The inner door, of heavy glass behind iron grillwork, was opened by a woman who had a worn but pleasant face. “It’s about the apartment,” Christine said. “I spoke to a Mr. Manson.”
“That’s my husband. He’s there now, it’s the third floor.”
“Thank you. Coming, Rodney?”
They climbed. Three flights up, but who cared, Christine thought, still darkly suspecting some error in the listing, because the entrance hall was clean and vacuumed, with no musty food smells and the stairs were carpeted in a soft taupe, would you believe it. Beautiful old banisters, a fine, dark wood and niches in the bend of the stairway with old-fashioned busts, one of Shakespeare. “I say, this is more like it,” Rodney said enthusiastically. “I shall certainly take it, Christine.”
On the third floor a door stood ajar, the one leading to the front-view flat. It was apparent that there were two apartments on each floor, which meant about ten units altogether. “I’d like to live here myself,” Christine said pensively. “I wonder if this is a dream or something.”
“Or maybe Mr. Feelers is in residence,” he murmured.
They pushed open the door and went in. She knew at once that this was it. They were in a large, high-ceilinged room, rectangular in shape, with a fireplace that was sealed off but which nevertheless lent grace and elegance, its moldings adorned with carved caryatids. Oyster-white walls and parquet floor with the patina of age, and the ceiling was festooned with plaster moldings, in the center a great sunburst design. The sun, strong and effulgent, blazed in through almost floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Oh, Rodney …”
“Oh, Chris …”
“You’re sure you have your checkbook now.”
“Yes, of course.” He patted a pocket.
“It will be a month’s security, maybe two. And the first month’s rent.”
“Right.”
Voices, coming from another room, grew louder, and a couple of men appeared in the doorway that led beyond the living room. Or drawing room, Christine thought, it was a gracious, old time drawing room. A middle-aged man and a younger one. “Mr. Manson?” Christine said to the older one.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“I’m Mrs. Jennings, I phoned a short while ago. This is Mr. Thornley, who’s interested in the apartment. May we go through and see the rest of it, please?”
There was an exchange of glances between the two men. Uh oh, Christine thought. The young man was also looking for a place to live. “My friend isn’t just interested,” she said quickly. “He wants it. Just let us know what the deposit will be and he’ll write out a check for that and the first month’s rent.”
“I’m sorry,” the young man said, “but you’re just a little too late. You see I’ve already written out my check.”
“But we came right away!” she cried. “I mean, when I phoned it was still vacant! If there was any question you should have said so, Mr. Manson. Well, really! Couldn’t you at least have waited for us to see it before deciding?”
“It’s a hard, cruel world,” the younger man remarked. “First come, first served. I’m truly sorry.”
“My God.”
She felt like weeping. Beside her, Rodney stood glum. She felt his disappointment, his letdown. Shock, too. Hell, she herself wanted to hit somebody.
“You know, this is really too much,” she said furiously. “It isn’t fair, I don’t think it’s fair. You have to be given some chance. We’ve been looking for days and days. We’ve turned this town upside down. We’ve — ”
“I know,” the young man said. “Take my word for it, I know. People look for years. Just the same, though, I have an idea. If you can stick around for a few minutes I may be able to help.”
“How?” she asked scornfully.
“I’m serious.”
“I fail to see how we can stick around. Stick around and lose out on other listings? You’re sure you want this place?”
“Very sure.”
“I see. Well, it’s all very depressing. Finding just what Rodney wanted … he can’t afford to pay very much.”
“I can’t afford to pay very much either. I was reckless enough to ditch my job, which if I still had it would enable me to move aside and let you have this place with my compliments.” He smiled. “It’s not easy to turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of a lovely lady.”
“Compliments won’t get us an apartment,” she retorted, but found herself, with great reluctance, answering his smile. He was a prepossessing sort, interesting-looking and very dark in his coloring, dark eyes and dark crispy, curly hair, quite a lot of it and rather undisciplined, though not long and shaggy. He was a little too thin for his considerable height and he had a strong face you couldn’t help noticing, strong and thin. Artistic? Maybe a painter, except that a painter would want north light. He would have been attractive to her under any other circumstances.
