Sunday Small—Tommy Branning

Sunday Small and Tommy Branning’s friendship is formed amid the privations of Nuneaton Workhouse and proves itself through concrete acts of care. When Sunday is able to leave, she does not treat freedom as a private escape: she returns to visit Tommy and Daisy, then persuades Biddy Spooner to employ both siblings. Her support helps reunite the children in a household where their abilities are valued and their future need not be determined by the institution that raised them.

A friendship formed in the workhouse

Sunday and Tommy’s bond develops in a place structured to keep its residents apart. Nuneaton Workhouse divides women, boys, girls, and men into separate sections. Its inmates work at assigned tasks: some men and boys pick oakum or crush bones, while others tend gardens; women and girls sew uniforms, cook, clean, or labour in the laundry. The residents rarely gather as families except on Sundays, when they may attend church. Sunday has seen how painful that separation can be. Against this institutional arrangement, her connection with Tommy and his sister Daisy carries the significance of a chosen family: they share companionship in a world that offers little security or privacy.

The workhouse also makes their everyday lives unequal in its small, visible details. Sunday’s kitchen duties leave her hands sore from scrubbing, but she prefers the relative warmth of washing dishes to outdoor labour. Her favourite task is caring for the babies in the nursery, though she hides that preference from Miss Frost, whom she believes would spitefully keep her away if she knew. These routines are not merely background to the friendship: they show the work, surveillance, and restricted choices that shape the young people’s lives before Sunday can help Tommy and Daisy leave.

Visits after Sunday leaves

Once Sunday has secured a new position, she returns to the workhouse as a visitor. The change in her status is tangible: she looks down at the floor and recalls how often she had scrubbed it, knowing that another child will now do that work. Miss Frost has Sunday’s visitors summoned, and Tommy and Daisy hurry over to join her. Sunday tells them about the house where she now lives, including its animals, walled vegetable garden, and overgrown orchard. Tommy immediately says that he could tend the garden because he likes gardening. His response gives Sunday a glimpse of a place where a skill he cares about might become useful, rather than simply another imposed duty.

Sunday wishes she could take both friends away with her at once, but their conversation makes clear that affection alone cannot change their circumstances. Daisy describes her own nursery assignment, with its soiled bindings to change, and Tommy teases his sister about lacking Sunday’s maternal instincts. Their joking familiarity makes the visit feel like a meeting among people who know one another well, while the limited visiting time reminds them that Sunday will leave again and they will remain behind. Her freedom sharpens, rather than dissolves, her sense of responsibility toward them.

Turning friendship into an offer of work

Sunday acts on that responsibility by making a practical proposal to Biddy Spooner. She explains that the house is large for one person to keep and suggests that another maid could help with the work. Her argument is also an employment plan for Daisy and Tommy: Daisy could help with household cleaning, while Tommy could revive the neglected garden and orchard, grow produce, and take on repairs and painting. Sunday presents their strengths alongside the household’s needs, showing that she has thought through how both siblings might contribute and how their work could benefit their employer.

The proposal makes Sunday an advocate rather than a passive recipient of kindness. She is still young and dependent on her position, and she approaches her employer cautiously, reassuring her that she is not complaining about the work. But she nevertheless presses the case, including practical savings from home-grown fruit and vegetables and income from letting empty bedrooms. She also offers to share her room with Daisy. Her intervention joins emotional loyalty to a considered economic arrangement: bringing her friends to the house is possible because she can show how their employment would make sense for the household as well as for them.

Reunion and significance

When the carriage brings Daisy and Tommy to Biddy Spooner’s residence, Sunday waits on the steps and rushes down to greet them. Biddy looks the newcomers over, doubting that Daisy appears strong enough for hard work; Sunday promptly defends her, insisting that Daisy is stronger than she looks. The welcome marks the outcome of Sunday’s effort: Tommy and Daisy arrive together, and Sunday is there to meet them. Biddy’s first assessment also shows why Sunday’s advocacy matters. She does not simply deliver her friends into a new arrangement; she speaks up for Daisy when her appearance might lead others to underestimate her.

Tommy’s gardening interest, first voiced during Sunday’s visit, fits the work Sunday has secured for him. Biddy assigns him outdoor tasks, including gardening, repairs, and painting, while Daisy is to help Sunday with cleaning. Their move gives both siblings a place in the same household and lets them work alongside Sunday. Later, after Tommy has lost his parents, Lavinia Huntley describes him as all alone in the world, underscoring the vulnerability behind Sunday’s earlier determination to bring the siblings out of the workhouse. The friendship’s importance lies not in a claim that it can erase hardship, but in the practical solidarity it makes possible: Sunday uses the limited security she has gained to create a route for Tommy and Daisy to leave institutional life together.