It is a curious fact that, whilst a young lady, upon reaching the advanced age of fifteen, is expected to lay aside all else and take a great interest in the pursuit of matrimony, a gentlemen is never accused of considering the subject until he has at least five and twenty years. Robert Weston, who had reached sixteen four weeks previously, was no exception to this rule, reasoning that, since his own parents were indisputably happy, having married at the extreme old age of thirty or more, it would do him no harm to wait that long. Also, Mr Knightley, who was at least as comfortable in marriage as his own parents, had not married until he had reached almost forty, and was becoming a venerable bachelor.
However, whilst I am speaking both of exceptions and Knightleys, it is fitting for me to mention Penelope Knightley, the intimate friend of Robert and daughter to Mr and Mrs Knightley. She was a great beauty-or rather, would have been a great beauty, were she less of a romp. On the rare occasion that she was not up a tree with her friend or one of her brothers, of whom she had seven, her skirt was invariably torn, her hair tangled, and her skin tanned and freckled. Her mother sighed over her and wondered when she would find a husband for her wayward daughter, but her father was very fond of his Penny, and would reprimand her only when she committed real error, "Far less than you do me," Mrs Knightley once said with a laugh. Penelope was an exception to almost every unspoken law of etiquette, but most particularly, the rule about young ladies desiring matrimony excessively. Miss Knightley was aware that, sometime in the distant future, she was destined to lose her heart to some stranger, enjoy six months of wedded bliss, and then mature into educated indifference. However, she had the intention of squeezing every moment of enjoyment from her life possible before that dusty fate.
Even at the age of fifteen, Penelope had suffered from her mother's matchmaking attempts. Recently, Mr and Mrs Frank Churchill had relocated to Hartfield, bring with them their dashing son, also called Frank. Mrs Knightley, now enough in love with her husband to forget her own narrow escape from heartbreak, spent several months trying to manoeuvre meetings between her daughter and the younger Mr Churchill, then eighteen. Penelope had stubbornly refused to become attached to him, and eventually he saved her from having to endure her mother's efforts, by falling in love himself, and eloping with Emma Martin, the daughter of Mrs and Mrs Martin, and being disowned by his family and friends. This had relieved almost everyone, but most particularly Mr Knightley, who had strongly objected to his wife's efforts, and Robert Weston, who thought his admittedly dull half-brother's son would struggle to make his friend happy.
The friendship had suffered some misinterpretations, of course. Once the two had been introduced to visitors as "most particular friends," and two days later it was all over Hartfield that the only Miss Knightley was engaged to be married to one remarkably below her social situation; another time there was a rumour that a small child Mr Robert Weston and Miss Knightley had been seen with was the result of an indiscretion. Other than these minor mishaps, however, they carried on in live, happy and content with their friendship and little dreaming that anything would ever happen to change it.
I know this is short. It's just a prequel for a VERY long Emma-based story, using Robert and Penny, that I refuse to put online until I've got In-Laws for Narnia properly underway again. (I'm very sorry to everyone that it hasn't been updated recently, by the way. School is too much hassle for anything apart from one-shots at the moment).