Her hand reached for the slim volume, the well-loved pages opening to her favorite poem—
“Adjacent But Only Just.”
I am adjacent,
But only just
A falcon’s flight away
From feral moor and heather’d scent,
A prisoner of the malcontent
Of life lived in delay.
I am adjacent,
but only just . . .
Viola reread the familiar words, a fingertip tracing over the lines.
The poem described Mr. Penn-Leith’s life as the son of a Scottish gentleman farmer, a man working in the shadow of the Highlands, adjacent to wildness but never part of it. The lines were heralded as a metaphor for modern life—the separation of humans from the natural world, a desire to seek truthinNature instead of simply living in sight of it . . .
Adjacent, but only just.
Mr. Penn-Leith’s poem profoundly summarized Viola’s life.
A native shyness, anxious nervousness, and unpredictable asthma caused her to approach life with too much temerity.
Adjacent, but only just—
Adjacent to action and true living.
Adjacent to revolutionary ideas and words.
Adjacent to marriage and children.
Herswasa ‘life lived in delay.’
Viola was so very weary of it.
Of spending her days metaphorically immobile in the center of a room, knowing she needed to act—to do, to move—but somehow . . .not.
She swallowed and looked back up at the bed curtains, their sunny lemon cheer taunting her newfound sense of purpose, reminding her that other forces also influenced her pen . . . her father and his reliance on the Duke of Kendall foremost among them.
The elderly, tyrannical Duke of Kendall would be apoplectic were he to learn of Viola’s current mindset. And given that Kendall funded her father’s living as vicar of Westacre . . .
Well, to incur the wrath of her father’s employer would be the very height of folly.
But . . . surely there wassomethingshe could do. Some way to untether the fierce creature that stretched restless inside her.
An idea formed in her head.Twoideas, actually.
Viola pushed up from the floor, slowly standing.
Did she dare?
She darted another glance at Mr. Penn-Leith’s book of poetry.
