Mallen of High Banks Hall had many sons, most of them out of wedlock. But to all of them, he passed on his mark – a distinctive flash of white hair running to the left temple known as the Mallen Streak. It was said that those who bore the streak, borne by the sons generation after generation, seldom reached old age or died in their beds and nothing good ever came of a Mallen. The lives of all those connected to the family, by blood or otherwise, was touched by the Mallen curse.

          Thomas Mallen, heir of High Banks Hall, found himself a ruined man as he faced disaster and financial ruin in the turbulent 1850s. Amid scandal and disgrace, he was forced to sell the Hall and adjust to a new and very different mode of living. With him went his two young wards and their indomitable governess. Then into their lives came the Radlet brothers of Wilbur farm, one of whom bore the unmistakable Mallen streak.