Sunday Small’s attempt to stop Cissie Burns being taken from Nuneaton Union Workhouse ends in a three-day punishment-room confinement. The confrontation makes visible the danger faced by an unmarried pregnant inmate who accuses a powerful staff member, and the cost of resisting a system that can transfer, discredit, and punish its charges. Though Sunday cannot prevent Cissie’s removal, her protest becomes a promise of future rescue and a measure of the loyalty that binds the girls together.

Setting and stakes

The event unfolds within a workhouse organized around strict divisions. Women, boys, girls, and men occupy separate sections, and inmates seldom come together except for Sunday church attendance. Their daily lives are further ordered by assigned labor: men and stronger boys may pick oakum from old ropes or crush bones for fertilizer, while women and girls sew uniforms, cook, clean, or work in the laundry. Sunday has seen how separation can devastate families. In this setting, the barriers between inmates are not merely practical arrangements; they help limit contact and leave vulnerable residents with few ways to support one another. Cissie is about to be taken away in a carriage to Hatter’s Hall. She protests that Pinnegar caused her pregnancy and insists that he will not allow her to be sent there. Miss Frost rejects the accusation, casts doubt on Cissie’s character, and argues that she cannot know who fathered her child. Cissie counters that the inmates are not permitted to mix with the men, challenging the plausibility of the explanation being used to discredit her. The immediate stakes are therefore twofold: Cissie faces removal to an institution she fears, while her attempt to name the person responsible is met not with investigation but with blame.

Sunday’s intervention and Cissie’s removal

As two men try to restrain Cissie and put her into a straitjacket, Sunday intervenes. She kicks one of them hard enough to make him release Cissie briefly, then pulls at another man’s hair when Miss Frost tries to drag her away. The commotion brings female staff running from the rear entrance. Sunday’s actions are desperate and improvised, but they interrupt the removal long enough to show that she will not stand aside while her friend is being taken. The staff soon secure Sunday between two of them. Unable to free herself, she watches as Cissie is carried to the carriage and driven out through the workhouse gates. The departure closes off Sunday’s immediate chance to protect her friend; the gate is shut, and Cissie is gone. Miss Frost then turns the failed rescue into a disciplinary matter, ordering Sunday to the punishment room and directing that she receive neither food nor drink until further notice. The institution thus answers her challenge to its authority with confinement and deprivation.

Confinement, rescue, and promise

Sunday fights as staff take her down to the punishment room, but they drag her into the cell and shut the door. Alone, she grieves for Cissie and fears what may happen at Hatter’s Hall. She has heard local women describe newborn babies being separated from their mothers and placed for adoption. Cissie, despite the circumstances of her pregnancy, had looked forward to having her child; Sunday fears that the removal may deprive her of both freedom and the future she had imagined as a mother. The door remains closed for three days. When Verity Lockett finally enters, she has been away from the workhouse at home with a chill and has only just learned that Sunday is imprisoned. Sunday is so weakened that she cannot stand unaided. Verity supports her up the steps and takes her to the sickroom, where she insists that the doctor be sent for. The doctor says the punishment room should be used only as a last resort and for very short periods. Verity tells him that Sunday has been kept there for three days without even water. He recommends a warm bath, small sips of water, and food; Sunday is kept in the sickbay to rest and recover. When Verity asks what happened, Sunday explains that she was trying to help Cissie and that the asylum carriage took her away. Verity believes her account, but recognizes that speaking out may cost her her position: before marrying Edgar Lockett, she has rent and food to pay for. She tells Sunday that Cissie is strong and may survive, while urging her to put the ordeal out of her mind. Sunday refuses to accept that survival alone answers the question of what life in Hatter’s Hall will mean for her friend. She vows that she, Daisy Branning, and Tommy Branning will one day escape and get Cissie out. Verity is not certain the plan can be carried out, but she almost believes Sunday might manage it. She later confronts Miss Frost, while Daisy overhears the argument as she works in the corridor.

Later testimony and institutional significance

Sunday’s account of the punishment reaches beyond the immediate rescue attempt. When Lady Lavinia Huntley later asks about conditions at the workhouse, Sunday explains that she had previously spent three days in the cellar without food or drink. She describes a punishment space without a bed or blanket, where inmates could be left in darkness and cold. She also recalls two little girls who were confined there and never seen again; Miss Frost said they had died of influenza, though Sunday cannot remember anyone saying they had received a proper funeral. The testimony gives the episode a wider institutional frame: confinement is not presented as a brief, carefully monitored measure, but as a practice that can leave children isolated and those responsible for them unaccountable. The later improvement in conditions provides a contrast to the culture Sunday confronted. Verity reports that meals have improved and that the atmosphere is better; the bullying and fear have receded, and a new matron has broken Miss Frost’s split cane and thrown it away. Plans for adequate bedding are also discussed. These changes do not undo Cissie’s removal or Sunday’s punishment, and the evidence does not attribute them to Sunday’s intervention alone. They do show that the workhouse’s routines can change. Within that larger contrast, Sunday’s resistance matters because it refuses the silence demanded of the girls: although she cannot stop the carriage, she names the injustice, tells the story, and turns helplessness into a promise to return for her friend.