The Honeywood Files (20 page)

Dear Lady Brash, 30.8.25.

Mr. Grigblay has sent me a copy of your letter of Sunday. I understand you want the partition moved so as to make the dressing-room wider. Are you really quite sure you would like this? No. 6 was designed as a dressing-room only, though big enough to take a bed on occasion, and there is a door from it to the bedroom of No. 5. If you widen the dressing-room by, say, 3 ft.,
you will reduce the bedroom by 3 ft
. Have you realized this, I wonder? The result will be that you will have a quite small single bedroom with a door opening into a double bedroom also so much on the small side that I am afraid you will be disappointed with it. I mention this because I have used particular care not to have any mean-looking rooms, and because I was originally asked to arrange for a good double room with dressing-room en suite, and the plan provides this.

If the partition is moved, the windows will be displaced and both rooms will look lop-sided and ungainly—in fact, they will be spoilt so far as appearance goes. Do you not think it would be simpler to put your big wardrobe in another room and, generally, fit the furniture to the rooms? It is really too late now to attempt to alter rooms to suit furniture. It would be a great pity to shift the partition, and I am sure you would be sorry if it were done.

I hope Sir Leslie is having good sport.

Yours sincerely,

Spinlove’s difficulty is no less because it is a common one. He is under obligations to be courteous and patient and amenable to his employer’s ambitions; but he cannot ignore his own reputation nor that of his profession, and with this is associated the duty of rendering unfailing services so that his client shall be guided to make wise decisions and protected from hasty and foolish ones. The indications are that Lady Brash is so light-witted and so spoilt that appeals to her better judgment will impress her merely as opposition. When such a woman wants anything she has no attention to give to reasons against it; and in this case the lady’s mind is probably incapable of holding two ideas at the same time. The best thing for Spinlove to do would be to make up his mind that Lady Brash does not understand what she is asking, and take an early opportunity of cajoling and flattering her to a sounder judgment.

One awkwardness of the position is that even if Spinlove found sufficient justification to do what the wife demands, he could scarcely act without the authority of the husband. If he writes to Brash for that authority and does not get it; or if the lady knows he has written; or if he acts without writing and is taken to task, he is in danger of becoming involved in—well, let us say, an intermission of marital bliss, which may thereafter encumber him with petty dilemmas, make his work a misery instead of a pleasure and his best offices a personal failure instead of a success.

LADY BRASH TO SPINLOVE

Dear Mr. Spinlove,

I do not want any door and I want it in
that
room as it is the room my sister will have when she comes and it was in our old home and she is used to it so I cannot have it anywhere else as it does not go with the other furniture. Of course I do not want the windows changed only the wall. [
“It” is, evidently, the wardrobe.
]

A man came about sweeping the chimneys. He said his name was Mr. Williams and in new houses the chimneys cannot be swept unless you get on the roof and break the tiles so I really do not know
what
to say. I wish Sir Leslie was at home to see about it. How chilly the wind has been!

With kind regards,

Yours v. sincerely,

Friday.

A touting chimney-sweep has apparently been telling the poor woman that flues are sometimes so built that they cannot be swept.

SPINLOVE TO LADY BRASH

Dear Lady Brash, 3.9.25.

I will see that the chimneys can be swept without anyone having to get on the roof. I will call at eleven on Saturday morning and settle with you what is to be done. Yes, the wind has certainly been rather chilly.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely,

This looks more hopeful.

The letter which follows deals with so many points of detail that I will interpolate my comments.

GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

Dear Sir, 4.9.25.

Our foreman took down the partition between rooms Nos. 5 and 6, but her Ladyship now says that it is the one between Nos. 8 and 9 she wanted moved. Her Ladyship seemed very much upset and directed Bloggs to take down the latter partition which he has now about finished. This, as you know, is a double breeze partition. Her Ladyship said you decided to increase dressing-room 3 ft., but we do not think you can intend that on account of linen cupboard. See plan.

[
Spinlove mentioned 3 ft. as an illustration only, and had in mind another partition.
]

Four feet nine seems the least we can manage with, and that will bring the wall very close up to window. You will remember there was a post on this partition supporting purlin. Bloggs has got this pinned up temporarily, but we shall want a steel joist to take this post, which we think is the best way out of the difficulty. We take it the binder carrying this partition, which is finished as a plastered beam on ceiling below, will remain, and the new binder put in above level of ceiling.

The heating engineer says he does not see how to run his return which came down in the corner of this partition. We told him we would chase wall, but that is an awkward job, as it is only 4 ½ ins. [
The inner lining of hollow external wall, presumably
], and we are afraid the casing cannot be made flush with wall, as it is a 2-in. pipe, even if we sink back of casing where the unions come. We shall be glad of your immediate instructions as the work is being delayed; also authority for extra.

Watkins started glazing their casements, but we had to stop their men as her Ladyship says they are wrong. We understand sheet or plate is wanted. We had to let Watkins’s men go away, which is a pity, as we have had a lot of trouble to get them.

[
Watkins must be sub-contractor for the iron casements, and his fixing of leaded glazing is referred to.
]

There is a sweep been hanging about who said he was engaged by her Ladyship to sweep the chimneys. Bloggs told him he had no orders for him, but he afterwards found the man at work and two of the labourers had to see him off the premises. We mention the matter as we should like her Ladyship to understand that we had no instructions to admit the man, and as we are responsible for this work we prefer to entrust it to our own workmen. The parging is green as yet.

[
The builder is under contract to sweep flues to prove they are clear and have been properly built for sweeping.
]

The alteration to the partition will push the lavatory basin in the bedroom so far over that we shall not be able to get the waste into the same head taking those of dressing-room and room beyond, and a separate head and vertical waste will be necessary, and we do not see how this can be made to clear the garden entrance and window below.

