Litchfield enquirer., 1878-10-03
A MAYFAIR MYSTERY.
By James Payn.
INVITATION.

By James Payn. ai
 INVITATION.
 There are great people and great people in London. If any honest folks from the coun- try should chance to pass Mrs. Patterini's door in Evelyn Lodge on any afternoon in the sea- son. when that lady's splendid equipage is stopping the way there and through the open portal should behold the powdered footnen who await her coming, they would doubtless think Mrs. PatteTini very great parsonage indeed :. much greater than Mrs. Marmaduke Eyre next door, for example, whose neat little unpretenfiOus hrougham is cast into the shade by Mrs. .'s magnificent vehicle, and whose footman wears not even ashOulder-knot. Yet Mrs. P would give her ears-or at least her diamond ear rings-to get an inclination of the head Eom the other lady, who, unhappily, has no inclination for her. There is nothing whatever against the character of Mrs. Patter- mi; she is it 10 be GRsar's wife, so far as any breath e personal scandal is concerned; and if sine is not Caesars, she is the wife of man who has probably, as much money as that hlstoricas pers0nage ever had, and is, in his way, as powerful With a stamp (not of his feot-he makes not the least noise about it) he can raise legions. Don Carlos would kiss him on both cheeks tomorrow and give him all sorts 6f titles merely for his autograph; even the Comic de Chambord might think it worth while to give him his forefnger, in token of a legitimate friendship, in return for the same favor; and l do not think the Pope himself would hesitate to say good word for him in certain quarters in return for his heretical as- sistance. Indeed, for assisting some struggling sovereign or half sovereign-Mr. Patterini did once acquire patent of nobility, which he has been known to exhibit to confidential friends in his smoking groom, and is entitled, he has assured thenl to write himself Baron. Baron and Baroness Patterini can anything have finer or more harmonious sound? And yet, for the life of her, Mrs. P. dare not call her self Baroness. People are so Ill natured, that they will be sure to say dear Anthony-the good mans name is Anthony procured it in some infamous manner; took ten per cent. of his commission upon the Monaco loan, per haps: whereas, as everybody knows, real nobleman is constructed in quite different manner. He must be gentleman first, (though this is not absolutely indispensable; ) then he must have an estate in some country, and represent it in Parliament after contest ed election; and even then, unless he ''rats" at political crisis when the thing is often done at once. it is tedious affair to get enno- bled. It was the more to be regretted that such steps should be necessary, for the name of Patterini seemed to it's female owner sin gularly adapted for a noble prefix the word Mrs. in connection with it appeared to her waste, bathos, like handle of bone prefix ed to a silk parasol; it had a certain Norman ring about it, and even if it was Greek Gas was the fact, the modern Greeks as Cyril Clarke assured her, resemble in their predate- " habits the ancient Normans, Mrs. Patterini did not know what predatory" meant, and she was quite satisfied with the assertion She had the utmost confidence in MT. Cyril Clarke as gentleman and gentle: and both those classes, to say the truth, were, among her inn mediate acQuaintances rather scarce. He was barTister, a rising" one he called him self, but upon cross examination would ad- init frankly that he only meant young bar rister-rising twenty-six. He was handsome, intelligent and sprightly, but the attorneys had not fallen in love with him, nor had he fallen in love with an attorneys daughter. He had fallen in love with Miss Myra Patter- mi, who br rights should have been Baron ness like Ass mother, for one of the great charms of n foreign title is that it descends and spreads. SO that ones whole stock is glo- rified, and one begets, not boys and girls, like the common herd of parents, but Barons and BaronesSes.
 Anything more ludicrous than Mir. Cyril Clarke's pretensions to this young lady's hand, it would have been difficult to conceive. His family, though respectable enough-his fa- ther was minor canon of some cathedral or another, and had a living in the Fens-were by no means Norman he had not shilling in the world-that is to say, judged by an Eve lyn Lodge standard; he had in reality an al- lowance of E250 a year, paid quarterly by his papa, and how he managed to clothe himself in the way he did, and smoke such excellent cigars, was a marvel except to those who knew that he paid nobody except the bankers of his club on the 1st of January. He was not poet nor novelist; he had discovered no new religion nor any flaws in the old ones He had no distinction of any kind which could he supposed by the most charitable to bridge over the great gulf that lay between him and Miss Myra. And yet he dared to love her, and one of her parents knew it. Of course it was the female one. Patterini pore knew nothing except the sharelis British 'and foreign, and which of the great city houses was ''shaky"-a piece of intelligence he al- ways managed to acquire III time to prevent it shaking him One thing more he knew-that under no circumstances whatsoever was he to interfere with the plans of Mrs. Patterini; his privilege was confined to paying for their exc cution. To look at him you would say he was the honestest man, do not say in Greece but in England And far be it from me to hint that he was not honest. He looked like highly respectable grazier, whose talk should have been of beeves when it was not of re- pairing his parish church, situated in pasto- ral district. He had not only the air of 8 church-warden, but of the parsons own church-warden. The keys which he was wont to rattle in his pocket when taking his wife's orders might have belonged to the ves- try, instead of fitting desks full of mysterious documents, with seals and stamps upon them mostly foreign-that represented tens of thousands of pounds.
 He rather liked Cyril Clarke, and was pleasurably surprised that the young man had never asked him to lend him money. His calling was that of lender, and nothing had yet occurred to him in the semblance of friend ship with needy men that had not sooner or later taken that professional term. He had done several s'smart'' things-a term used in the city for benevolent actions-to such per sons during his commercial career, and would have been very willing to have given Cyril Clarke a hundred or two for the asking If he had asked for his daughter, he would not have been angry, but he would probably have offered to provide for him for life in first class lunatic asylum.
 The Baroness, as am afraid the young barrister was wont to call his hostess in the family circle, had even higher ambition with respect to the disposal of her daughters hand than her husband, and yet she permitted this young man to pay her Myra marked atten- tions Nothing serious could come of it, and Cyril was extremely useful to her, and could be retained by no other sort of fee. He was a pleasant, agreeable young fellow, and 'knew everybody" He brought people T chiefly males, however-to Evelyn Lodge who would never have come thither of their own accord, and he.re1ieVed the otherwise insufferable te- dium of her dinner parties
 There are three classes of society in London, each of whom stentertain'' in a. magnificent fashion; the aristocracy, whose reunions are sometimes lively. but more generally dull; the Bohemian rich Ca small body, who despise con vention, and gather around them all those who have talent to recommend them. though it is essential that their lady guests, at least should be of good character); and the miliionaires
 These last, of course, can give you everything that money can buy 'sgood company" not be- ing in the market, is rarely found under their roof. The table groans with delicacies, but the guest if he likes to be amused as we'll as l fed, groans. When you have been told in a