★★★TOP 50 WATTPAD ROMANCE NOVEL★★★
He's her English teacher and her priest... what happens when they fall hopelessly in love? A sexy, forbidden, true love romance between an American student and a Catholic priest.
[RECAP: Leonie is staying at her grandmother's house in London during the half term vacation, and a letter has finally arrived from Father Gabriel...]
Dear Leonie,
I've resolved that this is going to be a platonic, friendly piece of correspondence. Even as I write these words, I'm finding it a tough resolution to keep.
The fact is that it has been only two days and I already miss you more than I imagined possible. I never expected to face this kind of challenge in the life I chose. We were warned at the Seminary that the outside world wouldn't simply disappear once we entered orders. Perhaps it was arrogant, but I never thought that I'd find it a problem.
Now, it's the hardest thing in the world.
I remain determined to write to you as a friend. As promised.
I'm writing this letter from my room at St Beuno's in North Wales. It's a Jesuit college and retreat, the place in which Hopkins wrote The Wreck of the Deutschland. It seemed the ideal location to work on my thesis. It's a beautiful part of the country, the mountains of Snowdonia lie to the west, green fields stretching below. To the north, on a clear day one can see across to the coast. Today it's drizzling though not as much as Hopkins' "wiry and white-fiery and whirlwind-swivellèd snow".
It's a good thing that Hopkins didn't write love poetry, or I'd find myself writing many lines of it to you. "Grace you, bride, your bed" is about the closest, but the "lissome scions" would be something of a complication.
It's hard to get much work done around here. I'm frequently distracted. It's not difficult to guess why.
The reality is, my darling, and I'm aware that I shouldn't be calling you that, I can barely sleep for thinking about us. Instead of getting it out of my system, that time we spent together caused nothing but torment. On one hand there's the guilt, on the other hand the longing for a repeat performance.
In another life, this would be easier. We could wait out the school year, do what we wanted. Unfortunately that's not possible.
(The bell that summons guests to supper just went, which means putting the pen down for now)
10pm - apologies for the interruption.
Most meals here are in silence, usually accompanied by some music. The food is good, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. The silence is supposed to be a liberation, to enable residents to move deeper into prayer and meditation. They don't even have phones here. Yet I struggle to concentrate. We see a retreat guide every day but I can hardly reveal what's on my mind.
It's late now. Bed beckons, naturally my thoughts are turning to you. It's a good thing that London is so far away. If there was the slightest chance of getting you here...
If this is a test from the Almighty, I'm failing abysmally.
Leonie, darling, it's night and the sky is bright with stars outside the window. "The fire-folk sitting in the air". I want you here.
What will happen, who can say. This can't go on, can it?
Well, time to seal this up. The morning post goes out first thing.
All my love, even if that should be friendship.
Gabriel
PS Read A Vision of the Mermaids. In particular lines 20-23. That's what I want to do to you.
Leonie read the letter twice, then a third time. It was more than she could have dreamt of. She went and fetched her copy of Hopkins' poems that she still hadn't returned to Gabriel. He had pretty much told her to keep them.
She found it at the start. It was one of his earliest poems, written when he was only eighteen. The same age she was. Leonie couldn't imagine writing something so brilliant. She counted to the lines in question, but she guessed which ones they were as soon as her eyes fell on them.
Now all things rosy turn'd: the west had grown
To an orb'd rose, which, by hot pantings blown
Apart, betwixt ten thousand petall'd lips
By interchange gasp'd splendour and eclipse
Leonie knew exactly what Gabriel was implying by referencing them. Even as she sat there alone she felt herself blush an even deeper crimson than the sunset Hopkins was describing. She was quite sure that the poet had never meant his verses to be interpreted as erotically as Gabriel was doing.
She wished she could phone him. She wanted to hear his voice. She lay on her bed, reading the letter again and then re-reading the poem.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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