Women’s solidarity and family formed by choice

Women’s solidarity and family formed by choice is a recurring alternative to the abandonment and coercion that shape the lives of the novel’s vulnerable characters. Its bonds are made through work, shelter, food, advocacy, and sustained attention rather than blood alone. Sunday’s care for other girls and children is met, at crucial moments, by older women who use their homes, authority, or labor to protect her and those she loves. The result is not an idealized community without conflict, but a network repeatedly tested by the institutions and social judgments it tries to resist.

Care as a practical alternative

The contrast begins in the workhouse nursery, where Sunday encounters infants left hungry and inadequately cared for. A woman responsible for them drinks sloe gin and treats their distress as something to suppress; Sunday finds that the babies need changing and feeding. She gathers clean binders, tends to them one by one, then lights the stove to warm their milk and feeds them from glass bottles. The scene makes care tangible: it consists of noticing needs that others neglect and taking responsibility for meeting them. The babies’ vulnerability is not an abstract appeal to kindness; Sunday responds through repetitive, necessary labor.

That response anticipates the reciprocal care that becomes possible beyond the institution. When Lady Lavinia Huntley arranges for Sunday to leave the workhouse, she offers clothes from a portmanteau, while allowing Sunday to adapt them herself. The gesture gives practical help without ignoring Sunday’s pride. Sunday’s placement with Biddy Spooner also changes her daily circumstances: her work and presence lighten Annie’s burden, and Sunday’s affection for the older woman becomes more than a formal employment arrangement. When an idea occurs to Sunday after Annie describes the household’s unused rooms and need for help, she kisses Annie in gratitude. Their warmth grows out of shared daily life and mutual usefulness, not a claim of kinship by birth.

Speaking for Cissie

The workhouse’s treatment of Cissie Burns shows why solidarity must include speaking against institutional power. As Sunday watches from the laundry, an asylum carriage arrives to take Cissie away. Cissie recognizes it and is terrified, having been led to expect that she would go somewhere she could care for her baby. She calls for Albert Pinnegar and accuses him of causing her pregnancy; Miss Frost instead rebukes her and discredits her. The difference between the promised destination and the carriage that actually arrives exposes how little control Cissie has over her future, and how readily her accusation is turned against her.

After leaving the workhouse, Sunday tells Lady Lavinia Huntley what Cissie had confided. She recounts that Pinnegar had used his position to draw Cissie into his office, that Cissie feared refusing him, and that Cissie believed he had forced her. Sunday also explains that the promised care for mother and child gave way to confinement at Hatter’s Hall. Although Lady Lavinia recognizes the seriousness of the allegation, she also understands that Cissie’s word may not be believed against Pinnegar’s. She promises to consider how to proceed rather than pretending that goodwill alone can undo the danger.

Lady Lavinia later visits Hatter’s Hall and brings Cissie out. On returning home, she entrusts her to Mrs Roundtree’s care: Cissie is to be bathed, given clean clothes and decent food, and allowed to rest. Lady Lavinia believes Cissie may have been drugged, and Cissie remains asleep on the journey home. Her physical recovery is accompanied by a lasting psychological withdrawal; she does not speak after leaving the institution. Lady Lavinia therefore asks Biddy Spooner to let Sunday visit, hoping a familiar face might help Cissie emerge from that retreat. Biddy agrees at once. The rescue is not treated as a complete cure: care means giving Cissie safety and companionship while recognizing the harm that remains.

A household tested by Daisy’s need

The support offered to Daisy Branning reveals both the strength and the limits of this chosen network. When Biddy learns Daisy is pregnant, she initially insists that Daisy must return to the workhouse because she considers her presence incompatible with the respectability of her home. Annie challenges that judgment directly. She points out that Daisy is not to blame for her condition and argues that Pinnegar must be stopped; if Biddy will not keep Daisy, Annie offers her own home. Her intervention turns sympathy into a concrete alternative to expulsion and destitution.

Biddy relents enough to let Daisy stay for the time being, and Sunday carries the news to Lady Lavinia. After hearing the account, Lady Lavinia treats it as the final straw and says the circumstances may provide enough evidence to stop Pinnegar. She plans to speak with Reverend Lockett and call an urgent meeting of the board of guardians; letters are then sent to request that meeting. The women’s advocacy thus links immediate shelter to an attempt at institutional accountability. The evidence does not make the guardians’ eventual decision part of this episode, but it does show a chain of action: Annie challenges Biddy, Biddy keeps Daisy temporarily, Sunday brings the case forward, and Lady Lavinia mobilizes her position.

Annie also proposes a longer arrangement rather than a brief refuge. Daisy can remain at Biddy’s while she is able to work, then move in with Annie when she is too far along to continue. Annie will care for the baby during the day after Daisy gives birth, allowing Daisy to return to work. She expects Sunday to take over more of the cooking, making the plan dependent on shared labor rather than a single benefactor. Biddy questions whether Annie is too old to take on the responsibility, but Annie insists that she can manage and welcomes the prospect of a child in the house. Their solution treats Daisy and her baby as people whose future deserves planning, not as a problem to be passed back to the institution.

Protection across difference

The novel also presents solidarity as a willingness to stand beside someone exposed to prejudice. At the cattle market, Sunday sees people move away from Mickey, sneer at him, and one man spit at his feet. Sunday recognizes one of the onlookers as a follower of Pinnegar. Rather than allow the crowd’s contempt to determine how Mickey is treated, she links her arm through his and glares back. When he hangs his head, she urges him to hold it up and face those looking down on him. This is a small public act, but it makes friendship visible as protection: Sunday refuses to leave Mickey alone with the hostility directed at him.

The same impulse appears when Sunday arrives with Mickey at a household where she has been hired. The woman receiving them questions Mickey’s presence with open disdain, and Sunday immediately bristles, identifying him as a good friend who has helped her. The exchange shows that shelter and employment do not automatically guarantee welcome to everyone in a companion’s circle. Sunday’s insistence nevertheless carries the principle of chosen family beyond the women’s arrangements: loyalty requires recognizing a friend’s claim to dignity even when others mark him as unwelcome.

Blood, loyalty, and belonging

The novel distinguishes chosen bonds from biological kinship without making them enemies. When Zillah finally tells Lady Lavinia that Sunday is her daughter, Lavinia responds by absolving Zillah: she recognizes that Zillah did what she could in difficult circumstances and saved the child’s life. She immediately wants to tell Sunday the truth and bring her to Treetops Manor. The revelation gives Sunday a biological mother, but the scene’s emotional center is also the solidarity between women who have carried responsibility for her: Zillah’s long-kept secret, Verity Lockett’s presence, and Lavinia’s immediate acceptance of Zillah’s part in the story. Blood clarifies one relationship; it does not erase the care that preceded the discovery.

Across these episodes, the novel measures belonging by what people do for one another. Sunday tends infants whom the workhouse fails, tells Lady Lavinia what happened to Cissie, and stands beside Mickey in public. Annie offers a home and plans childcare for Daisy; Biddy, despite her initial resistance, makes room for Daisy; Lady Lavinia uses her resources and position to secure help for Cissie and press the guardians to act. Their support is materially specific and sometimes difficult, involving work, money, housing, food, and the risk of challenging respectable opinion. In this network, family is not simply inherited: it is formed and renewed through acts of protection, acknowledgment, and care.