Honeywood Settlement
Page 5
Dear Mr. Tinge, 16.4.26.
Grigblay is preparing his final Statement of Account. Will you please note, however, that no work is to be measured except as I may direct, as I have reasons to fear that the account is inflated with unauthorized extras? I have asked Grigblay for particulars of the work to be measured, and will let you know what is wanted in due course.
Yours truly,
Spinlove’s arrangements are good, though his manners to Grigblay are not. The measuring of work by the quantity surveyor, or even by the architect, does not establish an authorized extra, but it certainly supports a claim for one. The quantity surveyor, also, has to be paid for the work he does in fees that are added to the account, so that it is the architect’s duty to see that no other measuring is done than the needs justify. Extras often consist in differences between the value of work specified in the contract and the same work as carried out, and as the only way to arrive at this difference is to measure and value the whole of the work replaced together with that which replaces it, and strike a balance, it might happen that the surveyor’s fees for measuring and pricing £2,500 of work twice over is tacked on to a resulting extra (or omission) of only £50. For this reason it is sometimes expedient for an architect to agree a figure with the builder. On the other hand, the builder will be inclined to charge as day work (time and material) extra work which ought in the interests of the client to be measured and priced at the contract rates, or at rates commensurate therewith.
FURTHER DEFECTS
BRASH TO SPINLOVE
Dear Mr. Spinlove, 19.4.26.
May I be permitted to remind you that you have omitted to transmit Mr. Grigblay’s report on the odoriferous effusions which, I regret to say, still persist?
We continue to be delighted with the house, which will be quite perfect when sanitary amenities have been safeguarded, but we have observed various slight defective flaws in the building work. These are not so far imperatively serious, but need preliminary attention. Dripping taps can speedily be renovated, I conceive, also little cracks in the plaster ceilings which may otherwise increase. Stains in the wallpapers are, I fear, a more serious apprehension. There are openings in the woodwork, specially in the overmantels to fireplaces in the first story, and most alarming gaping cracks in the exterior oak window frames, particularly on the outside. Steps should at once be taken to prevent these cracks increasing in dimensions. Some are several inches in length, and in breadth wide enough for me to almost insert the terminal edge of a sixpence. I have prepared and transmit under this cover, for your convenient guidance, a scheduled list of the defects I have noticed as obtaining; but your trained eye will no doubt have no difficulty in discerning others.
With regard to the Riddoppo, this has a delightful lustrous appearance, and its variations of different tints is charming, but it leaves stains where the under bottoms of doors rub over the carpets, which will only imperfectly brush out; and it has failed, I am informed, near the range in the kitchen. Mr. Grigblay should be notified.
Yours sincerely,
Brash’s “scheduled list” is missing from the file, but if it is fairly represented in the above letter the “defective flaws” are nothing to complain about (so far) except, of course, Riddoppo. Brash has not realized what is happening to his new novelty super-paint.
(PERSONAL) SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Mr. Grigblay, 20.4.26.
I reported to Sir Leslie the substance of your letter describing your investigation of supposed smells, and he has since twice asked for a verbatim copy of your letter. I cannot possibly send it him-besides, it is a private letter-so will you let me have a version suitable for sending to Sir Leslie? I enclose the original in case you should not have kept a copy.
Yours truly,
Spinlove is unwise in allowing Grigblay to write to him confidentially, but more unwise in his method of disguising the fact. He has a frank, straightforward nature; slyness is foreign to him, and must be distasteful. He could perfectly well have replied to Brash: “Grigblay reports as follows. He says . . .” and completed an accurate paraphrase in that form. If Brash were so obtuse as to press for the original, he could be told it was a private letter.
SPINLOVE TO BRASH
Dear Sir Leslie Brash, 20.4.26.
The blemishes of which you send me a list are only what appear in all new houses, and do not point to serious defects. Grigblay will do all necessary restoration, but this will be in six months’ time when such defects as there may be have fully developed. Of course, if anything goes wrong he will send down and put right, but it appears that nothing has. Certain sulphates or other exudations appearing on the face of new plaster kill the colour in wall-papers, which is why I recommended only tinted lining papers designed to serve as a foundation for the better papers you may afterwards decide to hang. The cracks in the oak frames are of no consequence. They are characteristic of English oak.
Yours sincerely,
P.S.—I will send you copy of Mr. Grigblay’s letter tomorrow.
This pretence of an afterthought in order to gain time is regrettable: thus does one deceit involve others. Spinlove’s comments are well-informed, but by omitting all reference to Riddoppo and thus including its failure with defects that are “not serious,” he may be applying Grigblay’s advice to “take no notice” too drastically.
GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
Dear Sir, 22.4.26.
We enclose report for Sir Leslie Brash, and return original of Mr. Grigblay’s letter.
Yours faithfully,
(HOLOGRAPH) GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
Dear Sir, 6.4.26.
I called at Honeywood on the 5th instant to examine into the effluviums and emanations complained of, but I could not ascertain any olfactory aggressions indicating blemishes in the sanitary provisions.
