In 1887 Rose Victoria Adams resolves to find a better life. Her home beside the river is comfortless, her father unloving and dictatorial. As a certified teacher in the village school, she tries to stop the children fighting, suggesting new ideas about education. But problems mount when she meets an artist, Lawrence Vane, with a mysterious past who asks her to model for him, and the new schoolmaster, Thomas Devlin, who takes exception to her ideas of reform. Rose becomes companion to the artist's sister, Elizabeth and finds life in the Big House even more complicated.Then, when tragedy comes and the answer to an old mystery is made clear, she must make a fateful decision.