In Pride and Prejudice, Lydia is only fifteen when she marries Mr Wickham. With the Bennet family wanting to avoid drawing attention to the scandalous elopement by having the banns read in church (and not enough time elapsing in the story for that to have happened anyway), we can assume they married by common licence.

Applying for a licence required certain steps to be fulfilled. Whoever applied for the licence was required to put forward a bond (a promise of payment) and an allegation (a sworn testimony), which were both held on file at the registry. The allegation confirmed the places of residence, ages, and marital status of the couple and attested to the absence of any impediment to the marriage, including an illegal familial relationship between the parties or a previous marriage or engagement. Where either the bride or groom was younger than the age of consent, which was at the time 21, it would also need the signed consent of the person’s legal guardian. The bond was a pledge to forfeit an agreed amount of money if any part of the allegation was proved to have been falsified. The sum was large–as much as £200, which few people would have been able to afford–in an attempt to deter fraudulent activity.

In Pride and Prejudice, Mr Bennet is absent from Lydia’s nuptials, so we must assume his brother-in-law, Mr Gardiner, provided that written consent on his behalf, no doubt with Mr Bennet’s blessing. He may also have pledged the bond money, although Mr Darcy probably covered that. He covered most of the costs for everything else, after all!

In Unfounded, the course of these events runs slightly differently. In this scene, which did not make the final cut into the finished book, we get some hints–though by no means all the answers–as to how Lydia and Wickham got their hands on a marriage licence.

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NOBODY EXPECTED LYDIA TO RETURN HOME OF HER OWN VOLITION, quite unaided by her father or uncle, and with her new husband in tow, but that was precisely what she did. On an otherwise innocuous Tuesday afternoon in late August, a hack-chaise rattled up Longbourn’s drive and deposited Mr and Mrs Wickham on the front step. 

Kitty was the first to spot them. She ran through the house to the front door, shouting excitedly for everyone to come, and threw herself into her favourite sister’s arms. Elizabeth came next, her heart in her mouth as she hastened to discover at what fate Lydia—and she—had arrived. Mrs Gardiner and Mary soon followed, and Mrs Bennet, aided by Jane, fumbled her way downstairs in her undress.

“How silly you all look, staring at me as though you had never seen a married woman before!” Lydia snatched up Wickham’s arm. “I bet none of you thought I should be married before you, did you? You must call me Mrs Wickham now!”

Wickham, who like his wife looked undeservedly pleased with himself, bowed his head. “Good day, sisters. Aunt. It is a pleasure to see you all.”

There was a stunned silence.

They were calling themselves husband and wife, then. It was impossible, for Lydia was only fifteen, but that they were claiming it, as bold as brass, meant they very likely were wedded, in all the ways that mattered to a woman’s virtue. They were married, they were unrepentant, and they were grotesque. Elizabeth felt sick. She fought to constrain her anger and despair sufficiently to permit speech, but neither she nor anyone else had the chance to say a word before Mrs Bennet burst over the threshold, her arms outstretched, and pulled her youngest daughter into her embrace.

“I thought I should never see you again! We thought you lost!”

Mrs Gardiner’s eyes flew wide, and she looked urgently at Jane and Elizabeth, then at the several servants who had gathered. Jane immediately began encouraging the couple indoors. Elizabeth sent the servants away to fetch refreshments. Lydia allowed herself to be swept through the hall, giggling and smiling at all the attention, pausing only long enough to issue a careless request for somebody to pay the postillion, claiming she and Wickham could not afford the fare from London. 

Elizabeth was eternally thankful for her aunt’s presence in the hour that followed. Kitty added only nonsense to proceedings, and Mary only moralising. Mrs Bennet had not the sense to be anxious for her daughter’s predicament and said nothing that was not overexcited or overoptimistic. Jane was too kind to speak against either bride or groom, and Elizabeth almost too cross to speak at all, thus Mrs Gardiner’s was the only useful voice among them. With delicate questioning and a civility towards Wickham that Elizabeth was wholly unequal to pretending, her aunt extracted the salient details of the supposed nuptials.

