The next meeting with Mary took place, not at her lodgings, but once more at Lady Bertram’s residence, for before Susan was able to call upon her friend, that lady called upon her. She was in company with a lady and a gentleman of her own age who, she explained, were longtime friends of hers lately arrived in Bath for a stay of only a few nights’ duration. The Gregorys had known each other all their lives, and married young, a state of affairs Susan found hard to imagine when she thought back to the rough boys she had been acquainted with in her days living in Portsmouth. Then again, had not Fanny known Edmund since childhood?
“You must forgive us,” Mrs Gregory entreated in a manner that was quite disarming. “For Mary told us you and she had plans, and yet we insisted she spend the mornin
