The Counterplot

The novel's protagonist is Teresa Lane, a woman of 28, living in Plasencia, a villa in the South-East of England, shortly after World War I, who studies the spectacle of her family life with the intent of transforming it into art. The result is a play, The Key, written by Teresa after the style of the Spanish autos sacramentals and set in Seville during the reign of Pedro the Cruel, the text of which is reproduced in its entirety within chapter eleven.