Wickham had resigned his commission in Colonel Forster’s regiment. Lydia joyfully owned to being the orchestrator of their furtive departure from Brighton, claiming the prospect of adventure had been ‘too delicious to refuse,’ and Wickham seemed happy to let her assume the blame for it. They had been married only a matter of hours, having come directly from the church, and seemed unable to account for the period between their elopement and its conclusion other than to say they had not felt any urgency and might have waited longer had they not run out of money. The ceremony was witnessed by two of Wickham’s acquaintance. Permission for the marriage had been granted, Lydia gleefully informed them, by Mr Bennet himself. 

“Does Papa know you are married, then?” Kitty asked, her nose screwed up in perplexity. 

A little noise of incredulity bubbled up in Elizabeth’s throat. She disliked it when her father accused her youngest two sisters of being silly and ignorant, which he did often, but he was right: they had not two grains of sense between them. “Of course he does not know, else he would have come home with them! They have done this in secret—I cannot imagine what deceits they must have fabricated to make it possible.”

“That is the best part!” said Lydia. She was still laughing and had not seemed to notice that even her mother had stopped smiling. “You do not have to provide any proof—you only need to write a letter saying you have permission. What a joke! I could have been marrying a donkey and I do not think anyone would have taken notice.”

Elizabeth refrained from asking whether she was sure she had not.

Mrs Gardiner shook her head. “A marriage allegation is more than a letter, Lydia. It is a formal statement kept on file at the registry. Pray, who witnessed it?”

“Oh, I do not know. Some friend of Wickham’s.”

“It was my cousin, madam,” Wickham said collectedly.

“There we are then. That sounds very official, very proper,” said Mrs Bennet, though she did not look as though she had convinced herself. 

“And does your cousin know my father, that he felt comfortable giving his sanction to this union without his knowledge?” Elizabeth enquired, incensed.

“I do not believe they are acquainted, Sister, no. But when I explained how violently I was in love with Lydia, he agreed with me that Mr Bennet was unlikely to object.”

At an expressive look from her aunt, Elizabeth said no more, but she shivered at the remembrance of how agreeable she had once believed Wickham to be. 

“Was your cousin obliged to pledge a bond, sir?” Mrs Gardiner enquired. 

“A bond? What does that mean, a bond?” Mrs Bennet asked, all alarm. Jane took her hand and assured her it was of no matter.

“He was,” Wickham answered, “but he was happy to, for it secured my lasting happiness.”

Mrs Gardiner gave him a small, cold smile. “I hope it was not a very large sum. You must know your cousin will forfeit it if Mr Bennet decides to have the marriage set aside.”

“Why would he do that?” Lydia cried indignantly. “Mama is forever saying how important it is that we are all married. Well, now I am! Papa will be delighted! Where is he?”

“In London,” Mary replied coldly. “Looking for you.”

“A shame, for I had hoped to speak to him,” Wickham said.

“And I am sure he will wish to speak to you, sir,” said Mrs Gardiner. “We shall send word to him directly. For now, may I suggest we all repair to rest before dinner?”

Jane extracted her hand from her mother’s grip and came to her feet. “I shall have a room made up for you, Mr Wickham.”

“For us both you mean, Jane,” Lydia said. “The blue room will do very nicely.”

Jane blanched and looked uncertainly at Elizabeth. 

Lydia snorted loudly. “You did not think I would be sleeping with Kitty still, did you?”

Elizabeth walked to Jane to whisper quietly. “The servants all heard them say they are married. We shall have to go along with it.”

With a slow nod and a sorrowful look at Lydia, Jane left to make the arrangements. Lydia followed, telling everybody loudly that she wished to ensure everything was done to suit her husband’s preferences. Mrs Gardiner escorted Mrs Bennet back to her room and Mary took Kitty to check on their young cousins, leaving Elizabeth alone with Wickham.

“It really is wonderful to see you,” he began with perfect indifference. “When I went away, I seem to recall you had an intention of travelling with Mr and Mrs Gardiner. Did you enjoy yourselves?”

Every part of Elizabeth revolted against answering him. That he should think it acceptable to make trifling conversation in the face of such egregious perfidy was insult enough–that it should be he who raised the ugly spectre of everything his recklessness and impudence had cost her was simply too much. 

“I cannot stay and talk, sir. I must send an express to my father. Excuse me.”

