Phyllis is having some friends on Saturday to celebrate the hot water she says and we hope you will stay the night. Please excuse writing, I have such a dreadful chilblain on my finger.
Yours very sincerely,
And Sunday night.—P.
Apparently the lady has in view a sun-bath. The benefits of psycho-analysis are not as pronounced as might have been hoped.
SPINLOVE TO GRIGBLAY
Dear Mr. Grigblay, 18.12.26.
I had a long talk with Sir Leslie during the week-end. He is sending you a cheque in final settlement to-day and with it a which I hope will end all memory of the upset over the painting. He now admits that he ought to have taken our advice the first instance, and realizes that the failure of Riddoppo in no way your fault. There has been no complaint of fumes since the furnace was relighted, and I slept for two nights house with windows shut and noticed nothing; so the matter is disposed of, at last!
What I am particularly writing to you about is the restoration of the paint. It is, as you know, in a dreadful state, and what is of it will have to be thoroughly rubbed down and the whole painted anew. The family is going abroad for two months after Christmas, Sir Leslie will not be much at home and it would be satisfaction to him to feel the work was in your charge. I know also that, for personal reasons, it would be a pleasure if you would undertake the work; and it would also relieve me of great anxiety. I trust, therefore, that you will reconsider your decision to have nothing more to do with it.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
P.S.—Sir Leslie has decided not to have the bedrooms painted out each in a different colour, as now, but uniformly in duck’s-egg white as I originally designed.
Spinlove seems to have made good use of his week-end visit.
(HOLOGRAPH) GRIGBLAY TO SPINLOVE
Sir, 19.12.26.
I am not going to say I was not glad to read your letter or that I do not know I have to thank you for the very considerate one I received yesterday from Sir Leslie Brash with his cheque for final balance. The old gentleman expresses himself in a remarkably handsome manner to one so far below him in station, and I have written him that nothing remains to be said.
The job of building Honeywood Grange has, one way and another, perhaps been a bit more of a trouble than it had any call to be; but that is what we have to expect sometimes in the building trade, and so long as the owner is satisfied, and the architect, that is all I ask, for the house is a good one and if it wasn’t it wouldn’t be for want of everyone concerned having had a try at making it so.
About the painting, of course I will take on the work as asked; but I shall not be able to give an estimate and I shalt want a free hand to do what I think well, and I cannot guarantee perfect results although I will do my best to secure them. If you care to have it like that, it would I think, sir, be a good thing to have a talk over. I shall be in town to-morrow and can arrange to call at any time convenient after two o’clock.
Yours faithfully,
Grigblay evidently found Brash’s “handsome expressions” more gracious and condescending then he had stomach for, and his sly reminder of obstruction due to the architect’s solicitudes and the owner’s interferences tells its own tale.
SPINLOVE TO BRASH
My dear Sir Leslie, 21.11.26.
Grigblay called to see me about the painting yesterday. He is glad to oblige us by doing the work, but as he does not know is involved in it he cannot give an estimate. The work done as Day work—i.e. at net cost plus 15 per cent to cover establishment charges and profit. This is an offer that ought certainly to be accepted.
He says he cannot actually guarantee perfect results, but he will spare no pains to secure them, and as he proposes to clean the existing paint entirely, and sand-paper all vestiges of it from the wood, there is no doubt all will be well. He will arrange with. you about dismantling the rooms. He would rather not undertake this.
I spoke to him about the threatened extension of villa building up Honeywood Hill and the proposed development the back land. He ridicules the whole idea, and says it is merely Ay a trick to induce you to buy the land at a high price. He says that some of the villas already built are standing empty that the work has been stopped, and that the land Barthold Owed you does not belong to him. He only has a twelve months’ option on it from Mr. Rallingbourne who parts with no land without particular restrictions as to the buildings to be put on it. Were there no restrictions as to the number and kind of buildings that might be put on your land when you bought it? I recall that you asked me for a set of plans to send to Mr. Rallingbourne’s solicitors. Besides all this, Grigblay says them is no chance for a “Bungalow Town” anywhere near Marlford, if there were, nothing could be done unless the Building Byelaws were revised which the District Council would never agree to.
I saw my friend to-day, and he says the appliance I spoke of is Wealdstone’s New Radio-Active Spleen and Liver Pad, made in two strengths, “strong” and “extra.” He recommends latter. They can be re-charged from any electric light plug stocked by Spedding, 92 Fountain Street, St. James’s. friend swears by it.
Ever yours dutifully,
BRASH TO SPINLOVE
23.12.26.
My dear James—(to indite the new nomenclature),
I am much gratified and also relieved in mind at the intimation that the building propositions of Mr. Barthold are a fraudulent pretension, and as I have to-day received a peremptory reminder from Mr. Snitch, asking a reply to his previous communication, he will be sufficiently answered by MY continued silence.
I had quite forgotten, as in my case it was a mere formality, that Mr. Rallingbourne makes it a prohibitive condition in his conveyances that only private houses of due importance and refinement of design shall be erected on the land.
Will you, since no alternative course seems expedient, be so obliging as to complete the necessary arrangements for Mr. Grigblay to undertake the renovation of the painting? We shall be unboundedly thankful-as you may imagine-to see a termination put to the disgraceful state of affairs which deforms the domicile and is no better than an unsightly eyesore.
I am obliged by the information you give anent the Radio Pad. I shall certainly test the efficacy of the device.
I have the pleasure to enclose cheque in final settlement of your fees. You will observe that I have augmented the amount to a round figure, but you will not, I hope, resent my indulging this friendly impulse as I apprehend that in giving me the right to do so you surrender the right to object!
The gong! I must hence and array me for the feast! Ever, my dear boy,
Yours affectionately,
P.S.—I am requested to remind you that the performance to-morrow is timed to commence at 8.15 and not at 8.30 as originally intimated.
We have long suspected that something of this sort was going to happen. Apparently, in the stress of a “reconcilly” staged by Pud, barriers went down and consciences were unloaded all round; and appearances are that Brash, filled out with a son-in-law and a (soi-disant) radio-active liver pad, will take on a new lease of that benevolence which lies beneath his weakness and his follies: and of Brash, despite his irascibility and pomposity, is a simple soul at heart. His simplicity is well borne out if we accept do hilarious implication of the liver pad; namely, that during the unbosomings of that eventful week-end Brash was led to confess to a discontented liver, whereupon his architect promptly recommended a cure for it.
This letter, the last in the folder, by explaining itself explains also those not infrequent signs of a relationship which the correspondence did not reveal and of which Spinlove’s reckless retort on Brash’s strictures is the outstanding example. We cannot decide that no man would act as Spinlove did towards his prospective father-in-law, while we have no means of knowing under what circumstances he so acted. The matter, however, seems clear enough if we remember the months of badgering to which Spinlove has submitted, and suppose that when the young people’s ear
ly friendship ripened to deeper feelings, Brash, finding himself hopeless opposition to an only child and a neurotic wife, vented his irritation on the architect, and that Spinlove, secure in his position and unable to support the humiliation thrust upon him or go hat in hand to a man who considered himself at liberty to affront him, yielded to an impulse to have the thing out. In this elemental matter of pursuing a wife a man who follows his impulses at least keeps faith with his manhood; and in no other affair of life does his manhood better recommend a man.
In wishing Spinlove the best of luck we must not forget that this affair of his holds out new terrors to some who may be toying with the idea of employing an architect; and it is therefore desirable to make clear that Spinlove’s behaviour in this matter is entirely “unprofessional.”
Honeywood Settlement Page 21