[RECAP: Father Gabriel and Leonie got inappropriately physical with one another at a theatre rehearsal, and are both very remorseful]
It was inevitable that they would both meet before the next class. It couldn't go on, unresolved. Later the next day, which was a Saturday, Leonie made her way to the chapel. She felt drawn there.
She didn't even have to hope that Father Stephen would be out of the way. She just sensed, deep within herself, that Father Gabriel would be there alone.
She entered, feeling the cool darkness and the faded aroma of incense surround her. Candles burned in the prayer stand. You could donate fifty pence - it was the weird-shaped British coin with seven sides - and light a candle for someone.
Leonie did so now. She took the small tea light and held its wick to an already-lit candle that was near its end. A small flame caught and flared as the wax melted and fed it.
She placed it on the stand. She said a silent prayer for herself, and Gabriel. That they would both manage to overcome this.
She knew he was behind her even as she turned. He was keeping his distance this time.
He looked at her, his gaze solemn but not unkind.
"Leonie."
"Father." How absurd to call him such a title. He was only a few years older than her, and she doubted he felt fatherly towards her, given what had happened.
"The other day..." he ran his hands through his hair. "I can only say how incredibly sorry I am. For treating you as I did."
"It was my fault. I shouldn't have said what I did. I'm sorry."
He ran his hands through his hair. "It wasn't you, Leonie. It was" - struggling for words, he fell back on the old axiom - "these things are sent to test us. And I failed, very badly. I failed you and my vows. I can only seek your forgiveness." And the forgiveness of a higher power, Gabriel thought.
"There's nothing to forgive." She tried to find an out for him, for them both. "I think it was just the play, getting to us. It's so intense, what Miller wrote. All those passions and emotions and tragedy, never really resolved."
She was so beautiful and so gracious, Gabriel thought. After what he had done, it was incredible that she was the one telling him it was alright, trying to make him feel better.
"That still doesn't begin to excuse my conduct," he said.
But Leonie dismissed this. "I wonder if Miller was haunted by it too? You know that he made up the affair between Abigail and John? At least there's no documentation of it. I guess it was partly for the dramatic value that he put those scenes in. But he wrote that he thought there was something between the two of them, Abigail and John. All those people she named, including Elizabeth Proctor, yet she refused even to the end to name him. Miller wondered why."
She worried that she was rambling, but Father Gabriel seemed interested. "Do you think there was something? From what you've studied?" he asked.
"I don't know. Miller changed the ages, they were more like eleven and sixty, so it seems unlikely. That's quite an age gap, isn't it? But those were different times, she had lost her parents. Maybe she resented Elizabeth for casting her out because she wanted him as a father figure?" Leonie said.
Just as you should be to me, she thought. Though she wanted Father Gabriel in a very different way.
"You should be taking the class given all you know, not me," Gabriel said. He managed a slight smile. The tension was still there between them but it was manageable for now.
It was strange, this sudden role reversal. Leonie the teacher, he the student. Maybe that was the answer to this. Maybe they needed to channel this energy into literature, a safe passion they both shared.
He cast a glance to the confessional, remembering his time with her there. Leonie followed his gaze.
"I don't think confession is really for me," she said. She looked him directly in the eye and he understood what she was saying. She wasn't going to confess any of it to Father Stephen, and for that Gabriel was profoundly grateful.
While a priest could never disclose anything he heard from penitents, he might still work to remedy what he knew by other means. It would also put Stephen in a terrible position if he knew.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think he really likes her...