Pinnegar attempts to rape Sunday as she is about to leave the workhouse

Albert Pinnegar attempts to rape Sunday Small just as she is leaving the workhouse for a new position. The assault turns a moment of departure into one of acute danger: the man who can summon Sunday into his office uses his authority to attack her, then tries to make her fear that speaking out will cost another girl her chance to leave. A knock at the door and Lady Lavinia Huntley’s early arrival interrupt him, but do not erase the threat or the institutional power that made the attack possible.

Causes and Institutional Setting

Sunday’s departure follows a painful farewell to Daisy Branning, who clings to her and asks not to be forgotten. Sunday reassures her that she will visit, packs the few clothes she owns, strips the sheet and blanket from her bed, and carries them toward the laundry. The ordinary objects of leaving—a small bundle, bedding returned to the laundry—mark how little she possesses and how abruptly her familiar life is ending. She hopes not to have to speak to Pinnegar again; instead, his voice stops her in the corridor.

The workhouse’s routines provide the setting for this vulnerability. Residents are divided into separate sections, and work is assigned according to sex, age, and perceived ability. Men and stronger boys may pick oakum or crush bones; women and girls sew uniforms, cook, clean, and work in the laundry. After meals, Miss Frost reads out the day’s duties, making labor part of the institution’s daily discipline. Sunday knows the laundry as punishing work: steam, soda crystals, hot water, and the heavy mangle leave her hands raw and her back and arms aching. Pinnegar’s office, by contrast, is a room to which he can order her alone, away from the corridor and from anyone who might witness his actions.

The danger is not merely the sudden violence of one man. Sunday’s earlier experience has taught her that the institution’s punishments and protections are profoundly unequal. When she later describes the workhouse to Lady Huntley, she recounts meals of grey bread and greasy porridge, as well as punishment in a cold, dark cellar where she spent three days without food or drink. She says that she was so weak when Mrs Lockett found her that she needed to spend the night in the sickbay. Her account places Pinnegar’s attack within an environment where residents have limited control over their treatment and where an authority figure’s version of events may carry more weight than a girl’s.

The Assault

Pinnegar first asks whether Sunday is sure she is happy about her new position and tells her to step into his office. She faces him boldly, though she feels anxious, and reluctantly goes in when she sees that Miss Frost is nowhere in the corridor. The apparent concern about her placement gives way to an attack. Pinnegar suddenly comes around the desk, pushes her across it, clamps a hand over her mouth, and uses his other hand to undo his clothing. He tells her that he has tried to be nice to her and now intends to make her a woman.

Sunday struggles, but he is physically stronger. He tries to pull her drawers aside, and she feels his hand on the skin at the top of her leg. The narration makes clear that she believes she can no longer stop what is about to happen. This is an attempted rape, not a completed one: before the assault can proceed further, someone knocks loudly on the office door. Pinnegar jerks upright, abruptly breaking the scene of physical control.

The interruption does not make Sunday safe. Pinnegar orders her to stand and not say a word, warning that otherwise another girl will take her place later that day. As he puts his clothes back in order, Sunday, badly shaken, does the same. His threat turns the possibility of reporting into a further danger: he invokes the precariousness of the workhouse girls’ opportunities and casts silence as the price of leaving.

Interruption and Concealment

The knock is followed by Miss Frost’s voice. She reports that Lady Huntley has arrived early, asks why the office door is locked, and asks where Sunday is. Pinnegar answers that he locked the door to give them privacy while handing over Sunday’s possessions, then hurries to unlock it. His explanation converts an assault into an apparently routine administrative exchange. The timing of Lady Huntley’s arrival prevents Pinnegar from continuing, while his lie attempts to keep the truth from becoming visible.

Miss Frost looks at Sunday suspiciously and asks whether she is ready. Sunday has to leave the office in the presence of the people who might have been able to intervene, but the scene offers no indication that she discloses the attack at that moment. The contrast is sharp: Lady Huntley’s arrival brings an outside witness close enough to interrupt the assault, yet Pinnegar still controls the immediate account of why the door was locked and what happened inside. The interruption is therefore a reprieve, not an investigation or a resolution.

Aftermath and Significance

Sunday later speaks to Lady Huntley about conditions in the workhouse, explaining that she has decided to tell the truth because she no longer lives there and hopes honesty may improve life for those who remain. When asked whether Pinnegar was a kind master, she answers emphatically that he was not. She then recounts his interest in Cissie Burns, his use of invitations to work in his office, and Cissie’s disclosure that he had forced himself on her. Sunday connects that earlier abuse to Cissie’s pregnancy and to the deception that sent her away in an asylum carriage rather than to the promised place where she could care for her baby. Her testimony makes Pinnegar’s attack on Sunday part of a wider pattern of coercion, rather than an isolated breach of conduct.

The workhouse’s conditions later improve: Verity Lockett reports that meals are better, fear and bullying have receded, and the new matron has snapped Miss Frost’s split cane and thrown it away. These changes do not undo what happened in Pinnegar’s locked office, but they sharpen the episode’s institutional significance. The assault depends on the imbalance between an official who can isolate a departing girl and a resident whose prospects are vulnerable to his threats. The door’s sudden knock interrupts the violence; Sunday’s later willingness to speak helps expose the abuse that such authority had allowed to remain hidden.