England, 1800s. Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect Victorian governess. She'll dutifully tutor her charges, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But the longer Winifred spends within the estate's dreary confines, and the more she learns of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family, the more troubole she has sticking to her plan.