“Did you want something more, then?” the super asked, the check for the rented apartment in his hand.
“No, I think we’ve settled everything, Mr. Manson. I have the keys, it seems to be all for now. I’ll let you know my moving date, of course. And many thanks.”
“Well then, good day and I hope you’ll be happy here.” He nodded to the other two. “Good day to you too.”
Christine, sulkily resigned, was curious. “Why is the rent so low?” she asked when the super had gone out. “The dives we’ve seen for higher. Why is the rent so low?”
“One of those lucky strikes you never expect to come your way. The last tenant was here for a hundred years, so the rent was low for a hundred years, no turnover. Now they can only take the standard hike.”
He shook his head. “Who would have thought it would happen to me.”
“If you hadn’t beat us by a scant few minutes it would have happened to us.”
“Oh. Look, I said I had an idea, and I think I can save the day, fix you up. By the way, I’m John Allerton.”
“Christine Jennings. This is Rodney Thornley, he’s the one who needs a home. What is this save-the-day idea of yours, Mr. Allerton?”
“I have an apartment for you.”
“What do you mean you have an apartment for us?”
“I put down a deposit on another one this morning. First ad I answered, but I also wanted to see this, so I hopped over here and knew right away I’d found pay dirt. Would you be interested in the other one? It’s on Eighty-first between Lex and Third.”
Hope soared. “It’s not as nice as this one, I take it?”
“This one’s brighter, more sun, which I wanted if I could get it. The other one’s great, though, or else I wouldn’t have plunked down the money for it. It has a bay, like this one, I’m pretty sure you’ll cotton to it. Rent’s $315.”
“Rodney?”
“Yes, of course. What was wrong with it?”
“Nothing. Except no bedroom, which I certainly didn’t expect to find anyway, but mainly it’s just enough below ground level that there isn’t all this strong light. Otherwise — ”
“You mean a basement flat?”
“No, nothing like that. You don’t think I’d consider anything like that? Do you want to see it? I’ll be glad to go on over with you. If you decide on it you can return my deposit to me. That is if you’re so inclined. I know I have no right to ask for it.”
“Of course we’d return it.”
“Then let’s get a move on, before something goes wrong on that end.”
“I appreciate it, Mr. Allerton.”
“Not a bit. If you’re satisfied with it I won’t be the villain in the piece. I’m not partial to being a heavy. I’ll just lock up here and we’ll be there in a jiffy.”
They flagged down a cab on Third, rode up to Eighty-first, where Allerton told the driver they’d get off. “It’s just up the block,” he told the others. “Here, let me get that.”
“You’re not paying for our cab,” she said, surveying the environs, which of course were familiar to an old New Yo
rker. “I know this street, it’s a good one. Trees, Rodney. I suppose it’s that rickety building with the peeling stucco? Still, it doesn’t look too run down.”
“No, it’s the one with the diamond-paned window, the one with the bay.”
“Oh, I’ve passed it before, any number of times. I always thought it was very sweet, sort of quaint. Rodney, it looks nice, doesn’t it?”
“Very nice indeed,” he said judiciously. “Rather like a small cottage. Mullioned windows. I shall feel I’m in the country.”
“It’s small inside, but very well laid out, very compact and serviceable. As I said, I was all ready to settle in there myself.”
Rodney had gone to look in the bay window, leaning forward to peer inside. Of course there were drawbacks immediately apparent, Christine was thinking. Where would he put an air conditioner? Naturally the thought wouldn’t have entered his head. You couldn’t put one in the bay unless you wanted to spoil its appearance, and they were the only front windows, so where would he put a unit? And there would certainly be easy access for a burglar. A ground-floor dwelling, it would be a piece of cake for someone to jimmy open a window and go right in.
Which was, when it came right down to it, something a burglar wouldn’t bother attempting, in plain sight. A burglar would jimmy open the door to the apartment rather than risk being spotted outside.
