Page 15 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms (Tales from Honeysuckle Street #4)

Chapter Eight

As if the ticking of his pocket watch, propped open on the desk, wasn’t enough of a reminder of the brevity of time, the church bells chimed out the declining hours with increasing gusto. Eleven. Twelve…

That morning, Mr Holt had come down to the office, sneezed and spluttered through the start of the day, announced he would take tea with his wife…

and not returned. An occasional grumble or knock filtered down the stairs, but the only indication that his employer was still in the building came from the sound of his racking cough and Mrs Holt’s fussing once the doctor arrived.

Johannes leafed through the stack of documents on Mr Holt’s desk, counting them off one by one.

Each small victory, even a second place, meant the name Holt - Architect would be published in not only The Builder , but in other more substantial papers like the Illustrated London News .

Every little note of publicity led to more enquiries from potential clients, to more interest and the occasional commission.

This was how they built a reputation, brick by brick.

The plans for their most recent competition submission—a manager’s cottage for the New Water Company—were already painted, and he had also made blueprint copies for their own records.

Mr Holt had finished a general report, written a letter…

but where were the quantity calculations and costings?

Weeks of work on this entry, and all of it would be for nought if they did not submit an estimate of what it would cost to build the blasted thing.

‘Mother said to tell you it’s just a cold. Not scarlet fever or—’ Florence broke off as she stepped into the room. ‘I don’t mean to tell you how to work, but you need to sort this before Father recovers. He hates mess.’

Johannes pulled a drawing from a stack. ‘I know. I know he does. He has his way of sorting the office, and his way of filing papers. He has a way of doing very many things, and one of those is pulling together submissions for competitions. We’ve been working on this one for weeks, and I cannot find the…

’ He pulled a sheet from Mr Holt’s desk, and as he scanned the scratched numbers written in pencil, his elation turned to lead. ‘…the estimates. They aren’t finished.’

‘When does it need to be submitted?’

‘Today. At six p.m. Across town.’

‘Give me his notes.’ Before he could release it, Florence snatched the paper from his hand.

She scanned the book spines, then pulled one from the shelf.

‘It’s been some time since I’ve costed a build, and I’ve never done one here, but I’m sure it can’t be much different.

’ The book flopped open as Florence dropped it onto her father’s desk.

‘What is the competition for?’ she asked, as she turned a page.

‘A manager’s cottage, for a new pump station for the New Water Company.’

She tutted under her breath. ‘Why does he bother? It’s a waste of time.’

‘Your father was determined to enter this. We have a strong proposal. He thinks this might make our name. He does know what he—’

‘He does not read the magazine six times as I do. I suppose he doesn’t have to, as he gets to work.

’ She folded her arms across the desk, over her book, and looked at him.

‘I hate to destroy the dream, but they will not engage you. They are either fishing for ideas or putting their in-house architect on notice to do better work. Sometimes I think they call a competition just to remind their man that he can be replaced. But they will overlook all entries and go with their own architect. They always do.’

‘I am sure your father wouldn’t have bothered if he thought it was a waste of time.’

‘For all his gruffness he is a ridiculous optimist, especially when it comes to his own career.’ Florence rolled her eyes, then pushed herself up from her father’s table.

She took a small pile of older journals and newspaper from where they had been stacked near the stove, ready to help ignite a fire if it burnt out.

‘Here. Under competitions. New Water Company. Awarded to Mr Harris.’ She dropped the journal to the floor, then opened the next one.

‘A month before. Engineer’s cottage. Mr Harris.

And again.’ She flicked through yet another issue, then held out the journal.

Johannes snatched it from her. There it was, in black and white. Awarded to Mr Harris .

She crossed her arms. ‘Either Mr Harris is resisting a retainer or—’

‘They’re soliciting designs, and he’s reworking everyone’s best ideas.

’ The truth hit so hard his stomach knotted.

They’d submitted for that cottage. He’d been so proud.

Mr Holt had worked with him to polish his plan, to capture that balance between the vision in his mind, the client’s brief, and the cost. But they made so many submissions that another failure did not sting as much as it had in the early days, and he’d forgotten it as soon as it was announced.