There was a bit of odoriferous exhalation in the scullery, and a whiff of noxious emanation- in the yard, because the domestic staff had removed the grating. out of the scullery sink instead of emptying the grease-trap. Unsavoury effluviums from, the yard gully are due to the grating being missing and the drain being too small to pass the size of scrubbing brushes used.
The obnoxious exhalation in the bedrooms is due to windows being kept shut and chimney-throats stopped; but it is likely that there is down-draught in some of the flues owing to them being damp as yet.
Yours faithfully,
Spinlove asked for a report so worded as to be suitable for sending to Sir Leslie Brash, and it is probable that Grigblay supposed it was intended he should adopt Brash’s euphemisms, and that his inveterate habit of irony, his lack of literary accomplishment and his impatience of nonsense, did the rest. He did not understand what was wanted and resented the folly of what he was doing. Grigblay’s habit of veiling his irritation by irony is so ingrained that he is likely to be in great part unaware of the gorgeous effects he sometimes gets. Some such explanation seems necessary. We can imagine that Grigblay is unaware here, as elsewhere, of the vividness with which his letters reveal his state of mind.
SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Sir, 23.4.26.
I am much obliged for Mr. Grigblay’s report on drains, but I think that Sir Leslie Brash might misinterpret certain passages. I have, therefore, altered some of the terms and return the report. If Mr. Grigblay will copy it as amended and. sign, I will send it to Sir Leslie.
I am still awaiting your summary of variations account.
Yours faithfully,
GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
Dear Sir, 24.4.26.
We have, rewritten report as you suggest and enclose same. We hope that this now ends the matter.
Yours faithfully,
(ENCLOSURE) GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
Dear Sir, 6.4.26.
I called at Honeywood Grange on the 5th instant to investigate complaints of smells, but could find nothing wrong with the drains.
A smell in the scullery was due to the removal of the grating of the sink, and to the container of the gr
ease-trap not being emptied. The flooding of the yard gully is due to the grating being missing and scrubbing brushes getting into the trap.
The stuffy smell in the bedrooms is partly due to windows being kept shut and chimney-throats stopped up, but it is likely there is down-draught in the flues owing to their being damp as yet.
Yours faithfully,
A very colourless version! Spinlove has ventured, it will be noticed, to touch up Grigblay’s grammar.
BRASH TO SPINLOVE
Dear Mr. Spinlove, 24.4.26.
I note your comment anent the subject of blemishes. So long as we are not inconveniently incommoded I am quite willing to permit matters to stand over for the present, on the understanding that Mr. Grigblay is previously advised beforehand and comprehends that the increase in defects due to the remissness of his attentions is a matter for which he solely is responsible. I certainly consider, however, that it would be advantageously to his interests to intervene before the increase in blemishes becomes more aggravated, as I apprehend that a small defect is more readily ameliorated than one of greater magnitude, and so that the anticipated augmentation of cracks, for example, is better prevented than cured. That, however, is a matter for your and Mr Grigblay’s eventual decision.
Since I wrote, a new defect has appeared, which needs immediate attention, as it is causing the establishment considerable unnecessary inconvenience. On Thursday afternoon last, at about 4.25—so far as I can precisely ascertain—it was observed that when the push in the drawing-room was depressed the front door bell rang; and it subsequently transpired that all the other pushes rang the front door bell, and that the bell-pull at the front door rang the bell in the lady’s maid’s room on the second floor instead of its own. As the indicator has also ceased to appropriately function, the consequent inconvenience can be imagined, and is not—may I be permitted to say?—what I feel is compatible with a house designed by a qualified architect and erected by an expensive builder. I shall be gratified if you will ring up the house to-morrow and instruct us in what it is desirable to do.
Your communication omits to intimate anything regarding Riddoppo super-paint. My apprehensions on this question are commencing to engender considerable doubts, as a small narrow strip was yesterday observed to have detached itself away from the wall above the skirting of the inner lavatory compartment adjoining the front entrance, and investigation indicates that similar disasters threaten to immediately eventuate in various other different positions. Inspection also substantiates that serious ridges and rims of paint, which break away from the surface in little crumbs and flakes that adhere to the carpets, are accruing in diverse localities, which conclusively demonstrates that Riddoppo is beginning to commence to disintegrate. Immediate attention is most desirably expedient, and I request that Mr. Grigblay shall be informed that I expect immediate remedial precautions to be embarked upon at once.
May I intimate the due reminder that you have not yet transmitted Mr. Grigblay’s report on the sanitary anomalies? These cause me increasing apprehension. Also the damp places over the chimneys continue, although the promised remedy was intimated to be on the point of eventuating several weeks ago. Other evidences of damp places are now ocularly discernible in the corners of some of the first-floor sleeping apartments.
I have transmitted cheque to Mr. Grigblay but still await promised figure of total sum of extra cost. Yours sincerely,
We have seen Brash making heavy weather of “blemishes” which do not amount to defects, or are of no importance. He has yielded to the weakness, common with owners of new houses, of crawling over every part with the minute scrutiny of an ant, instead of enjoying his well-planned and soundly-built house. The Riddoppo failure is, however, a serious matter.
SPINLOVE TO BRASH
Dear Sir Leslie Brash, 27.4.26.
