And while the praying of his father continued, his heart was burning with rage. On the table was a paper bag. He picked it up and read: “John Berryman—Bread, Pastries, etc.” Then he grinned with a grimace. The father of the baby was baker’s man at Berryman’s. The prayer went on in the middle kitchen. Laurie Rowbotham gathered together the mouth of the bag, inflated it, and burst it with his fist. There was a loud report. He grinned to himself. But he writhed at the same time with shame and fear of his father.
The father broke off from his prayer; the party shuffled to their feet. The young mother went into the scullery.
“What art doin’, fool?” she said.
The collier youth tipped the baby under the chin singing:
“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man,
Bake me a cake as fast as you can...”
The mother snatched the child away. “Shut thy mouth, ”she said, the colour coming into her cheek.
“Prick it and stick it and mark it with P,
And put it i’ th’ oven for baby an’ me...”
He grinned, showing a grimy, and jeering and unpleasant red mouth and white teeth.
“I s’ll gi’e thee a dab ower th’ mouth,” said the mother of the baby grimly. He began to sing again, and she struck out at him.
“Now what’s to do?”said the father, staggering in.
The youth began to sing again. His sister stood sullen and furious.
“Why does that upset you?” asked the eldest Miss Rowbotham, sharply, of Emma the mother. “Good gracious, it hasn’t improved your temper.”
Miss Bertha came in, and took the bonny baby.
The father sat big and unheeding in his chair, his eyes vacant, his physique wrecked. He let them do as they would, he fell to pieces. And yet some power, involuntary, like a curse, remained in him. The very ruin of him was like a lodestone that held them in its control. The wreck of him still dominated the house, in his dissolution even he compelled their being. They had never lived; his life, his will had always been upon them and contained them. They were only half-individuals.
The day after the christening he staggered in at the doorway declaring, in a loud voice, with joy in life still: “The daisies light up the earth, they clap their hands in multitudes, in praise of the morning.”And his daughters shrank, sullen.
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