Chapter 4
THE VICAR’S SORROWS
Sir James pulled up the phaeton in front of the rectory, then went around to assist Cecilia to descend.
She briskly walked to the painted door to knock.
She waited, but no one answered. She rapped again as Sir James walked to the right side of the house to look in a window.
He looked back at her and shrugged. Cecilia walked to the other side of the house.
She stopped, smiled, then waved James over.
The left side of the house boasted the rectory garden, which included a small, near-ground-level herb maze. The vicar stood in the middle of his wife’s beloved low-lying garden maze, looking helplessly at the plants.
“Mr. Jones!” Cecilia called out.
He turned, nodded, and raised an arm in greeting, then he bent down to pluck a sprig of mint from the center of the maze.
Cecilia walked to the little garden, her husband coming up behind her.
“Mrs. Jones was always fussing with this mint,” the vicar said, rolling the sprig of mint between his fingers. “Said it was a naughty plant that would try to take over her entire garden if she didn’t keep it tended to its space.” He smelled the plucked mint, then tossed it back on the ground.
“I don’t know much about the other plants, I’m afraid. Regretfully, I didn’t listen closely when she talked of her herbs. They were her babies and her passion—along with her painting.”
He moved on to touch another delicate plant, studying it, as if this were the first time he had seen it.
“Her painting surprised me. Started that two years ago when a painting set was sent to the grocer by mistake. When Mrs. Sandiford didn’t know what she was going to do with it, my Miranda said she’d buy it from her.
Said it might be fun. For months, she painted everything around here.
” He laughed tightly. “Soon, she was spending all her pin money on paints, brushes, and special paper. She was like a young girl, giggling at capturing some image entirely as she liked it, pouting when the picture she had envisioned didn’t come together like it ought. ”
He stood up and brushed his hands together to wipe off stray pieces of plants and dirt.
“Then one day she ventured to the meadow up there,” he said with a jerk of his head in the direction of the cart track that led out of the village and up the hill to the meadow.
“She loved the meadow for all the bits and pieces of nature she found to paint, and for all the changes each hour of the day brought.”
Cecilia allowed her gaze to follow where he pointed, then turned back to the vicar. “Lady Aldrich told me sometimes she drove the pony cart up the hill and other times she rode a horse. What did she do the day before yesterday?”
“Rode. The cart was here when I got home, and last night, the horse she rides turned up back at the Mortlake stables.”
“The Mortlake stables? Why there?” Cecilia asked.
“We acquired the horse from them. The horse was too old, and they were thinking to put the creature down. My Miranda would have none of that and asked if she might have him. He was a sorry lot when she first got him, but under her care, he grew strong enough for her to ride him and pull her little cart.”
He sighed and looked intently at Cecilia. “She did so much, my Miranda. Always saw to the folks in need, saw to me to make sure my life was comfortable, saw to her garden and the animals here. It was a wonder she had any time to do everything, but she did, and always with a twinkle in her eye.”
“I wanted to talk to you today, before it comes up at the inquest this afternoon,” James said.
The vicar looked at him for a long moment. “Something about my Miranda and her death?” he asked, voice quavering.
James nodded. “After we saw her, and Lord Aldrich rode down to the village to contact the magistrate, I found a way to climb down the cliff to get to her.”
The vicar blinked. “She was alive?” he asked on a threaded whisper. His face grew gray and haunted.
“Yes, but near death. She appeared badly hurt, I believed she had multiple bones broken—as the doctor attested when we pulled her off the ledge—and it looked like she’d bled out from a head wound.
I touched her neck to see if I could feel her pulse.
It was light and fluttering, but suddenly her fingers grabbed my shirt sleeve, and her eyes fluttered open.
She whispered she needed water, her lips white from chalk dust.”
“I sent some down to James as fast as I could,” interjected Cecilia.
“I got some water in her, not much, but enough to, unfortunately, give her more awareness of her pain and where she was. I think she knew she was dying. Her fingers tightened on my sleeve. She said haltingly and so softly I could scarcely hear her, ‘No. Penny. Royal. Stop. Stop.’ Do you have any idea why she might have said that?”
The vicar slowly shook his head. “She used to grow pennyroyal but stopped growing that about eighteen months ago.”
