If it was one thing Maudelaine hated, it was romance novels. She had no real problem with books. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, ledgers, those were all very useful and served a practical purpose. What she didn't understand was why people thought it necessary to make things up, put it on paper, and expect other people to suffer through the torment of reading it. Novels were considered indecent and so it was a given that most of the other young ladies her age would be sneaking chapters behind their parents' backs. Maudelaine, in a fit of youthful rebellion and morbid curiosity, had snuck a paragraph from an acquaintance's copy of "Pamela". It had been, she thought, the worst bit of rubbish she'd ever read. Stupid, really. And utterly indecent. Imagine a man of position and power falling in love with a common chamber maid! Ridiculous. If her life was to contain any scandal- which it most certainly never would- Maudelaine decided then and there that it would not come in the form of novels.
What she did like was numbers. Numbers were simple and concrete and the black ink and white paper on which they were written. Numbers didn't change. Two and two still equaled four today just the same as it had in Pythagoras' time. Sums and ciphers had always come very easily to her and though it was unbecoming for a woman to figure arithmetic outside the family budget, it was something she was good at. Embroidery was something of a necessary evil, so too her instructions in drawing, music, and dancing. Grids made sewing and drawing less arduous but dancing could never be gotten around, no more could music. Counting was within her scope, but rhythm, it seemed, was not. The fact that she was utterly tone-deaf didn't help matters either. It didn't really matter. She hated parties and concerts anyway. If ever she had a daughter, she was not going to have to endure that sort of nonsense.
When she caught said daughter sneaking novels several years later- heaven alone knew where from- she had been scandalized to say the least. Well, Victoria was only eleven. She could hardly be expected to know better. Upon confiscating the offending volume Maudelaine had intended on throwing it in the dustbin. However, at that moment the bell had rung and Emil had announced visitors. Tossing the book onto the sideboard, she went to receive them and didn't give it a second thought until later that evening. Catching sight of it a second time, she noticed it had fallen upon its back and lay open, parted pages facing the ceiling. She hadn't intended to read it and yet it caught her attention. An orphaned girl making her way by her wits alone. Plain yet highly intelligent, Jane Eyre had escaped poverty and a brutal life at a charity school through her greatest asset: her brain. Well now. That was far-fetched but at least not as ridiculous as that atrocious bit of fluff Gertrude had shown her back in their school days. Maybe this peculiar bit of ill-gotten literature bore further investigation. Maybe, just maybe, she could convince Victoria to admit where she'd found the book. It might be a pack of ridiculous lies, but it was apparently at least worth the paper it was printed on. Not that there was anything scandalous in reading itself. Finis spent enough time with that chipped nose of his buried in dull volumes about arcane warfare, but novels, even half-decent ones, were not entirely the same thing. The chamber inside the grandfather clock of the west drawing room seemed a safe enough hiding place. She just hoped Finis wouldn't find it.