Madame Legrange was seventy-six—an asparagus-like Parisienne, elegantly accessorized by a lanky yellow dog named Galantine. Madame Legrange had just bought my small village house in Milly-La-Forêt, a town near Fontainebleau. She was tall. Erect. White haired. She wore a chic, tailored gray wool suit. My house was not unlike her. Three-stories tall and narrow. A stone town house with antique greenish curly glass in its many-paned wooden windows. Straight and old, the house suited Madame Legrange. Huge oak beams owned the ceilings. A raised stone fireplace’s hearth was just the right height so she wouldn’t have to bend down to build herself a blaze. She claimed she had always wanted real oaken kitchen cupboards and had oohed and aaahed over a pitched sky-lighted bedroom/study on the third floor. “C’est parfait!” she told me. Only perfect.
It’s easier to hand a beloved house over to someone who doesn’t clash with its overall allure. Madame Legrange might have been from central casting. She even smelled right. A subtle Guerlain or Hermès fragrance hovered in her vicinity. I had sold my place quickly. So quickly in fact that I needed extra time. Time to move my furniture out. It was coming on winter and I had not yet bought another country house. Shortly after the closing at the notary’s office in Milly-la-Forêt, Madame Legrange, Galantine and I walked back to the house together and sat down to chat in her new living room - on my furniture. I had previously indicated to Madame Legrange that I might need a a week or so to move myself out. During our chat, I wondered. “So... when do you plan to move in here then?”
“Oh not now.” She smoothed her gray flannel skirt. She flatted a pleat, muttered, “Not for awhile.” and smiled up at me demurely.
“If I am not being too indiscreet,” said I. “when did you actually intend to take up residence?” said I.
“Maybe in a few years.” she replied.
“Oh I don’t need years.” I assured her. “A couple of weeks will give me ample time to move all this stuff somewhere.” I waved my hand at the furniture and added, “You can move your things in by February for sure.”
“No thank you.” she said. “I don’t need to move anything in. I will be coming here every day with Galantine. I will make a fire, sit in front of it and read my newspaper.” She thought for a moment. “Don’t worry Madame White. Take your time.” She patted the arm of my upholstered armchair. “You can move your furniture out whenever you want. When it’s gone, I will use a sturdy folding chair that I keep in the shed over at my place.”
Madame Legrange,it turned out, lived in the nearby village of Barbizon in the guest house of a château. The castle belonged to some old friends of hers - a couple. He, a retired doctor, spent all his free time in the garden, digging and planting and pruning and loving it. The doctor’s wife shopped and made la cuisine and puttered about the house consulting women’s magazines for beauty secrets. Madame Legrange ate lunch with them every day. The wife was her best friend. They chatted all the time about politics and fashion and sometimes whiled away the afternoons in heady conversation about trendy famous people and royal couples. Occasionally , they would watch American television series reruns. Dallas was Madame Legrange’s favorite. Her friend preferred All My Children.
“But ...” said Madame Legrange, leaning confidentially in my direction, “Although I love my friend to pieces, she cannot let me be. Even after I go back to my little cottage in the bottom of her garden in the late afternoons, she rings me right up, pretending to have forgotten something she needed to say. I cannot tell her that sometimes I need time to read my newspaper. It would hurt her feelings. And she has been so kind to me.”
