CHAPTER ONE

As I approach the Greenwood estate, my mind conjures up fanciful images - workers tending to fields, men in straw hats, women in gingham dresses fanning themselves while sipping sweet tea from the porch.

As I draw closer, these illusions are shattered. The wall surrounding the estate is just a modern stack of gray concrete blocks. The road leading to the house is paved with asphalt and it is not a horse-drawn carriage that conveys me to the house, but a modern luxury sedan with a gasoline engine that purrs quietly with more power than any team of horses.

And there it is - the house itself. The country home may not be the largest mansion I've worked at, but from the little I see on the short drive from the gate to the house, the grounds are certainly grander than any before. I'm told the plantation is fifteen hundred acres, although of course it no longer grows cotton.

The main house, though modest in size compared to the behemoth palaces I work in before, is lovely. The home was actually built some years after the American Civil War, but its massive pillars, spacious porch and grand windows call to mind the great manors of the antebellum South. I can't help but wonder if the past it hides is as hideous as those of the antebellum South.

I brush the unkind and unnecessary thought from my mind. The house was built after slavery fell, and while the estate may have existed before the Civil War, it has clearly shed any sign of the more despicable aspects of its history. The cotton fields are now oak glens. The bungalows have given way to gardens. This is nothing more than a quaint home on a beautiful estate.

The driver, a dignified and impeccably dressed man of around forty who gives his name as Wharton, pulls to a stop in front of a short walk that leads to the home. The house itself is set a few dozen yards back from the drive behind a stand of beautiful sugar maples and a courtyard dominated by a massive marble fountain depicting Moses calling forth water from a stone.

The artwork is stunning, but as I approach closer, the work takes on a more sinister meaning. The story of Moses calling water from the rock contains two parts. In the initial miracle, God commands Moses to strike the rock, and He will give water to the Israelites to slake their thirst as they wander through the desert. Moses complies, but the Israelites soon find themselves in need of more water. They complain to Moses, who once more intervenes on the Israelites behalf.

This time, God instructs Moses to speak to the rock, and it will bring forth its lifegiving water. Moses, however, is furious with the Israelites for continuing to tempt God and challenge his authority. So, rather than follow God's commandment, he strikes the rock again.

God keeps His promise and provides the nation of Israel with the water he needs but punishes Moses by barring him from the promised land He has reserved for His people. Moses will lead the nation of Israel to the river Jordan, but he will not cross the river into the land of Canaan.

It's clear as I draw near the fountain that the Moses depicted here is not the benevolent leader performing a miracle on God's behalf but the angry prophet who wishes not to aid Israel but to teach them a lesson. His staff is not raised to bless the nation but to strike the rock in wrath. His face shows no compassion but only fury that he should have to suffer the faithless Israelites.

I shiver as I regard the massive marble work. It's an odd theme for a country plantation. It would seem more at home in a Gothic cathedral when God was a jealous God and not a compassionate one, a God of wrath and not of love, the Lord of Hosts raining fire and brimstone on the sinners of Earth and not the Shepherd welcoming little children into His arms.

I am too old to ascribe some sort of esoteric meaning to the family's architectural choices, but I can't help but wonder if this is a sign of things to come. The Tylers were a welcome reprieve from the darkness of my first two families, but perhaps they are the exception and not the rule.

"Welcome!" an exuberant voice calls to me. "Mary Wilcox! I am delighted to meet you."

I turn toward the voice and see an elegant woman perhaps a few years older than I descending the porch steps and approaching with her hands lifted in greeting. Her smile appears genuinely kind, and much of the trepidation I feel a moment ago melts away. Perhaps the patriarch who commissioned the Wrathful Moses was a tyrant of evil disposition, but this woman appears as far from that as the sun from the moon.

I smile and accept the hand extended to me. "Mrs. Greenwood, I presume?"

"Yes, but please, call me Elizabeth. And please join me on the porch for some sweet tea. Wharton will carry your luggage to your room."

I smile gratefully at Wharton and am pleased to see a genuine smile on his face. In my short service career, I've come to see that one can tell much about the wealthy by how they interact with their servants. Seeing Wharton's affection for Elizabeth further eases my worries.

Elizabeth leads me onto the porch, and I sigh with relief as the heat of the day cools. She notices my relief and comments, "If I have one complaint about Georgia, it has to be the weather. The summers are hot and muggy, and the winters are stormy and just as muggy. And the mosquitoes…" she slaps such an offending creature away and sighs. "Well, I suppose that's the price one pays for beauty."

She speaks with an elegant Georgian accent that is too polished to be a drawl but not so haughty as to be aristocratic. In my experience, first impressions rarely tell one the full story about a person, but I like my first impression of Elizabeth.

She sits across from me on the porch table. I notice that the tea has already been poured for both of us. Did Elizabeth anticipate that I would join her on the porch, or is it some sort of hallmark of Southern hospitality to have tea poured for guests?

I sigh inwardly. Why must I question everything? Why can't I simply enjoy my tea?

"The rest of the family is away," Elizabeth explains, "but they'll return this afternoon. Today is Tuesday, so you'll be free of governess work for the first few days. That should give you time to familiarize yourself with the estate and with the rest of your duties. They'll be rather light. We have a housekeeper, of course. You'll only be helping with the guest rooms and a few of the bedrooms." She smiles at me. "I'm sorry. Look at me jumping right into work when I've only just met you. Tell me about yourself. You were once a schoolteacher, yes?"

"Yes," I reply, sipping the tea.

I am sure it is perfectly made, and the coolness of it is delightful in the summer heat, but while I have lived nearly all of my life on the west side of the pond, I am an Englishwoman at heart, and sweetening tea to such a cloying degree is sacrilegious to me. I manage to keep my shock hidden though and continue.

"I was a schoolteacher for twenty-five years before taking a position as governess a year and a half ago."

"Ah, yes. With the Ashfords."

I don't quite manage to control my shock this time. "You knew them?"

Elizabeth laughs and flips her hand. "Of course not. Yankees and Southerners rarely mix, even in this day and age. I knew of them, but James fortunately never found a need to do business with them. A tragedy what happened, though. Those poor children."

I recall the Ashford children, and my shoulders stiffen a little. Their mother murdered their father, and in the span of a few weeks, they lost both of their parents. I was able to expose her and bring her to justice, but while justice was served, it was served quite coldly for the children. I call them from time to time, but they are, understandably, quite willing to put anything that reminds them of that ordeal, and we aren't close.

"Yes," I agree. "It was tragic."

"Well, you won't have to worry about any scandals like that here," she assures me. "Even our ancient past is clean. This home may appear antebellum, but it was built a decade after that unpleasantness with the slaves ended."

The flippant way she says that unsettles me. Of course, I don't blame her for actions her ancestors may or may not have committed, but to dismiss the Civil War as "unpleasantness with the slaves?"

My initial impression of Elizabeth sours considerably. "Thank you for the tea," I tell her. "It's quite delicious. However, it has been a long journey, and if you don't mind, I'd like a chance to settle in before meeting the rest of the family."

"Of course, of course!" she says, leaping to her feet with far more spryness than a woman of her age should have. "Come. I'll show you to your room. We've given you one upstairs rather than in the basement with the rest of the servants."

How kind of you , I think drily.

Fortunately, I manage to limit my visible response to a smile. As I follow Elizabeth into the house, I cast one last glance back at Moses. He stares down at the invisible nation of Israel with cold fury, and I shiver again before walking inside.