Frank Aitken

Frank Aitken, the news editor at the Brighton Evening Courier, is the first authority to challenge Gerry Fenn’s account of Alice Pagett’s recovery. He refuses to treat Fenn’s extraordinary eyewitness story as publishable on the reporter’s word alone, making Aitken an early counterweight to the excitement that will gather around the alleged miracle. His brief encounter with Fenn establishes a practical standard of proof before the story moves into wider public and religious debate.

Position in the newsroom

Aitken works amid the busy newspaper office where reporters and editors contend with the noise and pressure of producing the evening edition. Fenn approaches him with a freshly typed story, confident that the account of his nighttime encounter will impress. Aitken, however, is occupied with editorial work and initially tells Fenn to leave the copy for him to read. When Fenn insists that the story deserves attention, Aitken looks him over and brings up Rodney Tucker’s report that Fenn had not produced much the previous night. The exchange places Aitken in the position of a supervisor accountable for what enters the paper, while Fenn is eager to turn an unusual experience into a compelling report.

Aitken does read the complete copy. His response changes from weary attention to visible disbelief, and Fenn’s confidence falters when Aitken rejects the story. The moment is not simply a clash of temperaments: Aitken’s authority rests on deciding whether a dramatic account has enough support to become news, while Fenn wants the force of his firsthand experience to carry the claim.

Why he rejects Fenn’s account

Aitken’s objection is specific. As he explains, the story rests on Fenn’s testimony that Alice, after seven years of deafness and muteness, spoke three words; nobody else heard her. The account may be vivid, but there is no independent witness to confirm its decisive claim. Aitken also invokes Fenn’s reputation for imaginative reporting and satire about local council meetings. That history weakens the trust he is prepared to place in Fenn, even before the supernatural possibility of the story is considered.

Fenn has written the scene in consciously dramatic terms: a white figure appearing at night, a pursuit through a graveyard, and a small girl in a white nightgown kneeling alone by a tree. He presents Alice’s speech as the revelation at the center of the report. Aitken’s refusal exposes the gap between narrative vividness and verification. For the editor, atmospheric detail cannot supply the missing witness; for the reporter, the event itself seems sufficient reason to print. Aitken screws up the copy and drops it into a bin, then tells Fenn there is no story and directs him to leave until his shift begins. The physical disposal of the pages makes his decision unmistakable, though Fenn still asks whether he can follow the matter up.

From rejected copy to public story

The novel later shows a report in the newspaper columns describing Alice’s recovery and asking whether she had seen a vision of Our Lady. Rodney Tucker reads it, considers it a good story despite Fenn’s tendency to overstate, and reflects on its comparison with the cures at Lourdes. That later appearance demonstrates how rapidly the episode can acquire a public frame as a possible miracle. The supplied scenes do not explain how this report passed through the newspaper after Aitken’s rejection, so the article’s appearance should not be taken as evidence that Aitken changed his mind or approved it.

Subsequent accounts widen the dispute beyond the newsroom. A Daily Mail interview presents Bishop Caines acknowledging extraordinary cures while emphasizing that they remain alleged and are to be examined. A television report describes crowds gathering at St. Joseph’s Church, where Alice has been proclaimed a miracle worker. Later, a newspaper account characterizes a local Sussex reporter as trying to discredit the claims, while also noting the bishop’s criticism of that reporter. These later framings echo the division Aitken’s exchange with Fenn first makes concrete: an eyewitness narrative can attract attention, but attention does not settle what happened or how it should be explained.

Narrative significance

Aitken is defined in the available scenes by his editorial judgment rather than by a personal history or an independent subplot. His skepticism is grounded in the evidentiary weakness he identifies, not in a stated theory about Alice or the supernatural. He neither confirms nor disproves Fenn’s account; he insists that one reporter’s testimony, especially from a reporter known for imaginative work, is not enough to make the claim reliable news.

That distinction gives his rejection a lasting structural importance. The story first appears to Fenn as a dramatic scoop, then meets Aitken’s demand for corroboration, and later circulates amid headlines, church statements, medical scrutiny, and mass attention. Aitken’s brief decision cannot stop that movement, but it gives the reader an early measure against which later claims can be assessed: the difference between an arresting account and evidence capable of persuading others.