***

Elizabeth had never, in all her life, seen her father as angry as upon his return the next day. He was not a large man and was more wont to use irony than volume in an argument, but he charged into Longbourn like a bull in the ring; enraged, tearing savagely into anything foolish enough to enter his path, and bellowing for Wickham to attend him. 

The insouciance with which Wickham sauntered down the stairs and bowed turned Mr Bennet’s face purple and made Elizabeth want to scream. The two men disappeared into the library. Her father slammed the door, and within moments, his raised voice could be heard, questioning Wickham’s motives, his intentions, his honour. Whatever was said in response was spoken too quietly to hear, but her father’s mounting vexation gave Elizabeth to understand it was not constructive.

“I should go in,” Mrs Bennet said, though she did not look particularly eager. “Your father will murder him if this is allowed to carry on.”

Elizabeth, Jane, and Mrs Gardiner all exchanged glances. “I think we ought to let them resolve matters on their own,” Mrs Gardiner said. “Will you not come with me and say goodbye to the children before I take them home later?”

Mrs Bennet capitulated instantly, looking vastly relieved. Elizabeth and Jane remained. They listened with increasing dismay to the one-sided argument, attempting to judge when it might become necessary to enter the ring themselves. 

“What sort of monster concerns himself with a child of fifteen?” Mr Bennet roared.

A calm murmur could be heard in response.

Evidently not the answer for which Mr Bennet hoped, for he bellowed his reply. “Have you no shame, sir?”

Wickham replied in the same, dispassionate tone–a clear indication that no, he had none. 

“Yes, you married her—eventually. Let neither of us pretend that you would not have abandoned her in an instant if a more lucrative option had presented itself before then.”

Elizabeth glanced at Jane, who was still attempting to find a way to colour the elopement in more romantic shades, but she was staring down at her clasped hands and would not look up. 

Wickham could be heard saying something else.

“Because men with honest intentions do not abscond in the dead of night!” Mr Bennet answered, enraged.

Wickham was becoming more animated now, and Elizabeth caught snatches of his reply. Something to do with Lydia throwing herself into his carriage—to which her sister had already confessed, but it hardly excused Wickham’s actions. Her father evidently agreed. 

“And are you so fainthearted that you could not refuse a young girl?”

“She is not so childlike as you wish to believe,” Wickham replied, every angry word now crisply audible. “She was firm to her purpose, I am nothing if not a red-blooded man. You ought to be grateful I did not hand her back the same night in ruins.”

Jane gasped. Elizabeth clenched her fists, despising that this last was true.

“And why did you not?” Mr Bennet demanded. “Do not dare try and tell me it was because of your affection for her.”

“Believe it or not, sir, I am not indifferent. I admire Lydia’s spirit. We have had fun these past weeks, and I daresay we shall continue to do so in the future. But you must give me something, that I might keep her in the comfort to which she is accustomed. And I entreat you not to deny us what she assures me is owed to her upon your death and her mother’s.”

Elizabeth grabbed Jane’s wrist and slapped her other hand over her mouth to stop herself from protesting in outrage. Jane closed her eyes and shook her head forlornly. 

There was a pause that suggested Mr Bennet was equally incredulous before he said, “You will not get a farthing from me.”

Wickham’s voice dropped again, but he obviously argued, for his words drew a furious response. 

“I am under no such obligation, because by that same law, you are not married! I did not and never will give my consent to this union. Consider your marriage annulled!”

Elizabeth winced and looked at her sister. She waited for Jane to nod and then knocked on the door. Her father barked an instruction to be left alone, which she ignored and edged her way into the library. 

Mr Bennet whipped around to look at them. “Not now.”

Elizabeth was shocked by his appearance. He seemed to have aged a decade in the last ten minutes, his countenance haggard, his hair wild, and his eyes brimming with hurt. Her heart broke for what she must say, and what she knew it would do to him to hear it. 

“Papa, you cannot annul the marriage. They have been living as man and wife for over two weeks. Lydia might already be with child. The servants know they have exchanged vows. Lydia said she stopped to tell everyone they passed on the way through Meryton yesterday. She showed William Goulding her ring. If you annul the marriage, she will be ruined. We all will.” 