Well. Lots of people lived with fire escapes, what easier entry was there than a fire escape?
It did seem a creditable building, on a pleasant street, and if the plumbing left something to be desired, tant pis. Rodney would just have to learn to live with it. It would be a blessing if this were the last one. She was suddenly very, very weary of looking at apartments. “Could you see anything inside?” she asked Rodney when he came back.
“It looks good,” he said, sweeping back his hair. “There appears to be some built-in shelving. It doesn’t seem dark, either.”
A few minutes later they were inside the building, after being let in by a Mr. Scanlan, who unlocked the apartment door for them and who complained that he was being kept busy by people responding to the ad. “I can’t hold it any longer,” he said severely. “Deposit or no deposit.”
“I can understand that,” Allerton agreed. “Just give us a few minutes. You’ll have your answer right away. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said, and pushed open the door so they could go inside. Ten minutes later Rodney was writing out his check, and they had the key. Mr. Scanlan, relieved of his responsibilities, went his own way and they surveyed the rooms again. Rodney was overwhelmed by his find. He kept returning to the bay, where there was a window seat, presently covered in a faded chintz, but even though it would need recovering the overall effect was very pretty. It would provide extra seating, he informed them unnecessarily, and you could sit there reading a book.
And the light. Such a soft light, quite mellow and soft, like amber. Plus the built-in shelving, one hadn’t expected that. “Thank you, Mr. Allerton, I say, thanks a million. Oh, I must write you a check now. Three fifteen, right?”
“Unanticipated but welcome,” Allerton said, pocketing the check. “I think I’m as glad to get you people settled and off the hook as I am to see the money again. As I said, I know what it means. We’re a frantic fraternity, we apartment hunters. I’ve seen the same people frequently.”
“It’s terribly wearying,” Christine agreed. “But thanks to you we’re taken care of, no more trudging all over creation. I feel like buying you flowers, Mr. Allerton. You saved the day after all.”
“All’s well that ends well.”
“As for you, Rodney, congratulations. You’re a homeowner! You must call your mother tonight and let her know.”
“I shall. And now let’s celebrate, a smashing lunch, with champagne.”
“Lunchtime’s about two hours away, it’s only ten.”
“Oh. So it is.”
“And Mr. Allerton, now you have to get yourself back to your own apartment, don’t you? Please, I insist on paying for your cab back there.”
“Now listen,” he said. “I know I protested I couldn’t afford to pay much for my digs, but I’m not on Welfare. But I’d like to take you both to lunch, that is if you can manage to do without the champagne, which I confess might strain my resources a bit too far.”
“Well, wonderful! Instead of buying you flowers I’ll buy you lunch. Oh, please. If it weren’t for you — ”
“Not at all,” Rodney said expansively. “I’m in a celebratory mood, this will be my treat. And not another word said. Well, though, as it’s only tennish, what shall we do until then?”
“Maybe you wouldn’t mind coming back with me to admire my own acquisition? I wasn’t there very long so I didn’t have much of a chance to gloat.”
“Fine. Let’s go back to your own acquisition and help you gloat. We’ll start our rounds of furniture stores tomorrow, Rodney. Today we gloat. Lock the door. Got it? It’s a good Medico, but do you think he should have the bolt changed, Mr. Allerton?”
“I don’t think it’s called for, no. I’m not going to replace mine. By the way, please call me Jack.”
“Okay, call me Christine.”
“Would you like to walk down? It’s a nice day.”
“I’d love to walk down.”
“And now I really feel I belong here,” Rodney said, pocketing his key. “Now I’m really a resident.”
• • •
If she was a trifle uneasy about Rodney’s reaction to Jack Allerton’s much larger place she needn’t have worried, Christine was glad to see, as they went through his newly-acquired apartment. There was abundant praise but no envious glances, Rodney was clearly preoccupied with his own plans. He had a kind of vacant look, as if he were present only in the flesh. He had found what he had set out to find, and nothing could distract him from his complacency.