Now, the thought that they were taking his work and twisting it into something new without him, without even acknowledging his ideas, bit as sharp as any failure had in his first weeks.

He had poured himself into that design. If he sought out the final plan or drove by the site, would he recognise his work?

Or would he just see walls and windows? A layout that might have been his, but could equally have been a concept dreamt up by someone else?

All his years at the desk, all the time he’d spent poring over his studies.

He had to focus twice as hard as Elliot or Rosie on every bit of reading or calculations.

They learnt so fast, but he had to force his brain to bend, to understand.

Sourcing instruction had proved every bit as much of a challenge, just like trying to find a practice to take him on.

And still he’d persisted until he’d found a willing teacher.

He’d worked with a man so old and eking out a meagre existence at the end of a mediocre career that he’d learnt little more than how to prepare the plans before the man had died.

But against all odds, Johannes had continued to work, had tried because he felt that once he could put his creations out into the world, people would like them.

Recognition would come, not for his reputation as new money, but as a gifted architect with glowing reviews in the Art Journal or the Illustrated London News .

It was folly. He was a slow, bumbling idiot as he’d always, always been. His work meant nothing against his lack of connections or a name. Johannes crouched, rolled up the booklet, opened the stove, and shoved it inside. He watched the flames lick the paper, hot and consuming like his indignation.

His anger roiled until it roared and burst from him. ‘This entire profession, everything about it, it’s rotten. Why bother to pick up a pen, why bother to draw the lines? Why bother with any of it?’

The fire cracked and whooshed with easy fuel as the paper curled and flamed to ash. But beneath the crackling, the room turned stiff and silent.

‘You are asking me, why bother?’ Florence’s laugh sounded as hollow as he felt. A cold flush of shame diluted his anger. She was right. He, at least, had a seat at the table.

‘I’ll pack these up. I’ll tell your father I couldn’t get them finished in time. He—he’ll understand.’

His calloused fingertips scratched at the dry parchment.

Watercolour and ink outlines of the plans for the lower and upper levels rippled when he shook them.

He bent the ends of the plans over, then rolled them through his fingertips and into his palms, the paper swallowing itself as the design disappeared.

Florence came to stand beside him. He kept his head bent and blinked back his indignation.

She tilted her head to study the lines of the drawing while he tucked it away.

‘This part is you, isn’t it?’ She circled the end of the house with her fingertip.

Bedrooms, bathroom, a slightly wider hallway…

The children’s bedrooms close, but not too close, to the main suite.

Johannes stopped rolling the page. She pinched one end of the top sheet and pulled it out, slowly.

Johannes loosened his grip. Once she had freed the entire sheet from his grasp, she held it up, stretched between wide arms, and carried it over to the light at her father’s table.

‘You’ve grouped all the family rooms together.

Well away from the office and sitting room where guests or visiting managers and superiors would be received.

The family would have its privacy, even though work defines it.

And what a well-thought-out plan for the utilitarian rooms and wash basins.

’ She chuckled. ‘I’ve seen architects completely omit indoor water closets and bathrooms, as if acknowledging the baseness of humans would ruin their design. ’

She read the lines on the page like they were a book, running her fingers over them. ‘The windows and where you’ve placed the fireplaces would make it both light and cosy. Good ventilation in the summer but no draughts in the winter, unless it’s a very cold day. It’s beautiful.’

‘It comes from so many of us living in so narrow a place. All those stairs. I think about windows and air constantly,’ he said, self-conscious under her scrutiny.

‘If you insist on being modest, you will never succeed in this profession,’ she tutted. ‘And this is not pragmatism. Work like this only comes from the heart.’

Johannes basked in the warmth of her praise. Her eyes, those ever-darting, blueprint-bright eyes swept over the house plan.

‘The reason we persist is that we have no choice. If we don’t draw, if we don’t create, if we don’t try, who would we be?

Because if we didn’t, a part of us would die.

