This time they played in the morning. They had a simple lunch of boiled eggs such as the Club provided. It was a common occurrence for Mary to stay on the links all day.
Hannah thought nothing of her absence at the mid-day meal. Fanny thought a great deal, but said no word. Jane, thinking little, casually questioned why it was always married men who came to Bridnorth.
"And invariably married men who play golf," she added. Indeed in those days the younger men somewhat left the game to their elders. "I believe Mary's a bit of a fool," she went on. "If she really wanted to marry, she'd play tennis or sit on the beach at bathing time. That girl Hyland got married last year throwing pebbles at an old bottle. We've all thought marriage was a serious business. That was the way they brought us up." She looked at her mother's portrait. "That's what's been all wrong with us. It isn't the one who sits quietest who's chosen. It's the one who fusses about and chooses for herself. You've got to be able to throw pebbles at glass bottles now. Crochet hooks aren't any good. All our chances have been lost in two purl and one plain. It's their fault, both of them--it's their fault."
Jane spoke so terribly near the truth sometimes that it was agony for those others to listen to her. To Hannah it was sacrilege almost, against the spirit of those still ruling in that house. To Fanny it was no sacrilege. She too knew it had been their fault. But the truth of it was a whip, driving her, not that she forgot her fatigue, but so as to urge her on, stumbling, feeling the hope in her heart like harness wearing into the flesh.
Almost visibly she aged as she listened. Her expression drooped. Her eyes fixed in a steady gaze upon Jane's face while she was speaking as though the weight of lead were holding them from movement.
"Don't speak like that, Jane!" Hannah exclaimed. "How can you say it's their fault? They did the very best they knew for us. Wouldn't you sooner be as you are than like that girl Hyland?"
"She's got a baby now," Jane replied imperturbably. "She'll steady down. She's contributed more than we have. It isn't much when all you can say is that you've given a few old clothes to jumble sales."
"I know what Jane means," said Fanny. Her memory had caught her back to that late evening on the cliffs when she felt again, like an internal wound, that spareness of her body in the arms which for those few moments had held her close. "I know what Jane means," she repeated, and rose from the table, leaving the room, not waiting for her coffee.
At the Golf Club over their boiled eggs and the gritty coffee while Liddiard smoked, they talked of Wenlock Hall, the history of it, the farm and lands surrounding it, the meaning that it had for him.
"How many children have you?" asked Mary.