Christine herself enjoyed wandering along with Jack through this empty, high-ceilinged apartment, their footfalls echoing, voices as well. The bedroom was not a plyboarded L, but a real room, even if small and with a not very roomy clothes closet. “It will do,” Jack said. “I’ll have to make it do. There’s a better one in the hall between the rooms, and there’s a broom closet. I’ll manage.”
He opened a door. “Do you think this bathroom’s tacky? I was stunned when I looked at it. All these multicolored tiles. Like a circus. I wonder what smartass dreamed this up?”
“I don’t know, I feel it’s rather jolly. It’s certainly cheerful. And it looks clean as a whistle.”
“I suppose I’ll get used to it.”
“You’re being overcritical. I like it. I think it’s fun.”
He shrugged. “Anyway, it’s a minor point. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
They went back to the living room. “This,” he said, and swept his arm in an arc. “This is what you hope to find and rarely do. These ceilings, the room proportions, the fireplace. Be nice if I could use it, but just having it for appearance’ sake is terrific, that formal mantel, the carving. The hell with everything else, this room’s what sold me.”
“It’s beautiful,” Christine agreed. She could imagine what the room looked like when it was in prime condition, years ago when this house was in its heyday, a mansion — modest in its way but nevertheless a dignified town house some prosperous merchant owned at the turn of the century — and this one of its front parlors, a sitting or morning room, with heavy brocaded drapes at the handsome windows and a magnificent crystal chandelier where the sunburst radiated in the middle of the lofty ceiling.
There were louvres at the windows, built-in shutters that pulled out of the side wall, a feature you found in some of these old houses, closing off the room at night or parted, according to your wish, to subdue the glare of the sun when it became too dazzling. “Thank God I won’t have to have Venetian blinds,” Jack said. “They always look so tenementy to me.”
“I don’t like them either and they’re so hard to keep clean.
You don’t have shutters in the bedroom, do you?”
“No, that’s not a wide-silled window. Of course, as you noted, it looks out on nothing, just a few yards of space between this house and the adjoining one, but it provides light and air, and you can’t have everything.”
“At least it’s not an airshaft. We saw plenty of places facing on airshafts. Just put some cheerful curtains up, or a slatted bamboo blind, something in a warm cedar or so.”
“And I’ll have to buy an air conditioner for the bedroom. Just a small unit, install it myself. The one I have is a very good unit, 9200 B.T.U.s, I’ll get that installed right away, even before I move in.” He pointed. “In that window, not the one near where my desk will be. It won’t look too bad, it has an ivory-toned front panel, unobtrusive.”
“I say, must I have an air conditioner?” Rodney demanded, a little disconcerted. “But where?”
“I’m afraid it will have to be in the bay,” Christine explained. “I know it seems a shame, but — ”
“In the bay?” He bristled. “But that will spoil it! How can I do that?”
“There isn’t any other place, my darling. Don’t worry, it will be scarcely noticeable. Besides, the planting outside will help a bit. Rodney, dear, you must have an air conditioner. You haven’t experienced one of our New York summers yet.”
“Well, I must say this is a bitter blow. One of those horrid things sticking out of my casement window?”
“Why don’t you rent one?” Jack suggested. “Then you can have it taken out for the colder weather. Unless, of course, rental prices are exorbitant, I really can’t say about that. I can ask when I have mine moved and installed here. Shall I do that?”
“Oh yes, would you then? I’d very much appreciate it.” He shook his head, crestfallen. “I’m afraid I didn’t give it a thought, rather stupid of me.”
“Not at all, you’re probably not used to such details. I’m glad I have mine and don’t have to buy one. The bedroom unit won’t amount to much expense.”
“So you see, Rodney, your problems will be ironed out in no time. And if you rent a unit for, say four months or so, it might be the best all-round idea. Well, Jack, congratulations to you and I’d like to apologize for throwing a tantrum earlier this morning when I found someone had beaten us to the draw. I’m sorry, really sorry. You’ve been marvelous, I’ll never forget it.”
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 6