You are correct that a laundress in 1834 would not have had much, if any, formal education. But you don't need formal education to know what numbers are, and she certainly would have known how to count -- because it was an essential skill to doing her job. "Put in two gallons o' bleach; let 'em soak twenty minutes; then give 'em 200 good strong stirs," etc.
So while she absolutely would not dare know more than what she needed to do her job, she would be expected to know enough to be able to do her job. And she would need to be a quick learner, because she would only be told once; and even if there were written instructions somewhere, she would not be able to read them to refresh her recollection.
This was an era when people still had very strong auditory and kinaesthetic memory skills. You don't need to be able to read and write to know how to count and tell time.
You are also correct that people "upstairs" would never go downstairs, as much because they would be in the way of the servants getting the work of the house done as for class distinctions. (Gentry may have been snobbish toward the serving classes but they weren't stupid - especially in England, where they knew their servants had a right to leave their employment and go work for somebody else.)
But there were rare occasions when the Mistress of the house and, much less frequently, the Master, might go downstairs. And, of course, the storyline in Black Velvet Gown presents the siblings in question as a pair of rebellious teens who don't obey the rules, so it's not surprising they make their way downstairs and cause a lot of trouble.
The father's reaction to their antics is also quite historically accurate. A real father in that situation in the Victoria era would certainly have stopped their allowances, if not more. Just going downstairs would have been enough to get them in trouble - because they were being irresponsible by getting in the way of the servants getting the work of the house done. And they did much worse than just get in the way. They opened their father to snide allegations by his peers that he treated his servants like slaves and chattels, and was terribly, hopelessly behind the times. We can't have the son of a man like that getting a seat in Parliament; oh, deary me, no! So, yes, a real 1834 father from the landed gentry class would have been very upset indeed by the actions of his children.
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