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?”
