Zillah reveals how Sunday was saved as a newborn

Zillah’s confession reveals that Sunday Small is the daughter of Lady Lavinia Huntley and explains how she survived Ashley Huntley’s order that she be killed at birth. The disclosure overturns Lavinia’s belief that her baby had died, identifies the secret act that preserved Sunday’s life, and turns a hidden history of coercion and concealment into the possibility of a mother-daughter relationship.

Circumstances and the concealed birth

The confession concerns the night Lavinia gave birth to her last daughter. She had endured a terrible birth and was unconscious when the baby arrived. Ashley, who wanted a son and had already lost two daughters, entered the room demanding to know the child’s sex. When Zillah told him that the baby was a girl, he reacted with anger and ordered her to get rid of the child. He threatened consequences if she spoke about what had happened and said he would have a grave prepared.

The earlier birth scene establishes what Zillah later has to explain: the baby was alive, and her appearance carried a visible connection to her mother. She had blue eyes and soft blonde curls the same colour as Lavinia’s hair. The revelation therefore answers more than a question about survival. It discloses that the child whom Lavinia mourned had been taken from her, while the resemblance that might have suggested their kinship had gone unrecognized for years.

Zillah’s decision and the substitution

Zillah tells Lavinia that Ashley demanded the baby be smothered and buried beside the other two children. He reinforced the order with threats: if Zillah disobeyed, he would have Lavinia confined at Hatter’s Hall and arrange for a doctor to declare her insane, while Zillah herself would be sent to the workhouse. His power over both women made the choice dangerous; protecting the baby could expose them to punishment and confinement.

Zillah did not kill the child. After the midwife had left, she hid the baby in her room, then wrapped a pillow in a shawl and took it to the grave Matthews had prepared. The grave thus became a substitute for the truth: Ashley believed the child had been buried, and Lavinia later visited what she understood to be her daughter’s grave. Zillah eventually tells Lavinia that the grave held only the wrapped pillow, not the baby.

When she was sure no one was about, Zillah carried the infant to the workhouse, left her on its steps, and rang the bell. She remained hidden until someone came, then stayed long enough to know the child was safe. Verity Lockett had recently begun working there, so Zillah hoped she could learn how the baby was faring through Verity without revealing the child’s identity. The abandonment was therefore both a separation from the baby and Zillah’s means of placing her beyond Ashley’s immediate reach.

The identity revealed

By the time of the confession, Zillah says, the child is nearly sixteen. She tells Lavinia that the girl is Sunday Small, whom Lavinia already knows. The name changes the meaning of their existing acquaintance: Sunday is not merely a young woman Lavinia has taken an interest in, but her surviving flesh-and-blood daughter. Lavinia recalls that they share the same hair and eye colour and wonders whether the special bond she had felt with Sunday had been an unrecognized response to that kinship.

Lavinia initially struggles to understand what the confession means. She asks whether the baby was born alive and, after learning that the grave contained a pillow, asks what became of her child. The order of these questions gives the disclosure its force: first the old belief in the baby’s death is unsettled, then the false grave is exposed, and finally Sunday’s identity connects the lost infant to a living person. Zillah’s account supplies the history that Lavinia could not know while Ashley’s threats kept it secret.

Consequences and later recognition

Zillah explains that she had not dared to tell Lavinia while Ashley was alive, fearing what he might do. The secret had weighed on her conscience throughout Sunday’s life; she asks whether Lavinia can forgive her. Lavinia refuses to make Zillah the principal object of blame. She recognizes that Zillah saved her daughter under coercive circumstances and places responsibility on Ashley, whose threats had forced the choice between obedience and risking punishment for them both.

The revelation also changes what Lavinia wants to do next. Rather than remain with the recovered information, she resolves to find Sunday and tell her the truth, hoping that her daughter will forgive her. She intends to bring Sunday to Treetops Manor and give her the place in the household that her birth had been denied. Zillah, in turn, feels the burden of carrying the secret lift as Lavinia sets out to find the young woman.

The mother-daughter recognition develops beyond the confession itself. On Mothering Sunday, Tom encourages Sunday with a squeeze of her fingers and a nod as she rises and walks along the church aisle to Lavinia’s pew. Sunday offers Lavinia violets and addresses her as her mother; Lavinia embraces her, and Sunday cries in her arms. The gesture does not erase the years of separation, but it gives the disclosed kinship a reciprocal form: Sunday approaches Lavinia, and Lavinia receives her as her daughter.

Narrative significance

The event is a revelation and a reversal. A grave that appeared to confirm a child’s death proves to have concealed her survival; a girl left at the workhouse becomes the daughter of the woman who had mourned her; and an act Zillah had kept secret to protect the child becomes the basis for renewed connection. The plot makes material evidence—the shawl-wrapped pillow and the empty grave—central to the difference between what Lavinia believed and what happened.

The confession also distinguishes the choices of the adults surrounding the birth. Ashley uses his authority to demand the death of a daughter and to threaten confinement and institutional punishment. Zillah, under that pressure, secretly preserves the baby and finds a way to leave her somewhere safe. The disclosure does not present the separation as freely chosen or painless: Zillah’s act saves Sunday, but it also leaves mother and child ignorant of one another for nearly sixteen years. Its eventual telling converts that long silence into the possibility of a relationship built through recognition rather than blood alone.