The rectory house at Carsdeane proved to be in so extremely dilapidated a state that, in order to make it at all a comfortable residence, Lord Osborne proposed to rebuild it entirely. In the meantime there was no suitable home for Emma, and he feared their marriage must be delayed at least for some months, instead as he had hoped of taking place immediately.
This was a very great disappointment to them both. Emma had ventured to hope that the Autumn would have seen her installed in a settled home, of which she would be the mistress, and they tried very hard to persuade themselves and each other, that it would not be more prudent and advisable, to wait till Mr. Howard had a house to receive his bride. They might have succeeded perhaps in thinking so themselves, but they could not induce their friends to agree in the decision. On the contrary, like most friends when two young people wish to marry, they all concurred in considering it a very great advantage that they should wait a little.
And I am far from supposing them wrong in the idea. Taking into consideration Emma's youth, for she was not yet quite twenty, and the shortness of their acquaintance, which had as yet lasted barely six months, I am of opinion that the delay even of a whole year would have been by no means detrimental to their future happiness. It was perfectly natural that both Mr. and Miss Bridge should adopt this idea, and I trust equally so that since they urged it, Emma should yield to their prudent persuasions: the more especially as appearing to yield at this time and agreeing to wait a twelvemonth, would by no means preclude them from entirely changing their minds in a couple of months time, in case they should see any occasion for so doing.
As to any difficulty about Emma's home in the meantime, Miss Bridge declared it could not exist, since her house was always open to her, and she could regard her in no other light than as her adopted child. In vain Mr. Howard remonstrated. Miss Bridge was so firm in her conviction that Emma had better spend the next year in her house, and professed so much satisfaction at the idea, that he at last declared, in despair, he was certain it was for the sake of securing her company that Miss Bridge interposed to prevent the marriage.
Before however the two disputants could settle their conflicting claims on Emma's society, a new turn was given to the affair by the intervention of her youngest brother. He should want a companion at Chichester, and it had always been an understood thing he declared, that Emma was to live with him till she married. She readily admitted the fact, and so it was settled; she was to accompany him to Chichester immediately after Elizabeth's wedding, and remain there as he said, "until they were tired of one another."
Howard yielded this point much more readily than the other. Carsdeane was much nearer Chichester than Burton, and he could easily visit her there. Besides his penetration led him to surmise that Sam would be soon desirous of placing another person at the head of his establishment; that a sister's society would not long content him, and that when this change took place, he would probably be thankful to be relieved from the charge he was undertaking. He thought it likewise a great advantage that she should be removed entirely from Croydon for a time, and from the painful impressions which he observed seemed still to haunt her. She had suffered so much there, as he now began to understand, that he could not help wishing that she should see the place no more; a wish in which she certainly did not concur when she remembered it would be Elizabeth's future home.
The wedding that week was a very quiet one: the death of Mr. Morgan had thrown a damp over the whole town from which it could not at once recover, and no one felt inclined to indulge in festivities where he would be so much missed. Accordingly everything was conducted in the simplest manner, to the great disappointment of Mrs. Watson, who vowed it was hardly worth putting on her new and handsome clothes, when there would be no one to see her at Church.
It was some alleviation to her distress of mind however to remember that they would be equally handsome and more interesting after the wedding was over, and she should be able to appear in uncommon splendour, when returning all the congratulatory visits on some subsequent occasion.
When all was over, and Mrs. George Millar and her husband had set out from Croydon to make a short visit to London, which the bride had never seen, Emma took an affectionate leave of Annie Millar, and returned to the Rectory to prepare for her journey.
Sam remained a few minutes behind; it was only to ask Annie if she still thought marriages as foolish as she had always declared them to be.