[
The dressing-room is perhaps 7 ft. wide, and Spinlove has been able to scheme so that the waste from lavatory-fitting in this room, and those in the bedrooms adjoining on each side, shall all discharge into the rain-water head and be conducted to the ground by one inconspicuous vertical pipe.
]

A lead waste carried diagonally over the head of garden entrance and across to the gully receiving the vertical waste would, however, meet the case.

We shall be glad of your early instructions.

Yours faithfully,

A lead pipe trailing conspicuously across the wall in close proximity to one of Spinlove’s architectural prettinesses, and reaching out frantically to the gully, would be a calamity. Such botches are unworthy of a competent speculative builder—they disgrace an architect.

This letter is an example of the disinterested solicitude of Grigblay for the success of the work. Few builders would lay the matter out so fully, but would either put the work in hand, or say they could not go on and ask for instructions. It also displays in a remarkable manner how the carefully contrived economies of means to ends and neat perfections of a skilful design may be cast into hopeless confusion by merely one act of capricious interference. However, here is some more of it!

SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY

Dear Sir, 5.9.25.

I was dumbfounded to learn that you have allowed your foreman to pull down and alter the work in face of my written instructions to the contrary. I tried to get into touch with Mr. Grigblay on telephone to-day. Will he please ring me up without fail to-morrow morning?

I confirm my telephone instructions that no further alterations are to be made except by my explicit directions. I am at a complete loss to understand why it should be necessary for me to remind you of so well-established a rule. It will certainly be necessary to put the work back as it was before, and I must look to you to do so, but kindly note that
nothing is to be done
until I am in a position to give complete instructions. I shall see Lady Brash on Saturday and will write to you next week.

Yours faithfully,

GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

Dear Sir, 5.9.25.

Since we wrote yesterday we have heard from our foreman that her Ladyship has referred to hot and cold water to be laid on to the drawing-room. We know nothing of this, and ought to have instructions
at once
as the service pipes are being got out and this will mean a change in the layout, as it is a long run for the pipes and we do not quite see how we are going to get proper circulation. We understand her Ladyship intends an aquarium to stand in bay, so there will have to be a gully to take waste, and as the Surveyor may object to this being treated as rain water [
Sure to do so!
], we shall have to lower the top manhole. [
So that the extension may drain to it.
] We were about to build this manhole, but have stopped the work and also that on drains beyond, as levels and falls will have to be altered, and it is no good doing the work twice over. We think the Surveyor will insist on a vent pipe by gully. [
The extension is at the top end of drainage system and a vent pipe is required in that position.
] Would you wish this on the gable beside the bay window, which seems the best position? We shall be obliged by your immediate instructions.

Yours faithfully,

Spinlove, we may be sure, has exercised his best ingenuity to arrange that this unsightly 4-inch pipe running up walls and sticking up above eaves of roof, shall be hidden away; and the prospect of its becoming the salient feature of the most sappy part of a studied elevation will cause him anguish.

GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE

Dear Sir, 6.9.25.

We write to confirm and record statement made to you by Mr. Grigblay on telephone this morning that he acted in accordance with your instructions (see your letter of 30.8.25) to “go on with the work,” which we naturally read to mean to do the work ordered by her Ladyship. Our understanding that the partition between Nos. 5 and 6 was intended, was, we hold, confirmed by your letter.

We note that no further work is to be done until we have your explicit directions, but must point out we are being stopped and that we shall not only have to claim extension of time as well as the extra, but shall have to compensate heating and other sub-contractors and ask you to consider our own position, as we have had to pay off labourers and drain-layers, and we may have to send away plasterers shortly, and these are difficult to get. We shall be glad of a certificate for £2,000 further on account.

Your last certificate, dated 6.8.25, has, so far, not been honoured. If you can help us in this matter we shall be obliged.

Yours faithfully,

Lady Brash, at a touch, has not only brought confusion to the work, but has given both the architect and builder sore heads. Grigblay has been indefatigable in good offices, but the dislocation of his organization is a serious matter for him and he evidently has no intention of being victimized. He is entitled to look to his architect to protect him.

LADY BRASH TO SPINLOVE

Dear Mr. Spinlove, Wednesday.

The men took away the wrong wall!!! It really is all most trying and difficult and so very vexing when they will not do what they are told and putting it in all little squares one cannot see out of and the servants cannot clean properly because of the corners and complaining about it. The men have made a path through the wood all along where the bluebells come for a short cut through the hedge instead of going out at the gate, what Sir Leslie will say when he comes back I really do not know and I thought I should never get the dust out of my eyes they are quite sore still. The man who came about the chimneys complained that Mr. Bloggs was very rude and would not let him because he did not want him to find out and he says because the chimneys are made crooked and cannot get a brush up to sweep them and perhaps the house will be burnt down. If I had any idea what a trouble it was all going to be I would never have consented, but Leslie will not listen to a word I say and the factory chimney was smoking yesterday and all blowing across and I knew what it would be and if they don’t put a proper water-pipe it means the garden hose through the window like we had at Pilchins Drake though I am sure I shall never like the house as much as Pilchins and the fish dying. Really I feel so worried with it all I scarcely know where I am. Phyllis is still away she is always such a comfort.

Yours sincerely,

The poor woman has made herself ill in her anxiety to see matters right, and I feel sorry I have said such savage things about her. She opens her heart to Spinlove in a way that shows she has a friendly liking for him and understands he is on her side, although she does not at all understand that the builder is working under his direction. Spinlove ought to have no difficulty in establishing her peace of mind and guiding her to a wise decision if he relies upon her confidence in his good offices and her obvious liking for him, and avoids any assumption of authority. Apparently, however, the receipt of this letter and Grigblay’s by the same post have made him again lose his head.