Although it is not a matter to which I should, under happier circumstances, desire to make deviation, I, nevertheless, consider that you are under serious responsibilities and obligations towards myself which, as in all such monetary matters, have a financial signification. I observe that the contract document protects me with a not unsubstantial guarantee; that is to say, the sums I periodically disburse are amply secured to me by the value of the operations performed. It is on the face of it—if you will permit me to say so—an utterly anomalous conjunction of eventualities which gives me no such security against my architect, to whom I am requested to disburse—by clear demonstration—not 80 percent of, but more than double, the proportion of fees represented by the work accomplished.
I observe that the certificate, which you inform me has been transmitted to Mr. Grigblay, is for the augmented amount of £3,000. May I be permitted to remind you that £2,000 is the payment I am accustomed to anticipate disbursing on these occasions.
Yours sincerely,
Brash’s protest is not unnatural, and his reasoning would be sound if his premises were true. This is a very different letter from those he wrote to his young friend in the early days; in fact, it is such a letter as he might write to one of his own years and standing. Spinlove’s firm resistance to being bilked seems to have jolted Brash into a higher esteem of him. His wordy expostulation is a little pathetic.
GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
Dear Sir,12.8.25.
We are unable to agree that the error in back staircase is a matter for which we are in any way accountable, as we had no means of knowing what your intentions re bathroom door were. We must ask you to note this, as we cannot accept any such responsibilities for oversights in joinery details, although we do our best to detect them. As the alteration now required is a small matter we will, however, in this instance make no charge, although we are entitled to do so.
Yours faithfully,
I judge this letter to have been dictated by Grigblay himself. He has no doubt had a sharp word to say to his shop foreman and to Bloggs, but as a matter of principle he finds it necessary to remind Spinlove that his bland assumption that the architect is not responsible for misdirections, and for discrepancies in his own thoughts, will not do at all.
SPINLOVE TO BRASH
Dear Sir Leslie Brash,13.8.25.
Had I known you were not aware of the custom concerning payment of architects’ fees I would have explained the matter. I now enclose particulars of architects’ charges issued by the Royal Institute, from which you will see that two-thirds of the 6 percent fees—that is, 4 percent of the amount of the accepted tender—represents fees earned before the contract is signed. The remaining 2 percent is for general supervision and direction of the work, and is payable in instalments as the works proceed, so that the architect is in the same position as the builder in giving what you term “financial security.” At no time is the architect paid for what he has not done.
I shall be glad if you can make it convenient to send me a cheque. One has, of course, to get in one’s money.
Grigblay is entitled to £3,000. He would have been entitled to £2,000 several weeks ago had he applied for it. The contract states that certificates shall be for not less than £2,000.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
Spinlove seems now to have got Brash’s measure in this matter of fees. He has knowledge, of course; but the letters also show him to be the stronger man. By comparison Brash appears to be—if I may be given permission to be allowed to so express myself—a flabby old jelly.
THE WATER COMES IN
SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Sir,15.8.25.
I was on the site yesterday and was disturbed to see water standing 15 in. deep in cellar. Some months ago I noticed water, but supposed it was due to rain, only. There is no sign of its coming in through the walls above the standing level of the water, so that there must be a defect in the vertical damp course below that line. Your foreman says he pumped the cellar dry a fortnight ago, when there was nearly 2 ft. of water. I directed him to dig down outside and open up vertical damp course for my inspection. Please let me know directly the work is ready for me to see.
Yours faithfully,
GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
Dear Sir,16.8.25.
Our foreman has reported to us your instructions to open up vertical damp course; but this is a big undertaking and, as we are certain there is no defect in the damp course, we do not think any purpose will be served by opening up. We have directed our foreman to pump the cellar dry, and we will keep it under observation. In our opinion the water comes up through the floor.
Yours faithfully,
SPINLOVE TO WILLIAM WYCHETE, P.P.R.I.B.A.
Dear Mr. Wychete,18.8.25.
I am in difficulties with a cellar which lets in water; but where it comes from or how it gets in I cannot understand. The ground is perfectly dry; there was not a sign of water when the excavation was made, and the lower 7 ft. of excavation is in impervious clay. The vertical damp course of 1-in. thick waterproofed cement is continuous with the horizontal damp course which is below the level of the cellar floor. This is 4-in. concrete with 1 ½ ins. of 3 and I cement rendering trowelled to a polish, with skirting carried up 6 ins. and turned into joint of brickwork.
