In Rye, New York, wealthy Walter Craig loves his wife Harriet--and doesn't know that she married him solely for independence, believing that romantic love only complicates marriage. She focuses all of her energies on ensuring that their home is maintained to her standards, where everything has its proper place--and everyone has theirs, which leads to the household domestics, who do what they're told no matter what, harbor great contempt for her under their surface obedience. To Harriet, Walter is purely a means to the end of that perfect home. Walter doesn't realize that Harriet, as is her way, has isolated them in their home; his friends are distancing themselves from him because they don't want to deal with her. Besides the domestics, the only person allowed in the house is Walter's maternal Aunt Ellen, who lives with them and tries to protect him against Harriet while he believes that he is taking care of her. Harriet wants the neighbors' respect and imagines the perfection behind their locked doors. A series of events with her hospitalized sister in Albany, her sister's niece Ethel Landreth, and Walter's troubled friend Fergus Passmore leads to Harriet getting what she outwardly wants without realizing that it might not be what she really wants until it's too late.
Craig's Wife
A domineering woman marries a wealthy man for his money, and then uses her position to further her own ambitions for money and power.