I do not know in the least what has gone wrong with the bells, but, as I telephoned to-day, I have arranged for Grigblay to send an electrician to the house to-morrow.
I enclose copy of Grigblay’s report on drains. I am sorry I omitted to send this before.
The necessary work in preventing damp appearing in chimney-breasts will have to be put off till the summer when the brickwork has dried out. I will inquire into the cause of the other damp places you speak of. The house has hollow walls, and there cannot be much wrong.
I assure you that your fear of faulty drains is without foundation. I really do not know what more can be done.
I am sorry to hear that the Riddoppo paint is proving unsatisfactory. As you know, I never had confidence in it, and Mr. Grigblay objected to its use.
Yours sincerely,
There is a directness and brevity. in this letter which, though perfectly appropriate to the occasion, indicates that Spinlove is busy in other directions and is getting tired of Honeywood. He has not followed Grigblay’s advice of repudiating responsibility for Riddoppo, but he perhaps does better at this juncture in implying that the matter is Brash's concern, only.
SPINLOVE’S SELF-LOCKING DOOR
MISS PHYLLIS BRASH TO SPINLOVE
Dear Jazz, 30.4.26.
This is to warn you to form a solid British Square and prepare to receive cavalry, as Dad is on his high horse. You are a mutt. Dad even suspects a practical joke. This is what happened; no guy, honest Indian.
We had a big house-warming dinner-party to-night, very swell and solemn, all the poshest of the posh, no one under about seventy, all good Gargantuans with digestions treasured by leading physicians—Dad simply wallows in that sort of occasion—when the writing wobbles it is because I am laughing.
Mum and I were out with the car, and didn’t get to home sweet home till nearly seven, to find the kitchen staff-as Dad calls them—waiting outside the kitchen door, which was open just wide enough to allow a choking smell of burning glue and feathers to be nosed. They could not get in to finish cooking the dinner, nor to stop its cooking. The back entrance was bolted, the windows all fastened—except the little top ones—and the door jammed; it would not open nor shut. I pushed my arm through and found the door of the cupboard, just inside, pressing against the knob of the kitchen door. The knob of the cupboard was against the other, so that the door would not move either way. How it got fixed nor one knows. The servants found it so at half-past five, after they had run to see an aeroplane stunting at the front. The gardeners had all gone, not a man was about, and so the loonies just waited, with sauces burning, everything going wrong inside, and nothing being done to get the dinner ready. The chauffeur fetched a ladder and reached through one of the little top windows with a golf club and undid a lower window, and, by heaving himself up against the door, freed it. You can imagine the to-do with all the arrangements knocked sideways. Of course, it would not have mattered if it had not been such a swanky occasion; but not a word was said, and the seventeen seventies sat solemnly marking time in the drawing-room with cocktails and caviare sandwiches, while the servants struggled and sweated in the kitchen and the hired men gloomed in the hall, till nearly a quarter to nine. It is a thousand pities you were not invited—as you should have been—as the triumphant architect of the arrangements.
Ever yours,
PUD.
Spinlove appears to have a friend in the enemy’s camp.
This accident is extraordinary. Spinlove ought to have been more wary than to allow any door to open against another in such a way as to block its swing: such a chance is always in mind for the planner. It happened, however, that the kitchen arrangements at Honeywood were altered after the trenches had been dug and the foundations begun, and this unlucky fouling of doors may be the bequest of that revision. Afterthoughts and alterations are frequent cause of such mishaps. When the plan is originally made the whole scheme is subject to minute concentration; but when alterations are devised there is great danger that all consequences of the changes will not be foreseen.
Fantastic as this misadventure may appear, it will seem so to the experienced architect or builder
only for the grotesque catastrophe associated with it. It is, in fact, typical of the kind of accidents that frequently happen. Pud’s description makes pretty clear what occurred. It is a thing that the most exact detailing by the designer and anxious care of the builder could scarcely accomplish, ‘so that had the thing been—as Brash’s irritation led him to suggest—a practical joke, it would have done honour to the ingenuity and assiduity of its perpetrators.
The sketch shows what apparently happened. The title I have given it seems justified; for if anyone hereafter discovers a right use for the device, Spinlove ought most certainly to have credit for the invention.
BRASH TO SPINLOVE
Dear Mr. Spinlove, 30.4.26.
It was with considerable astonishment—will you permit me to say?—that I read the copy of Mr. Grigblay’s report on the sanitary abnormalities obtaining at Honeywood; as this, so far from elucidating the circumstances -elaborated in your letter on the subject, intimates no reference whatever to many of them. This is a matter I will take an early convenient opportunity of investigating in oral conversation with you as, also, other important matters somewhat lightly—if you will pardon me-touched on by you.
Yours sincerely,
Oh, what a tangled skein we weave
When first we practice to deceive!
SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Sirs, 1.5.26.
Sir Leslie Brash rang up to-day and told me that the kitchen door in some way jams against the handle of the cupboard, and the servants were not able to get into the kitchen. Will you please send someone over to put things right? The cupboard door had better be hung the other way round and a spring catch fixed so that it remains fast when closed.