March 1884

March 1884 is the chronological marker for a pivotal chapter in Sunday Small’s life at the Nuneaton Union Workhouse. At thirteen, she is old enough to seek employment and close enough to departure to imagine a life beyond the institution; yet leaving also threatens to separate her from Daisy Branning and Tommy Branning. The month’s spring setting sharpens that conflict between the freedom Sunday desires and the family bonds she is determined to preserve.

A spring morning and a threshold

The chapter opens with Sunday and Daisy walking in file to All Saints Church for Sunday-morning service. Spring flowers show beneath the hedgerows and birds move freely through the trees. Sunday envies them: the natural world makes freedom visible, while the girls’ orderly walk reflects the limits placed on their own lives. Their outing offers pleasure, but it also throws Sunday’s confinement into relief.

The walk brings them near Mrs Lockett, formerly Miss Beau, whose visits had been a source of companionship and books for Sunday. She has been married to the vicar for more than two years and is expecting her first child; pregnancy has reduced the time she spends volunteering at the workhouse. Sunday and Daisy are pleased that they will see her that morning. Her diminished presence also matters to Sunday’s account of the past: Mrs Lockett has been one of the few adults whose kindness helped her endure institutional life.

Sunday at thirteen

Sunday has grown considerably over the preceding years and is now one of the oldest girls in the institution, though still not tall. The narrative describes her peach-and-cream complexion and bright blue eyes, but also emphasizes the good nature that has endeared her to people. Mrs Lockett has linked Sunday’s character to the day of the week on which she was born, reciting a familiar rhyme about Sabbath-born children. Sunday is embarrassed by the attention, a small contrast to the confidence and kindness others see in her.

Her approaching departure is not a simple escape. Sunday has already asked Miss Frost to find suitable employment, and she suspects the matron will be glad to see her leave. In the previous four years, Sunday has endured three more periods in the punishment room and two or three beatings, one severe. She has managed to bear the workhouse by focusing on time with Mrs Lockett and on the books she borrowed. The books provide a counterweight to the harshness around her, but they do not erase it.

Work, separation, and the promise to return

Sunday’s anxiety about leaving is bound to her effort to keep Daisy and Tommy together with her. She repeatedly reassures Daisy that the separation will not last: she intends to save every penny she earns, rent a place where they can live, and ask Mrs Lockett to help secure Daisy and Tommy’s release. Her plan turns employment from an individual route out of poverty into a means of building a shared home. The promise is an expression of hope, but it also acknowledges that the siblings’ future depends on money and adult assistance beyond their control.

Tommy’s earlier attempt at employment has already failed. A farmer returned him to the workhouse within weeks, describing him as worthless and workshy. Sunday rejects that judgment and suspects that Tommy did not try because he was distressed at leaving Daisy behind. His return demonstrates how easily an institutional placement can break down, and why Sunday’s proposed rescue must account for the children’s attachments as well as their work prospects.

The institution beyond the date

The chapter’s immediate scene sits within a wider account of the workhouse’s routines. Residents are divided into separate sections for women, boys, girls, and men, and their labor is assigned by sex and perceived ability. Men and stronger boys pick oakum from old hemp ropes, crush bones delivered from a local slaughterhouse, or work in the gardens; women and girls sew uniforms, make or repair clothes, cook, clean, and labor in the laundry. Apart from Sunday church attendance, inmates rarely come together. Sunday has witnessed the damage that this separation can do to families, giving her determination to reunite Daisy and Tommy an institutional as well as personal context.

Later disclosures and reports in the novel make the gap between official provision and lived experience explicit. When Lady Huntley asks whether residents were well fed, Sunday describes dry grey bread, greasy porridge, thin soup, and gristly meat served only occasionally. She also recounts that the punishment cell was a cold, damp cellar with only a bucket, no bed or blanket, and rats and mice. Sunday herself was kept there for three days without food or drink and was so weak on release that she needed a night in the sickbay; she says two little girls locked there were later reported dead of influenza. These later accounts do not belong to the March morning itself, but they deepen the meaning of the hardship Sunday has already endured and the relief she associates with leaving.

By a later point in the story, conditions at the workhouse have improved: meals are better, fear and bullying have receded, and a new matron has snapped Miss Frost’s split cane and thrown it away. That change contrasts with the punishment and labor remembered around the March 1884 chapter. The date therefore marks more than Sunday’s age or the season. It places her at a threshold where escape from an abusive institution and loyalty to the children she loves pull in opposite directions, while the promise to save and return gives her departure a purpose.