I went on site yesterday after the cellar had been pumped out and wiped dry. We could find no flaw anywhere, but after a time the whole surface of the floor became wet, and after a couple of hours water had collected in one part. The foreman says the floor is “sweating,” but does not explain what he means, and I don’t think he knows. Can you give me any idea what is wrong, and how I can make the place tight?
Yours sincerely,
WYCHETE TO SPINLOVE
My Dear Spinlove,20.8.25.
I think the explanation of your scrape is that the impervious excavation holds surface water, which collects against the outside of the walls, like a tank. This gets under the foundations and through the footings, and floods the space under the floor—which, I assume, has 4-in. or 6-in. of loose filling—and the water is forced up by its standing head through the concrete. The probability is that this process began while the concrete and rendering were green, so that minute channels were then formed in it; but under the conditions stated the cellar could scarcely be a dry one, as the floor was not dampproofed.
If there is such a fall in the ground that you can drain the water away by connecting a pipe through the wall into the hard core under the floor, the cure is easy. If not, your only course, in my opinion, is to cover the floor with asphalt and put a concrete floor on top, to prevent the water forcing the asphalt up. This concrete, however, may not be necessary. It is important to dig a sump and keep the water pumped out until the whole of the floor is finished and perfectly set. The builder should have done this originally.
With best wishes to you,
Ever yours sincerely,
SPINLOVE TO WYCHETE
Dear Mr. Wychete,21.8.25.
Many thanks for your letter. I understand the matter perfectly now. There is a sharp fall in the ground, so that there will be no difficulty in draining. Can I make the builder pay for this work? Also, would the District Surveyor be likely to object to the drain going under the walls? If so, perhaps it would be best to put an iron pipe through the wall and under the house, but the rest of the drain, I imagine, could be earthenware? Or could the whole be earthenware if care were taken to carry walls, etc., clear of it?
Yours very sincerely,
Spinlove is here so elated to find himself master of the awkward situation that he loses his head and acknowledges Wychete’s careful reply to his question by asking him a hatful of entirely idiotic and unanswerable ones. Needless to say, there is no reply from the great man.
LADY BRASH TO SPINLOVE
Dear Mr. Spinlove,21.8.25.
Sir Leslie is so dreadfully sorry not to be able to have answered your last letter, but he has gon
e to The Moor quite suddenly! He did not in the least expect it, and asked me to write and tell you.
My daughter is expecting some young friends on Saturday, and we shall hope to see you in the afternoon.
How very close it has been to-day!
Yours sincerely,
maude brash.
Will you be my D.P. to Bingham’s and stay night? Biff has let me down. Split-tail behaviours. Phone early. P.
For “The Moor,” I read the moors; Brash has been invited north to shoot grouse. I do not know how Lady Brash manages to convey that her husband is a most unsafe gun, but she certainly does so.
As it is eight days since Spinlove wrote, this stampede to “The Moor” is an imperfect explanation of his getting no answer. The intimation that he lies heavy on his client’s conscience will, no doubt, hearten him.
It was “P,” by evidence of the handwriting, who wrote a footnote to an earlier letter! “P” must be the daughter.
LADY BRASH TAKES CHARGE
GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
Dear Sir,27.8.25.
We enclose copy of letter from her Ladyship and await your instructions re same. We understand that the partition referred to is that between bedrooms Nos. 5 and 6, and is to be moved to increase size of dressing-room.
Yours faithfully,
(ENCLOSURE) LADY BRASH TO GRIGBLAY
Mr. Grigby (sic),
Lady Brash wants the wall in the other big room—not our room—moved nearer from the end as the big wardrobe must go in the dressing-room.
Sunday.
Grigblay knows better than to take instructions except through the architect, although inferior kinds of builders might not be so circumspect. Some might even welcome this opportunity of making hay of the contract and establishing an uncontrolled account for extras.
Lady Brash has here adopted the style of the great lady gratuitously, for this sort of thing has been far to seek since the war. One has only to consider that the person she addresses is superior to her in heart, in mind, in wisdom, in humour, and also—if the word is to have any right meaning—in education, to realize the absurdity of her assumption. We may imagine Grigblay, a middle-aged man, shouldering a pack in Flanders, while Lady Brash was hoarding provisions, decorating her car with flags of the Allies as if for a boat-race, and speaking of Grigblay and his kind as “Tommies.”
SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Sir,30.8.25.
I have written to Lady Brash. Please tell your foreman to get on with the work.
Yours faithfully,
Decisive but ambiguous! The manner of it expresses “Lady Brash be blowed!” but the sense is “Alter the partition as directed.”
SPINLOVE TO LADY BRASH
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.]
The Honeywood Files Page 15
