Falling From Grace: Student-Teacher Forbidden Romance

Chapter 5

[RECAP: At the first school assembly, Leonie discovered that the cute guy she saw is actually a Catholic priest and her new English teacher...]

The last place Gabriel had planned on ending up was some school in the middle of nowhere teaching a load of toffee-nosed, over privileged rich girls. It was the last place he wanted to be.

When he'd taken holy orders he had envisaged working among the needy, in a poor inner city area where kids were desperate for anyone who could open a door for them. Children who had no future except drug addiction and deprivation. It would be worthwhile work. He could use his vocation to make a difference.

Instead he'd been sent to St Winifred's School for Whingers, at least as he saw it. These students had no damn idea how lucky they were or what real life was like for most of the world.

"This is not what I had in mind for my service," he had complained to Canon Francis, head of the seminary.

"The Lord frequently has other plans in mind for us," Canon Francis told him.

It was not an answer Gabriel wanted to hear.

But his life was no longer his own. It belonged to the church and to God, so he gritted his teeth, prayed for patience, and packed his bags to head into the wilderness.

Even a boys' school would have been better. He had his own reasons for being wary of females.

Gabriel was feeling some faint anger as he walked around the side of the school that morning. He hadn't had a class to teach first period so he had used the opportunity to catch some autumn sunshine following the assembly. The sky was flawlessly blue, the leaves turning copper on the trees: it was a day when you could feel the full glory of the Creator in his creation.

It was remote here, but at least it was beautiful. Lines of Gerard Manly Hopkins came into his mind, one of his favourite poets.

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder

Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!—

He must get back to work on his thesis. The one consolation of this place would be some peace and quiet to absorb himself in it again, at least outside school hours.

As Gabriel approached the building he saw a girl sitting on a low wall that extended from some stone steps. He recognised her instantly, it was the one who had dropped all her books in front of him. American, he remembered. He had also remembered her eyes: an unusual green and gold colour.

Eyes that as he drew nearer, he noticed were misty looking. Had she got herself in trouble already? He couldn't think of another reason why she was outside class by herself, crying.

This was where his duties of Pastoral Care came in. "Are you alright?" he asked her.

Leonie raised her head and a shaft of sunlight lit her amber hair like fire.

Gabriel was momentarily taken aback. For a second she looked like the golden statue of an angel he had once seen and he was transfixed. But she was just a flesh and blood girl, he reminded himself. He tried not to let his thoughts linger on that flesh and blood.

"I'm fine, thanks," she said.

He could see now that it was a different kind of grief in her eyes than repentance from being sent out of class. Homesick, he guessed. St Winifred's was far enough away from most English civilisation, let alone the US.

"If I can help?" He didn't know why he offered. It would probably be more appropriate for him to get one of the Sisters.

"Just missing my family, you know?" Leonie said. Then she thought that he probably didn't know since priests and monks and nuns left their families for God, didn't they?

But he seemed sympathetic. "I understand. Your home is pretty far away?"

Leonie liked his accent. It was very... English. Not the kind of Hugh Grant foppishness you got in movies, but solemn and clear.

"Boston, Massachusetts."

"Witches?"

Now she smiled. Gabriel found himself unexpectedly glad he had achieved this.

"Not so many these days, I hope anyway," she said. "We've modernised since the days of The Crucible."

"If you're taking English it's one of the texts on the syllabus this year. You'll be at an advantage, having lived there," he told her.

This was great news. Naturally Leonie had studied The Crucible before and seen it half a dozen times at theatres in Boston. She was a little surprised they would be studying it at a Catholic boarding school, and said so.

"It's on the A-level syllabus," Gabriel told her. "It's set by the exam board, not the school." He cast his mind back to his own A-levels. Macbeth and Tess of the D'Urbervilles, he remembered.

He knew he should get back to his classroom but he couldn't resist asking: "What brings you to an English school?"

"My grandmother is English," Leonie said. She didn't tell him why her grandmother had insisted she attend boarding school. She was hoping no one would find out.

"How do you find it over here?" He must get back, but something drew him to her.

Leonie wasn't sure yet. "I only arrived two days ago, so I'm still figuring things out."

Gabriel was surprised. "This is your first year? But you're in the final year, right?"

"Yes. I finished high school in the US, but my grandmother wanted me to try an English school," Leonie explained.

There was some mystery here, Gabriel was sure of it. But it wasn't his place to ask. Still, it added to this girl's intrigue.

She met his eyes and they gazed at one another for a moment.

Then they were interrupted by a loud clanging from the bell. Recess. Or break time, as they called it here. "I have to go," Gabriel told Leonie. He felt a strange reluctance to leave her and told himself it was because she had been lonely and distressed.

"I guess I'll see you in class." She smiled, and for a second the sunlight made her an angel again.

Gabriel felt a stirring inside that he hadn't felt for years. He had thought it was long buried.

But even angels could be witches below the surface, he reminded himself. He would need to be very careful.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Apologies for the slow updates - bear with me (I'm also still writing it!) from later this month  (March) I should be able to update on Wattpad twice weekly. 

If you'd like to read chapters earlier, you can do so on Radish (http://www.radishfiction.com - it's an app for iPhones/iOS and Android). You've got two options there:

1. With coins, you can unlock all written chapters immediately.

2. For free, you can see new chapters four weeks earlier than on Wattpad.

But Falling From Grace will be coming 100% free to Wattpad, it's just going to be a little bit slower!