Alice Pagett—Father Andrew Hagan

Alice Pagett and Father Andrew Hagan are joined first by the practical intimacy of care: he recognizes her vulnerability, attends to her when others cannot reach her, and speaks to her even when she cannot hear him. After Alice regains hearing and speech and reports seeing the Lady in White, his concern acquires a second dimension. He wants to understand her account without leading her, while fearing that public attention will turn her recovery into a spectacle. Their relationship thus moves between tenderness and scrutiny, without resolving the mystery that unsettles him.

First Encounter and Recognition

When Gerry Fenn asks who the girl is, Father Andrew Hagan answers quietly that her name is Alice. Fenn presses for an explanation of why she has run into the church and where she came from, but Hagan does not answer those questions. His reserve keeps attention on Alice rather than allowing her to become an object of immediate journalistic inquiry. The brief exchange establishes that Hagan knows who she is and takes responsibility for managing the encounter, while Fenn is still trying to discover the basic facts.

Hagan becomes visibly attentive when Fenn says that Alice seemed to speak. He asks whether she spoke to him, then gently brushes her cheek and explains that Alice is deaf and mute: she cannot hear or speak. The gesture and explanation make his care physical as well as verbal. Fenn, by contrast, is puzzled by the priest's manner and uncomfortable in his seat; Hagan's focus is on Alice's condition and on the possible significance of what she has done. Alice's own remark about not wanting to go among mad people shows that her inability to hear or speak has not erased her capacity to express apprehension. Hagan's attention does not make her merely a passive patient, even though he is the one explaining her circumstances to Fenn.

Care Amid the Children's Collapse

The contrast between Hagan's care and Fenn's reporting role sharpens during the gathering by the oak. As children begin to fall or weep, Fenn sees a possible story and considers what might explain their behavior. Hagan moves through the worried families and goes straight to Alice. He kneels beside her and puts an arm around her, covering one shoulder with his hand. Knowing that she cannot hear, he nevertheless speaks in the hope that she can sense kindness in his words. His attempt to reassure her is not dependent on receiving an answer: it is an act of presence directed toward a frightened child amid a disorderly scene.

Hagan tells Alice that her mother is coming and that she will be fine. The reassurance is concrete, rooted in the immediate prospect of her mother's arrival rather than in an explanation of the strange events around them. Fenn notices Hagan's worried manner but decides not to photograph him, sensing something daunting in the priest. That moment distinguishes the two men's attention: Fenn records the surrounding scene, while Hagan places himself beside Alice and addresses her distress. Their roles are not equivalent, and the narrative gives Hagan's protective response priority over the reporter's impulse to capture an image.

The Vision and the Need to Listen

Alice then speaks again, telling the men that the Lady in White wants them to come back and has a message for everyone. Both Hagan and Fenn are shocked into silence. Alice smiles as she explains the message, and Hagan is confronted with a claim that turns his immediate role as caretaker into a more difficult one: he must attend to what Alice says without assuming either that her words are fabricated or that he already understands them. The exchange gives Alice direct authority over the report of her own experience. Hagan's presence remains central, but the message belongs to her and is addressed beyond him.

After Alice is taken to hospital late on Sunday afternoon, Hagan wants to speak with her privately and question her closely about the vision. He hopes to gain her confidence so that there will be no invention in her story. The doctors' examinations and the attention surrounding the recovery make privacy impossible that day. Hagan's wish to hear Alice apart from the crowd is therefore both a pastoral gesture and an effort to test the account carefully. The distinction matters: he does not treat kindness as a substitute for inquiry, but neither does he seek to examine her without first establishing her confidence.

Recovery, Publicity, and Hagan's Unease

Alice is kept overnight for observation, and specialists continue examining her the following day. Hagan learns that she can now hear and speak perfectly, while her mother is thrilled and tearful and her father remains disbelieving. He also perceives a radiance in Alice that seems to him to exceed the physical mending. When doctors ask about the Lady in White, Alice repeats the same account she gave Hagan: the woman was white and shimmering, like the statue in St. Joseph’s Church; she identified herself as the Immaculate Conception, said she had a message for everyone, and told Alice to return. Alice cannot say when she must go back, only that she will know. Hagan has wanted a private conversation, but the medical questioning confirms that Alice's account persists in a wider setting.

The recovery affects the people around Alice as well. The medical staff are pleased for her, and her quiet serenity is described as infectious; when a psychologist asks whether she liked the Lady, Alice says that she loves her and weeps. Hagan leaves the hospital confused and only slightly touched by the elation around him. The difference between Alice's serene response and his unease marks a change in their relationship's circumstances: he is no longer attending only to a vulnerable child, but also to the public and religious meaning being attached to her experience.

By the time Hagan sees the headline in the Brighton Courier, the story has broken beyond his control. He fears the comparison with the cures at Lourdes and the circus that the news may create. Public attention to his parish church worries him, but he considers that a smaller cost than the publicity that will pursue Alice. His concern is therefore not simply institutional caution or disbelief; it is also directed toward the burden the story may place on her. The episode ends with Hagan still unable to explain his foreboding. His care remains steady, but the confidence of the bedside encounter has given way to watchfulness: he wants Alice protected, her account heard accurately, and the consequences of her sudden transformation understood, while recognizing that neither he nor the medical staff can yet explain what has happened.