Short Fiction · Josephine de Montmorenci (4/4)

Mr. Brown with words of wisdom explained to them as well as he was able the real facts of the case. It might be that that manuscript, over which the poor invalid had laboured for so many painful hours, would prove to be an invaluable treasure of art, destined to give delight to thousands of readers, and to be, when printed, a source of large profits to publishers, booksellers, and author. Or, again, it might be that, with all its undoubted merits⁠—and that there were such merits Mr. Brown was eager in acknowledging⁠—the novel would fail to make any way with the public. “A publisher,”⁠—so said Mr. Brown⁠—“will hardly venture to pay you a sum of money down, when the risk of failure is so great.”

“But Polly has written ever so many things before,” said Mrs. Puffle.

“That counts for nothing,” said Miss de Montmorenci. “They were short pieces, and appeared without a name.”

“Were you paid for them?” asked Mr. Brown.

“I have never been paid a halfpenny for anything yet.”

“Isn’t that cruel,” said Mrs. Puffle, “to work, and work, and work, and never get the wages which ought to be paid for it?”

“Perhaps there may be a good time coming,” said our editor. “Let us see whether we can get Messrs. X., Y., and Z. to publish this at their own expense, and with your name attached to it. Then, Miss de Montmorenci⁠—”

“I suppose we had better tell him all,” said Josephine.

“Oh, yes; tell everything. I am sure he won’t be angry; he is so good-natured,” said Mrs. Puffle.

Mr. Brown looked first at one, and then at the other, feeling himself to be rather uncomfortable. What was there that remained to be told? He was good-natured, but he did not like being told of that virtue. “The name you have heard is not my name,” said the lady who had written the novel.

“Oh, indeed! I have heard Mrs. Puffle call you⁠—Polly.”

“My name is⁠—Maryanne.”

“It is a very good name,” said Mr. Brown⁠—“so good that I cannot quite understand why you should go out of your way to assume another.”

“It is Maryanne⁠—Puffle.”

“Oh;⁠—Puffle!” said Mr. Brown.

“And a very good name, too,” said Mrs. Puffle.

“I haven’t a word to say against it,” said Mr. Brown. “I wish I could say quite as much as to that other name⁠—Josephine de Montmorenci.”

“But Maryanne Puffle would be quite unendurable on a title page,” said the owner of the unfortunate appellation.

“I don’t see it,” said Mr. Brown doggedly.

“Ever so many have done the same,” said Mrs. Puffle. “There’s Boz.”

“Calling yourself Boz isn’t like calling yourself Josephine de Montmorenci,” said the editor, who could forgive the loss of beauty, but not the assumed grandeur of the name.

“And Currer Bell, and Jacob Omnium, and Barry Cornwall,” said poor Polly Puffle, pleading hard for her falsehood.

“And Michelangelo Titmarsh! That was quite the same sort of thing,” said Mrs. Puffle.

Our editor tried to explain to them that the sin of which he now complained did not consist in the intention⁠—foolish as that had been⁠—of putting such a name as Josephine de Montmorenci on the title page, but in having corresponded with him⁠—with him who had been so willing to be a friend⁠—under a false name. “I really think you ought to have told me sooner,” he said.

“If we had known you had been a friend of Charles’s we would have told you at once,” said the young wife.

“I never had the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Puffle in my life,” said Mr. Brown. Mrs. Puffle opened her little mouth, and held up both her little hands. Polly Puffle stared at her sister-in-law. “And what is more,” continued Mr. Brown, “I never said that I had had that pleasure.”

“You didn’t tell me that Charles smoked at the Post Office,” exclaimed Mrs. Puffle⁠—“which he swears that he never does, and that he would be dismissed at once if he attempted it?” Mr. Brown was driven to a smile. “I declare I don’t understand you, Mr. Brown.”

“It was his little Roland for our little Oliver,” said Miss Puffle.

Mr. Brown felt that his Roland had been very small, whereas the Oliver by which he had been taken in was not small at all. But he was forced to accept the bargain. What is a man against a woman in such a matter? What can he be against two women, both young, of whom one was pretty and the other an invalid? Of course he gave way, and of course he undertook the mission to X., Y., and Z. We have not ourselves read Not So Black as He’s Painted, but we can say that it came out in due course under the hands of those enterprising publishers, and that it made what many of the reviews called quite a success.