violette Szabo receives the dreaded telegram informing her of his death in North Africa. Shortly afterwards, Violette is approached to join the SOE (Special Operations Executive). Should she stay and look after her baby or "do her duty" ?
What is real and what is fiction? Faced with writer's block with his novel, Lewis Fielding turns to a film script about a woman finding herself after his wife Elizabeth returns from Baden Baden. She didn't quite find herself there but had a brief encounter in a lift with a German who says he is a poet. Now the German is in England, gets himself invited to tea where he claims he admires Fielding's books. Which one does he like the best? "Tom Jones." Amused at being confused with the other Fielding, the novelist works the German into the plot.