The Adventures of a Madcap

Summary

A sun-dappled hothouse of petunias becomes the unlikely cradle for Jean, a feral wisp whose laughter ricochets like a runaway marble through the rigid hedgerows of an Edwardian market town. Old Jason, part botanist, part barnacle, grafts roses by day and grafts a half-orphaned soul onto his own by night; when his heart stops mid-prune, the garden exhales chlorophyllic grief, leaving the girl clutching secateurs that suddenly weigh more than sin. Enter the Gordons, affluent ghosts in linen, who whisk her to a mausoleum of manners where teacups chime like leg-irons; she flees into the copper dusk, swaps pinafore for britches, and slips among caravans that smell of clove and contraband. A gypsy troupe absorbs her into its lantern-lit swirl, but Carlos—half stallion, half thundercloud—stakes a claim that splits the camp’s drumbeat heart. His betrothed, Carmio, a tempest in gold bangles, races for aid across moon-barbed fields, fetching Owen, the diffident swain whose love has fermented from cider-sweet to whisky-stung. The rescue arrives as a torch-wielding tableau: silks, tweeds, and unspoken vows collide inside a splintered shack, and dawn finds Jean’s madcap atoms re-assembled into the oldest constellation—two hands interlocked, promising to outrun sorrow.

Synopsis

Jean, a waif, is adopted by old Jason, and acts as an assistant to him in the culture and sale of his flowers. She is loved by Owen, a country swain, who hesitates asking her to be his wife because of her erratic, irresponsible gaiety. One day she returns home to find old Jason dead in the garden. Her grief knows no bounds, and she knows not what to do. However, the Gordons, a childless couple, take a fancy to the child and bring her to live with them. But her wild life is poor preparation for the conventional drawing rooms of the rich, and tired of the life, she runs away. Attired in the garb of a boy, she joins a gypsy camp. Carlos, one of the men, engaged to Carmio, falls in love with her, and one night, to escape his attentions, she hides in a deserted shack. He follows her, and Carmio, seeing him, runs back to the camp for help. She comes across the Gordons and Owen, and with them arrives back at. the shack in time to save Jean from an awful fate. The picture ends charmingly with Jean and Owen in the roles that "all the world loves."