Gerry Fenn and Alice Pagett's antagonistic relationship

Gerry Fenn and Alice Pagett's antagonistic relationship is built on a stark split between what Fenn believes he knows about Alice and what others see in her. He identifies her as part of the evil behind Banfield's strange events, including the deaths of Father Hagan and Monsignor Delgard, the village fire, and the reported miracles. Yet Alice remains, in public view, a child around whom pilgrims and believers gather. Their conflict is therefore not a simple face-to-face contest: it places Fenn's private interpretation against the wonder and trust that Alice inspires in others, and culminates in his struggle to decide whether to approach her after she is shot.

Fenn's Accusation

In speaking with Sue, Fenn insists that the events are connected and that Alice is not what she seems. He specifically attributes Monsignor Delgard's death to her, rejecting Sue's objection that Alice is only a child. Fenn's claim is not presented as a detached conclusion shared by everyone around him; it is his conviction, delivered against Sue's disbelief and the visible devotional mood of the gathering. His accusation turns Alice's apparent vulnerability into a source of tension: to Fenn, her childhood does not disprove danger but conceals its true scale.

Fenn grounds his explanation in an investigation reaching back centuries. He tells Sue that he and the others found an old Latin manuscript in a church on the Stapley estate, and that Monsignor Delgard translated it and found an answer. Fenn connects that discovery to Delgard's death, presenting the manuscript as evidence that the present crisis has a historical cause and that Delgard was killed because of what he learned. He also confirms that what Sue heard from Nancy about Barham was true, and says that the events there belong to the same chain. These disclosures explain why Fenn treats Alice not as an isolated mystery but as the focal point of a much older danger.

A Child and a Threat

The tension between Fenn's judgment and Alice's public image sharpens during the gathering. As Alice rises above the platform, the people around him are transfixed; the crowd's response is one of wonder and trust. Fenn, by contrast, perceives her smile as mocking and malevolent. He also experiences the scene as physically weakening, as though vitality is being drawn from him and those nearby into the figure before them. The narration holds the two impressions together: Alice appears to be a child, yet Fenn experiences her as something malignant. That unresolved contrast makes his opposition as much a contest over how to interpret her as a conflict over what she has done.

Fenn's perception does not make him master of the scene. He is overwhelmed and struggles to understand what is happening as Alice rises, while the crowd's attention fixes on her. Wilkes then shoots her. Fenn sees the shock pass across Alice's face and watches her fall; the gathering breaks into grief, confusion, and anger. The public's reaction exposes the distance between Fenn's solitary suspicion and the crowd's attachment to Alice: many mourn her, while some are too shocked to act. Fenn's account of her as a threat does not shield him from the impact of her apparent death.

Opposition Without Resolution

After the shooting, Fenn says he has to go up to Alice. Sue tries to draw him away, warning that there is nothing they can do, and Fenn looks at her. The moment preserves a complication in their antagonism: despite his belief that Alice is connected to the evil he has been investigating, he feels an urgent need to approach her body. His accusation has not erased the pull of the event or settled what he owes the child at its centre.

The relationship consequently ends this passage unresolved. Fenn has named Alice as a danger and tied her to Delgard's discovery, but the scene offers no confirmation from Alice herself and no final reckoning between them. Instead, their opposition remains caught between explanation and spectacle: Fenn reads the apparent miracle as malign, while those around him have been drawn into faith in Alice. Her shooting interrupts that conflict without answering whether Fenn's interpretation is correct, and his impulse to approach her leaves his resistance entangled with concern, shock, and the need to know what has happened.