The sisterly friendship between Sunday Small and Daisy Branning

The sisterly friendship between Sunday Small and Daisy Branning is a source of protection and belonging in the workhouse, where the girls have little control over their lives and the institution keeps families apart. Sunday takes Daisy and her brother, Tommy Branning, under her wing after their mother dies. What begins as Sunday’s care for two younger children becomes a reciprocal attachment: Daisy offers comfort and encouragement, while Sunday treats her as family and insists that leaving the workhouse will not end their bond.

Origins in the Workhouse

Daisy and Tommy arrive at the workhouse some months before the friendship’s early scenes, following their mother’s death. Sunday has grown up knowing no other life, but she understands that the siblings have lost the love and security they once knew. She therefore tries to make things easier for them whenever she can, and feels especially protective of Daisy. The difference between their experiences gives the relationship its shape: Sunday’s care is not a claim that she can replace the siblings’ mother, but a practical response to their grief and vulnerability.

The girls’ closeness takes form in the routines imposed on them. They sleep in beds next to each other beneath a single thin blanket, and Daisy tells Sunday about the meals their mother used to make, the cakes she baked before becoming ill, and the cosy house where they had lived. These stories introduce Sunday to a kind of family life she has never known. She listens with envy, but also with attention: Daisy’s memories give the girls a shared conversation and let her friend carry something of home into their bleak surroundings.

That companionship matters within an institution organized to separate people. The workhouse divides women, boys, girls and men into different sections, assigns residents to hard tasks, and rarely brings inmates together except for Sunday church. The girls’ ordinary proximity—to neighboring beds, chores and shared meals—thus becomes a small counterweight to official separation. Their bond is made through daily attention rather than formal kinship, and gives each a trusted person inside a system that offers little security.

Protection and Reciprocal Care

Sunday’s protectiveness becomes unmistakable when Daisy is punished for allowing Sunday to do her work for her. Sunday finds her alone in bed, sees the marks of the punishment across her back, and responds by putting an arm around her rather than blaming her. She promises to try to protect Daisy for as long as they remain at the workhouse and imagines a future place where Miss Frost can hurt none of them. Daisy is moved by the force of that promise and lets herself believe that escape is possible. The scene makes their closeness both emotional and practical: Sunday’s care takes the form of defending Daisy, while Daisy draws courage from knowing she will not face the institution alone.

The protection also runs both ways. When Sunday is confined and later returns to the dormitory, Daisy has been waiting anxiously for her. She nestles against Sunday, embraces her, and asks whether she is all right. Daisy has heard that Miss Beau reprimanded Miss Frost for keeping Sunday locked away; her account of this intervention shows her following what happens to her friend even when they are apart. Sunday says that she is well, crediting Miss Beau’s care with helping her recover her fighting spirit. Their reunion restores the familiar pattern: one girl has been harmed, and the other responds with close attention and comfort.

Their mutual care extends beyond the immediate safety of the dormitory. When Daisy asks what happened to Cissie Burns, Sunday confirms that Cissie was taken away to an asylum and promises that they will get her out when they are free. Daisy acknowledges that this future is distant, but tells Sunday she feels brave with her beside her. The exchange shows the girls making hope together, not by denying how powerless they are in the present but by imagining that their eventual freedom might allow them to help someone else.

A Bond Tested by Sunday’s Opportunity

The friendship faces a different strain when Sunday is offered a chance to leave the workhouse for employment with Mrs Spooner. After Lady Lavinia Huntley visits, Sunday tells Daisy about the possibility. Daisy immediately encourages her to go if she likes Mrs Spooner, believing the position will be better than anything Miss Frost would have found for her. Her support comes with private sadness: the thought of Sunday leaving makes her blink back tears, but she does not want that grief to cost her friend an opportunity.

Sunday, in turn, worries about what will happen to Daisy and Tommy. She tells Daisy that the pair are like family—the only family she has ever known—and refuses the idea that a new position would make her forget them. The planned arrangement preserves a place for the friendship in both girls’ lives: Sunday is permitted to attend church on Sunday mornings and visit Daisy and Tommy in the afternoons. Daisy tells her not to feel guilty if she cannot always come, while Sunday answers that she will come. Their exchange registers both the real prospect of separation and their determination to remain connected across it.

Significance of the Friendship

The relationship is not simply Sunday rescuing Daisy. Sunday takes the lead in shielding her, but Daisy watches over Sunday, waits for her return, shares what she knows, and supports her chance to leave. Their sisterly attachment gives them emotional shelter amid workhouse discipline, family loss and restricted choices. It also changes what leaving can mean: Sunday’s opportunity is not a rejection of the people she loves, because she carries the bond with her and makes a plan to return.

Their friendship offers a family form created through loyalty rather than blood. Daisy’s memories of her mother help Sunday imagine the warmth of a home, while Sunday’s promises give Daisy a reason to hope for life beyond the institution. In turn, Daisy’s generous encouragement allows Sunday to pursue a safer future without treating love as a demand that she stay. The bond’s defining feature is this balance of care and freedom: each girl seeks the other’s well-being, even when doing so means accepting uncertainty and distance.