A sumptuous estate in the north of Portugal deserted by its heirs is now home only to a bigoted elderly housekeeper. As she carries out her household chores punctiliously, she is assisted by Ana, whose laborer husband has gone to work in France, leaving her and their restless teenage daughter behind. Légua examines the disappearance of an old order left behind by its masters, whose last loving guardians are servants caught between the passivity they know and the reappropriation of a heritage they understand better than those who hired them.