In 1919, Thomas Ransom hires forty-one-year-old English woman Edith Fisk to take care of his children in California. His five children range in age from seven years old to newborn twins. The children have no mother, as she died in childbirth. In his grief, Thomas begins to reject the discipline of his children, but when Edie arrives, she puts everything back in order. She tells the children about her life in England and her previous children, Lady Alice and Lady Anne, and the Ransom kids are enthralled with her stories. They think that Edie nannied kids in a castle before she came to them. As Edie nannies the children, their father marries new wives. His second wife, Trish, is only nineteen-years-old. She takes the kids and Edie to the movies, though she picks out the pictures, which do not tend to be kid-friendly. She and Thomas stay together for two years. Next comes Irene, who likes to invite her friends over to talk about discourse and theory. When a fortune teller tells Irene to expect a change of residence in the near future, Irene's marriage to Thomas ends soon after. The third and final wife, Cissy, who is also from England and is the one that told Thomas about Edie, is unhappy in California, which leads to the end of their marriage. As the kids grow older, they stay in and out of touch with Edie. The eldest, James, becomes just like his father; he marries multiple times and does not find happiness. Eliza marries an archaeologist, and Jenny marries an Englishman. The twins die a month apart in combat during the Second World War. When Edie is dying of cancer, the three living kids visit her in the hospital. One by one, they hold her bony hand. They speak to each other about Lady Alice and Lady Anne and wonder how the women will ever find out about the passing of dear Edie.