Tom returns and reunites with Sunday

Tommy Branning’s return reunites him with Sunday Small after a long absence, just as she is living under pressure at the Barnes farm and fearing that Bill Barnes may force her into marriage. Their meeting restores a bond formed through shared hardship, but it is not simply a comforting reunion: Sunday confides her unresolved suspicion about Daisy Branning’s death, while Tommy admits that guilt over his sister’s fate drove him away. His return also places him within reach when Sunday later faces another immediate danger.

Circumstances of the Return

The reunion takes place after Sunday has spent two weeks sleeping little in an attic without a way to block its entrance. She fears Bill may come up the ladder, and believes the farmer and his wife would not intervene if he tried to make her marry their son. Sunday is also serving supper when a visitor arrives on a wild, windy night. Because the Barnes family has not had visitors in her experience, she pays little attention at first; then she hears a familiar voice, puts down the dish she is carrying, and hurries to the door.

The visitor is Tommy, whose changed appearance surprises her. She greets him with unmistakable relief, while Bill immediately challenges his presence and tries to push Sunday back inside. Sunday identifies Tommy as a friend and insists on speaking with him. When Bill refuses to welcome him, she rejects the demand that she continue serving supper, leaves the house with Tommy, and takes him across the yard to the barn. The reunion therefore begins under the same conditions that shape Sunday’s life at the farm: her movements are challenged, and even a private conversation requires her to resist Bill’s control.

Conversation and Shared Loss

In the barn, Tommy apologizes in case his visit has caused Sunday trouble and tells her how glad he is to see her. His concern touches her. She tells him she will not remain at the farm much longer, though its occupants do not yet know that, and explains her new position at Treetops Manor. When he asks why she left Biddy Spooner’s household, Sunday explains that Albert Pinnegar’s knowledge of her whereabouts would have prevented any of them from having peace.

She then voices a suspicion she has not previously dared to express: she wonders whether Albert Pinnegar had something to do with Daisy’s death. Sunday acknowledges that Daisy was deeply unhappy, but cannot accept without question that she deliberately ended her life or accidentally fell into the canal. Tommy says he has thought the same, while stressing that they have no proof. His response makes their uncertainty shared rather than resolved; the conversation raises the possibility of foul play but does not establish it.

Tommy also explains why he disappeared. Since their parents died, he had wanted to protect his sister. He now reproaches himself for failing to notice that Albert Pinnegar was exploiting Daisy and for being unable to prevent her pregnancy and death. Sunday counters that he did not fail her. The exchange reveals that his absence followed self-recrimination, not indifference, and that both of them are carrying grief as well as affection into the reunion.

A Reunion Interrupted

The emotional intimacy of the conversation is conveyed through action rather than a declaration: Tommy reaches for Sunday, and she leans against him. Their closeness is immediate, but the meeting is interrupted when Bill comes looking for her, insists that she is promised to him, and orders Tommy off his land. Sunday rejects the claim that she is engaged to Bill. Tommy, unwilling to worsen her situation, leaves and tells her he will be at Biddy Spooner’s if she needs him.

His departure preserves the reunion’s central tension. Tommy has returned, but he cannot simply remove Sunday from the farm without risking further trouble for her. Sunday, humiliated and angry, pushes past Bill and returns to the kitchen. The meeting has given her an ally and a place to turn, but it has not yet ended the coercive conditions under which she is living.

Later Consequences

The promise that Tommy will be available becomes significant when Sunday is later abducted and held captive. Miss Frost reveals that she murdered Albert Pinnegar and pushed Daisy and her unborn child into the canal. This confession confirms the crime Sunday and Tommy had suspected but could not prove when they met. Their earlier conversation thus functions as a genuine moment of foreboding: the reunion names the unanswered question that a later confession resolves.

When police constables seize Miss Frost, Tom Branning reaches Sunday and frees her from her bonds. He holds her as she collapses, and Lady Huntley is also present. The rescue gives practical consequence to Tommy’s return: the friend who had left the Barnes farm rather than provoke Bill is later there when Sunday needs help. At the Mothering Sunday service, Tom encourages Sunday with a squeeze of her fingers as she approaches Lady Huntley and calls her mother. This later scene belongs to Sunday’s reconciliation with her mother, not to the reunion itself, but it shows Tommy remaining beside her as the relationships around her change. The return matters both as a restoration of companionship and as a step toward the support that carries Sunday through subsequent danger.