When, some time after, the news of the death of Earl Derwentwater reached her, Lady Earlswood at once determined to cultivate the new Earl's acquaintance. He must most certainly be invited to the wedding. He was Kenmore's nearest relative, and, although she knew that her future son-in-law was angry with him at present, he must be made to see the importance of a reconciliation with his brother before the grand event took place. Lady Maude was still an unappropriated blessing, and who could tell whether she might not have a chance of gaining the title which her sister had unfortunately lost?
During the latter part of the Earl's life, he and his son had been left in peaceful enjoyment of each other's society. He recovered from his severe illness to a great extent, and was able to be moved daily on to a couch in his own room; but on the fourteenth of March another heart attack had occurred, more violent than any of those which had preceded it, and in the space of a few hours he had passed away.
Lord Kenmore would not even come to his brother's funeral, and uncle and nephew had therefore never met.
Now Kenneth had at last been able to leave the Castle, and had come to Birmingham to wind up his affairs there, and was therefore sitting to write his letters in his old place in Mrs. Hall's dismal little room. She was very sorry to lose her lodger, and told him that she would never have another like him. He had paid her in full for all the time he had been away, and had delighted her heart by the present of a new carpet and some pretty furniture to adorn her little room.
"Well, now, to be sure, if ever there was a gentleman, he's one!" she would say to her friends.
Kenneth, as he sat at the table in the window, was writing a letter to Mrs. Douglas. If we had looked over his shoulder, we should have seen that it ran thus:
"156, Lime Street, Birmingham,
"April 3.
"DEAR MRS. DOUGLAS,
"I am hoping to have the pleasure of calling upon you some time next week. I was so charmed with the peep I had of Borrowdale two years ago, that I am planning a little holiday in your beautiful neighbourhood, and I think of making the comfortable inn at Rosthwaite my headquarters during the time I am in Cumberland.
"I am glad to be able to tell you that I am receiving more money this year, and therefore hope that my next remittance will be a somewhat larger one.
"With kind regards,
"Yours sincerely,
"KENNETH FORTESCUE."
He read this letter through several times after he had written it. He had purposely addressed it from his old lodging in Birmingham. He had carefully concealed his present position. Had she not said, "I rather hope you are not a lord; you would seem so much less our friend."
Why, then, should he tell her? He would go unattended, as the poor man he had been when she saw him last; then she would feel that no wide social gulf had come between them. He had no fear of her discovering otherwise who he was; even Kenmore would never connect him with the Captain Fortescue of whom he might possibly have heard at Grantley Castle. In the Earl's statement, his foster-father had been called by his proper name, Tomkins; the name Fortescue had not even been mentioned. So that Kenneth felt sure that his secret was safe, and he hoped that therefore he would not seem "so much less their friend."
He had to spend two days in Birmingham winding up his accounts, and at the end of them, he received Mrs. Douglas's answer. She told him that she was glad to get his letter, and that they would all be very pleased to see him again in Borrowdale.