Blackie privately christens Edwina in a home ceremony that answers Emma Harte’s unease about her daughter’s religious future while preserving the secrecy Emma demands about the child’s birth. The baptism becomes a moment of care and trust between Emma and Blackie, but also exposes the truth of Edwina’s parentage to him: Emma’s unguarded choice of a name leads Blackie to identify Edwin Fairley as the father, a discovery he quietly protects rather than confronts her with.

The concern behind the ceremony

The episode begins not with a settled religious conviction but with Emma’s anxiety. Blackie has been describing plans for a wing of the house when he notices that she is unusually gloomy. Emma eventually admits that she is troubled because the baby has not been christened. Her concern is prospective: though she still considers herself an atheist, she imagines that her daughter might believe in God when she grows up and might resent discovering that she was never baptized. The thought makes a lasting religious rite seem important even to someone who rejects the belief behind it.

Emma’s crisis of faith has a history. After her mother’s death, she rejected the idea that God existed, unable to reconcile divine will with her mother’s suffering. That rejection has not made her indifferent to religious practice as a family matter. In this scene, her choice is shaped less by a return to faith than by concern for what her daughter may someday want. The tension is characteristic of Emma’s position: she will not profess a belief she does not hold, yet she does not want her own unbelief to close off a choice for the child.

A public baptism appears to threaten the privacy Emma is trying to maintain. She anticipates that a vicar would ask for the birth certificate and learn that the baby is illegitimate. She does not want the child’s circumstances exposed, and she rejects the suggestion of simply going to a church in another part of Leeds. The obstacle is therefore both religious and documentary: she wants the child baptized, but not at the cost of inviting outsiders to inspect the family’s private history.

A private rite at home

Blackie resolves the impasse by proposing that he perform the baptism himself at home. He treats a bowl of water and the kitchen sink as sufficient for the occasion, rather than insisting on a church or font. His assurance rests on his continuing belief in God, despite his being a lapsed Catholic, and on his conviction that the child can be welcomed into the faith through an act grounded in love. Emma, who has been particular about the problem even while calling herself an atheist, accepts his offer and brings the baby to him.

The practical details make the rite a negotiated family act rather than a conventional service. Blackie prepares water and a towel. At first he makes the sign of the cross on the baby’s forehead, but Emma stops him: she is not Roman Catholic, and she wants the ceremony to follow the Church of England practice she knows, with water sprinkled rather than a cross made on the child’s brow. Blackie wipes the mark away and begins again, this time sprinkling a few drops. Emma’s correction shows that the form matters to her even though she denies religious belief; Blackie’s willingness to adapt lets the baptism proceed on terms she can accept.

The name that reveals a secret

The naming is the scene’s decisive turn. Emma had previously settled on Laura as the baby’s name. While holding the child and thinking of Edwin Fairley, however, she unconsciously says Edwina when Blackie asks what she will call her. The name reveals more than she intended. Blackie recognizes the connection and concludes that Edwin is the child’s father, fitting that inference to suspicions he has held about Emma’s explanation of her past. Emma realizes she has made a damaging slip, but Blackie does not press her or force a confession. He responds as if the name were simply an elegant choice, giving her time to recover her composure.

Emma then completes the name as Edwina Laura Shane. Laura preserves the name she had originally chosen, while Shane honors Blackie; she explains that she could not plausibly name the child Desmond, Patrick, or Blackie. The completed name thus records the people and decisions surrounding the child without openly naming Edwin. Blackie accepts the honor, and the ceremony continues. When he pronounces the child’s full name and sprinkles the water, Emma’s private concern has been answered, while the father’s identity remains unspoken between them.

Registration, responsibility, and aftermath

The baptism does not resolve the separate legal problem of registering the birth. Blackie points out that Emma must obtain a birth certificate in Leeds and that the law requires her to provide a father’s name. Emma does not want Edwin’s name recorded. Blackie proposes that she put his name on the certificate instead: the document would still show that the child was illegitimate, but would not leave the father’s entry as unknown. He offers not merely a name but practical support, insisting that he will accompany Emma to the registrar and take responsibility for Edwina as her godfather, as he understands that responsibility.

This offer must be distinguished from a confirmed registration outcome. The scene establishes Blackie’s proposal and his intention to go with Emma; it does not itself narrate the registrar’s final entry. It does show how the private christening leads directly into a question of official identity. Emma’s concern about disclosure, the law’s demand for a father’s name, and Blackie’s willingness to stand in for the absent father expose the limited choices available to an unmarried mother protecting her child’s privacy.

The secret continues to shape Emma’s relationships. Years later, when she accepts Joe Lowther’s marriage proposal, she tells him that Edwina is illegitimate but withholds the father’s identity, repeating the account she had earlier invented for Blackie. In that later disclosure, Emma presents herself as candid about the child’s status while still guarding the fact that would identify Edwin. The christening therefore marks both an act of tenderness and the beginning of a durable arrangement of concealment: Blackie knows the truth, but chooses not to make Emma say it, and the child receives a name and a rite without her biological father being publicly acknowledged.