I made a separate thread but probably should have just revived this one. Kari Korhonen did a story that gives some much-needed backstory to Hortense, saying that she was
I‘ve been daydreaming for a while about a spin-off comic series featuring Matilda and Hortense that I’d love to write and draw one day. It would be about their childhood and teenage years at Castle McDuck. In my head, Downy and Fergus ran a guesthouse at Castle McDuck between them moving there and Downy’s death. I like that more than them just passively sitting in the castle depending entirely on Scrooge’s money. The stories could be partly about the people coming to stay there – the McDucks could meet real historical figures that way, just like Scrooge! Some scheming Whiskervilles could be the villains. And it would all be framed as Matilda’s diaries or memoirs. I like to think she became a children’s book author.