Convent of Our Lady of Sion

The Convent of Our Lady of Sion is a small convent in Banfield that becomes the temporary refuge of Alice Pagett after she regains the ability to hear and speak. Its high walls and gates are meant to give her privacy, but the press gathers outside, and the building’s chapel hosts a closely managed Mass. The convent’s role is therefore double: it shelters Alice from public access while placing her within a religious and medical process that subjects her experience to continual attention.

Setting and daily life

Only twelve nuns live at the convent, which occupies a large house acquired ten years earlier from a retired theatre actor who had moved abroad. The building is enclosed by a high brick wall and heavy black gates, with a spacious yard where the community keeps a Morris 1100 and a minibus. During the week, the minibus collects village children attending the Catholic school four miles away, where the nuns teach. These ordinary routines define the convent as both a religious home and a working part of the village community.

The grounds lie at Banfield’s southern end, near a sharp bend in the main road toward Brighton and a smaller road leading into the Downs. A garage stands on the bend. During the week of Alice’s stay, its proprietor hires upstairs offices to camera crews and photographers, who film over the convent wall. The boundary that should protect the community thus becomes a vantage point for outsiders: the walls keep reporters from entering, but cannot keep their cameras or attention away.

Alice’s room is notably spare. It contains a small bed, a chair, a straw rug, a sink, and a plain wooden crucifix; two of her favorite dolls share the bed at night. Each morning, however, Molly Pagett finds the dolls thrown into a far corner. Molly sleeps in the next room, close enough to listen for any disturbance, and spends much of the night awake in prayer. Her sleeplessness and red-rimmed eyes register the strain that has accompanied the family’s sudden prominence, even as her devotion to the Church deepens into an all-consuming concern.

Alice and Molly in residence

Father Andrew Hagan and Monsignor Peter Delgard arrange for Alice and her mother to stay at the convent for a few days so that Alice can be less accessible to reporters. Molly agrees to follow the Church’s guidance because she is a devout Catholic. The arrangement is not presented as a detention: Bishop Caines later emphasizes publicly that Alice is free to leave when her parents want her to and her doctor considers it in her interests. In practice, however, the convent’s enclosed setting places her at a distance from ordinary life while examinations and questions continue around her.

Alice is unhappy there. She dislikes the room’s lack of comfort and the gray habits of the nuns; she is frightened by doctors who examine her and ask questions, and tired of being questioned by priests, nuns, and other visitors. Her attention remains fixed on returning to the church and seeing the tree. In one quiet moment, she watches a cat in the courtyard, smiles for the first time in days, and unconsciously touches a small lump at her side, six inches below her heart. The moment links her confined present to the place she longs to revisit, while also recalling a physical detail that had attracted the doctors’ attention.

For Molly, the stay is shaped by prayer and vigilance. She sleeps next door rather than away from Alice, listens through the night, and hopes the girl’s mind will not be further disturbed by the public excitement. Their adjoining rooms make the mother’s care tangible, but they do not resolve the difference between them: Molly interprets Alice’s experience through religious devotion, while Alice wants to leave the convent and return to the church and tree.

A refuge under public scrutiny

The convent’s gates and walls become a practical defense against the reporters who descend on Banfield, and Alice’s location quickly becomes public knowledge. In a press conference, Bishop Caines explains that Alice is resting after an experience that has left her physically and emotionally exhausted. He says that her own doctor insists on peace and quiet, that she is undergoing stringent tests, and that Church questioning should not be mistaken for pressure. His account presents the convent stay as protective care, while acknowledging that even kindness can overwhelm a fragile child.

The press asks whether Alice has spoken of further visions and whether she will attend Mass at St. Joseph’s Church the following Sunday. Monsignor Delgard says she has expressed a desire to go, but stresses the risk that the publicity will bring sightseers and reporters to the church. The Church’s concern is not only what Alice wants, but what renewed exposure might do to her. At the same time, the bishop does not rule out her attendance, leaving the question unsettled while the medical team, her doctor, and the Church consider what would be best.

This tension is built into the convent’s protective function. It offers a closed, quiet setting in which Alice can rest, but her presence there draws cameras to the perimeter, and decisions made inside the convent are discussed before a public audience. The building cannot simply remove her from scrutiny; it becomes the place from which the Church explains and regulates that scrutiny.

Chapel and institutional role

The convent also contains a small chapel made by converting what appears to have been a double garage attached to the house. Sliding doors open onto a low-ceilinged, white-walled room with a simple altar: a rectangular table covered by a clean white cloth, with a crucifix on it. Small benches accommodate the resident nuns. For a Mass attended by a select group, the space is too small for everyone to sit, and the nuns offer to stand so that male journalists can take places at the back.

Bishop Caines instructs the press to refrain from questioning Alice when she enters and says that she will be the first to receive Communion. He also makes clear that no photographs are permitted, on the understanding that journalists have been invited to attend. The instructions turn the chapel into a carefully controlled meeting point between religious observance and news coverage: the service can proceed, but Alice’s brief appearance and the conduct of the press are explicitly managed.

The convent’s importance lies in this contrast between enclosure and exposure. Its domestic rooms hold the routines of a small community, a mother’s anxious care, and a child’s wish to leave; its wall faces a public eager to see Alice, while its converted chapel hosts a restricted religious gathering shaped by media rules. As Banfield’s crowds grow and the focus shifts toward larger services at St. Joseph’s Church and the surrounding field, the convent remains an early, intimate site where the Church attempts to protect Alice without being able to separate her from the expectations accumulating around her.