She could not look at Wickham but she imagined he must be delighted to have her support. She wished she did not have to look at her father, for he looked utterly stricken. 

“You would have me accept this worthless maggot as my son?”

“I am not completely worthless,” Wickham said insolently. “Penniless, I grant you, but I should not like to think with some merit.”

“Please stop it, Mr Wickham,” Jane said with uncommon asperity. “You have got what you wanted. There is no need to be brutish about it.” 

Wickham shrugged. “I wish only to provide for Lyd—”

“No, sir, you wish me to provide for her,” Mr Bennet interrupted.

“She must have something to live on.”

“You would have had something to live on, had you stayed in Colonel Forster’s regiment.”

“I could not remain there. There were several pressing matters that would have made it very awkward.”

“You mean you had debts there, too.”

Wickham did not answer. Elizabeth ground her teeth, recalling with abhorrence her attempt to defend his character to Darcy—and at such a moment, as he laid bare his most intimate feelings! How he had found the heart to forgive her for it, she would never know.

Mr Bennet stood for a good while, saying nothing. At length, he said, “You are right, of course, Lizzy, though Lord knows I wish you were not.” 

He turned his eyes to Wickham, his countenance slack, as though he had run out of ire entirely. “You will have fifty pounds a year during my lifetime. Lydia will have a share of her mother’s portion when the time comes, but I make no promises as to the proportion of it.”

“Sir, I cannot possibly live on so little.”

“Then I suggest you secure a position.”

“Doing what?” Wickham said with a scathing laugh.

“If only you had studied the law as you once claimed was your intention,” Elizabeth said resentfully. When Wickham glanced anxiously in her direction, it dawned on her that he must have guessed whence the information came. She felt a bittersweet thrill to see him baulk at the slightest reference to Darcy. If that was what it took to bridle the odious man, she was quite content to let him think the acquaintance a strong one, no matter that she would never be able to claim the slightest connection to Darcy again. She held Wickham’s gaze until he turned back to Mr Bennet.

“Sir, it is not unreasonable that I should ask for—”

“You can ask until you are blue in the face, it will not change a thing. I have four other daughters to feed, and no more money to my name.” Mr Bennet bit off his next words and grimaced as though in genuine pain before reluctantly saying, “One hundred pounds a year. That is all I can give you. You must find a way to make it enough.” He abruptly slumped forward, landing heavily with both hands on his desk, his head hung low. 

“Papa!” Elizabeth rushed forwards, as did Jane. 

“Yes, yes, thank you, girls. I am only tired. I shall go to my room now.” He stopped at the door and said, without looking at him, “Mr Wickham, for my wife’s sake, and Lydia’s, I shall allow you to remain in this house for another night. Come tomorrow morning, you will find our hospitality is entirely depleted.”

Without another glance at Wickham, Elizabeth left also, going directly to use the writing desk in the front parlour. A rising sense of panic had been growing stronger in her the longer the interview had gone on. Wickham was here to stay, and all possibility of being reunited with Darcy was fading fast. She would write to her aunt Wallis, who was far enough away from all these harrowing goings on that she might be able to offer some perspective, some hope, that had not yet occurred to Elizabeth.

She wrote first of her concern for her father, whose queer turn seemed more than mere fatigue. Then she wrote at length of Lydia’s pitiful situation, that her sister’s husband had shown himself to be vicious and unprincipled, and that no matter which way she looked at it, her sister’s life was ruined—and her own along with it.

And there she stopped. She could not write any more because her tears prevented her from seeing the page clearly. 

“Lizzy?” she heard Jane say. 

She wiped her eyes before her sister reached her, but Jane was not fooled. 

“What is the matter?”

“I shall never see him again, shall I? Not now.”

If Jane had demurred, Elizabeth might have tried to believe her. As it was, her sister’s pitying silence made her heart contract painfully. She nodded with resignation, and when Jane squeezed her hand, she squeezed it back tightly and did not let go for a long time.

She did not finish her letter. Consigning the hopelessness of her love for Darcy to written words would only make it seem more final, and she was not brave enough for it. Instead, she signed off where she had stopped and sealed it for posting in the morning, then went to bed, trying not to listen to Lydia and Wickham’s raucous laughter as she passed the drawing room door.