That’s why.’ With a determined nod, she lowered herself into her father’s chair, pulled the quantities book closer, and took up a pen.

‘Maybe things will be different this time,’ she announced.

‘After all, they keep going out to competition. It must be for a reason. Maybe Mr Harris has grown lazy, and this time, he will be no match for you.’

‘I very much doubt it. Like you say, we lack the name and the connections, and—’

‘Hope.’ She dipped the nib in the ink. Just before she touched it to the page, she looked up. ‘If people like you and I don’t have hope, then they have won. Give them everything. But don’t give them that.’

Watching Florence work was like watching a magician who conjured pounds and pence.

She broke down the components of his vision into square feet and inches of wood, tiles, bricks, and plaster.

Then she re-cast it into a balance sheet of beautiful economy.

She scrawled sums, stretched formulas across the page, tallied them, and left little notes in the margins.

Reducing his vision to pounds and shillings tested his heart and his head, but Florence coaxed it all into balance.

‘Pine or oak?’ she asked.

‘Oak would look nicer,’ he replied.

‘Pine is less expensive.’ She tapped the end of the pen against the table. ‘Your cottage is currently sitting at ￡186.’

Johannes pressed his forehead into his palms. Too much economy and his design would be lacklustre and wouldn’t impress the judges. Too little and he’d price the work so high that he’d be accused of ostentation. They wouldn’t even bother to unroll their submission.

His watch slid the hour over. The church bell gonged three singular warnings. And he still had to make his way across town and register his plan before six o’clock. Johannes dragged his chair across the room and planted it beside Florence. He leant in and scanned her list.

‘It’s the last thing I need to price,’ she muttered. ‘Paint it, and the sun will shine off the gloss. No one will know the difference.’

She wiped a stray hair from her face. An absent-minded spot of ink marked her cheek. Heavy with the weight of the day, his mind clunked with the comparison. She was right, yet his heart screamed oak .

Johannes took one last look at the plan, then closed his eyes.

He pulled the lines into his mind and let them stack and build themselves in his imagination until they stood firm enough to create a door with hinges that swung and stairs to climb.

He stepped forwards and turned the handle.

Walked into the building. Cast his glance into the front rooms, down the hall to the family rooms, then kept going until he reached the stairs.

He looked down at the banister beneath his fingers.

Johannes opened his eyes.

‘Oak,’ he said. ‘I know it seems like too much, but the woodgrain, the rings of age, and the honesty of it matter. The family needs to traverse a stairway made of that to ground them in the world. It can’t be wrought iron or painted pine. It must be oak.’

He leant over and scanned her sheet, looking for somewhere to create a little economy. ‘Change the tiles in the washrooms. The tiles can be plain, not painted.’

She huffed, struck out the offending number, mumbled something like, I suggested as much earlier, as she scribbled a new figure, then set to tallying the columns.

Finally, she slid the sheet across the desk.

‘I will leave the presentation to you, but there you have it. A beautiful overseer’s cottage on a company budget. ’

Her eyes shone with achievement. The dot on her cheek had smeared, and thin curls had escaped from her braid.

When her soft pink lips parted on a sigh of fatigue, he let himself linger on them for too long.

They sat side by side, both touching the paper, and he flexed his fingers, tentatively reaching across to find hers.

‘My neighbour Miss Delaney is hosting a musicale at her home this Friday. Would you like to accompany me?’

‘Is this a special excursion for the society?’

‘No. This is me wanting to spend more time with a woman whose company I enjoy. To perhaps get to know you a little better.’

‘I… I am not sure we should…’

‘Her house is the Italian Palladian. It’s an excellent example of its type.’

Florence bit her lip, but the grin she was clearly trying to suppress persisted. ‘I’ve never been inside a Palladian,’ she whispered. ‘Are the floors marble? How tall are the ceilings?’

‘Why don’t you accept my invitation and discover the answers for yourself?’

She nodded once, in slow commitment.

Johannes scrawled the address onto one of the scrap sheets of paper. ‘Wonderful. I will see you on Honeysuckle Street at eight.’