James nodded, his lips compressed in a tight line. “Saying those words seemed to take the last of her strength. She then passed out, and a while later, I heard her death rattle begin. It brought back too many memories of my days in Spain.”
The vicar reached out to James. “I’m sorry, but I am happy she was not alone at the end.”
“Pennyroyal?” Cecilia repeated.
The vicar turned to her. “Yes.”
“So she doesn’t grow any?”
“No, my lady. She had it planted here in the center, where the mint is. She said it was a form of mint, but not one she wanted to have in what she called her ‘life-affirming’ maze.”
“Did she buy it?” Cecilia pressed.
“No, but she had in the past, I know. Fact is, she and Dr. Patterson agreed it was the right thing to do for Mrs. Morton when she found herself with child after her husband died and her left with five babes, as it were. After the fifth, she was told not to have any more or it would kill her, but that husband of hers thought it all a great hum and insisted on his husbandly rights without doing anything to prevent her quickening with another child. And I know what you’re trying to discover, whether my wife provided Miss Inglewood with pennyroyal to shed her unwanted child. ”
“Lady Aldrich said she overheard Miss Inglewood asking your wife for pennyroyal and Miss Inglewood became irate when she said she wouldn’t give her any.”
The Vicar let out a large, deep sigh. “Yes. Unfortunately, Miss Inglewood was a bit of a wild child. And the Inglewoods spoiled that girl to imagine the sun rose and set for her. After the girl died, the magistrate came to blame my Miranda for giving her a lethal dose of pennyroyal.”
Cecilia frowned. “Yet I heard they say she died of iliac passion.”
The vicar spread his hands wide but did not respond. His face looked suddenly pinched, tears began leaking out his eyes and running down his careworn cheeks.
James handed him his handkerchief. The vicar nodded his thanks and blotted his eyes and cheeks. “He visited me last night, you know.”
“Who?” Cecilia asked.
“The magistrate. He wants to declare my Miranda committed suicide.” He looked from Cecilia to James. “She would never do that.”
“Why do you say that?” James asked.
“If she killed herself, she can’t be buried here, near me, in our church yard.” He wandered out of the garden toward the cemetery. Cecilia and James followed him.
“It would shrivel her soul not to be buried without my giving her God’s blessing,” he said softly when he stopped for a moment at the gated edge of the church cemetery.
Cecilia shook her head. “I don’t understand. Why would he want her to be buried unshriven?”
“I don’t know precisely why,” he said as he walked on. “All I have are guesses and conjecture. I don’t believe Miss Inglewood died from whatever that condition they said is. I believe she died trying to get rid of the babe she carried.”
“You think someone else gave her the pennyroyal she had asked your wife for?”
The vicar shrugged, then nodded. “Pennyroyal, tansy, or some other herb that forces the end to an unborn babe.”
The vicar stopped on the path that ran through the cemetery toward the almshouses and on to some of the small crofters outside the village. “See that tree there?” he said, pointing to an elm tree off to the side in the cemetery. “I’m going to lay her there unless Squire Inglewood has his way.”
“He won’t,” said James. “There are enough of us who can attest to her position, which was not indicative of how a suicide lands.” He reached into a vest pocket and pulled out the brooch. “Is this your wife’s brooch?”
The vicar took the brooch from James. “Yes! She wore it nearly every day. How did you come by it?”
“It was found on the other side of the meadow from the escarpment.”
“Thank you.” He folded his hands over it.
“I’ll have to keep it until after the inquisition, as it needs to be presented as evidence.”
“Oh… Of course, of course.” He handed it back to James.
“I’ve been told it represents your daughters, Faith and Hope.”
He smiled gently, then sank down on a bench at the edge of the cemetery, pulling Cecilia to sit down next to him. “It does,” he said heavily. “They were the pride of Miranda’s life. Such beautiful and smart girls.” He looked off into the distance, as if he could see them before him.
“Where are they now? They should be informed of their mother’s death.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, then frowned and looked as if he would cry again.
“I don’t know where they are or how to reach them,” he said brokenly. He lowered his face into his hands.
Wide-eyed at his raw emotional confession, Cecilia reached out a hand to lay on his arm to soothe him.
“Perhaps Mrs. Jones had their direction written down in one journal or another?”
He shook his head without raising his face from his hands.
“Do you know anyone who might know? Anyone who might know how to find them?” James asked.