MODERN CONVENIENCES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22578, 17 November 1936, Page 16

MODERN CONVENIENCES

BY CKRMAINE BEAUMONT

The ghost at the Castle of Langrepoix, who was known as the Green Knight on account of the mildew on his effigy, was in the habit of heating a pointed steel shoe 011 one of the radiators when he wanted to iron liis shroud for important occasions, when there woic guests at the castle, for instance. In this way he had the use of a convenient flat-iron for nothing «nd warmed himself very comfortably into the bargain, for generations of confined living had left him in delicate health. However, during an unusually gloomy spring tlie central heating fell off so badly that bo was obliged to present an appearance that troubled his fastidiousness acutely, and ho was continually catching colds. And that was not all. He was also in tlio habit of spending part of the summer in the refrigerator, where tbo invigorating quality of the coolness made his old resort, the cellars, seem tame; but at the very beginning of the dog days he found that the electricity had been cut off, and existence in the hot weather suddenly changed to a hardship.

When ordinary people encounter upsets of this kind they lose no time either in complaining or in having matters put right. But the case of ghosts is more complicated, for obvious reasons. The Green Knight tried placing himself, with a melancholy air, in the path of his descendant, the present owner of the castle. But Monsieur de Langrepoix saw nothing and walked clean through him. The Green Knight then made use of a subterfuge. He took to coughing at night. Mine, do Langrepoix heard him and shook her husband in bed. "I)o you hear that noise, Baudoin?" M. do Langrepoix was not asleep. "Alas, Yolande, I hear it only too well. It's the gutters, I fear. If they give way now under the leaves that .are choking them it will Lo tho end of everything." "Are we as badly off as that?" "We've practically nothing. I paid the income-tax yesterday. AN hat more is there to bo said!'"

Accordingly, they said 110 more for the moment. They were not young, and the prospect of poverty as they got older was not stimulating. The Green Knight, annoyed at being taken for an overflowing gutter, stood transparently at the'foot of the bed.

Remarkably enough, it was tho two people lying beneath their bedclothes who looked as if they were dead, and tho dead man's ghost, standing upright, who seemed alive. Mine, de Langrepoix put an end to tho silence.

"But what's to bo done, Baudoin ? If we've really nothing left and everything is mortgaged, 'iow are we to live?"

"We must sell the castle, Yolande. When the mortgages are paid there will perhaps be just enough lor us to exist on."

The Green Knight emitted a rending sigh.

"The windows no longer shut properly," said Mine, de Langrepoix. "Did vou hear that draught in the room?"

"A gutter I And now a draught?" murmured the Green Knight to himself. "There is no respect left in the world. And if these wretched people sell the castle what will become of me? I'm to be left continually exposed to heat and cold while tho place falls to ruin, apparently, for no one is likely to burden themselves with the upkeep of a castle these days." Meanwhile M. and Mine, do Langrepoix continued their lamentations in the darkness.

"And to think," said Mine, de Langrepoix, "that the Green Knight's treasure is supposed to be hidden here somewhere and no one has ever found it!"

"My treasure! That's the last straw!"

Tho Green Knight ground his teeth, whereupon M. do Langrepoix remarked :

"You were light; the wind is getting up. 1 can hear the vane creaking. Let's hope it won't keep us awake. I think we had better try to get some sleep, Yolande. Perhaps the night will bring counsel."

Tho Green Knight, outraged at now being taken for a windvane, withdrew to his tomb in the chapel. The tomb was stuffy and uncomfortable and his thoughts were taking a profoundly painful course. It has to be said that the events which brought Hilarion de Langrepoix to become the Green Knight were to do with his ruthless avarice. In order to get possession of tho fortune of his wife, Valentine de Juvisy, be had not scrupled to make away with her. Then, still out of cupidity, be had killed his cousin, the Squire of Bercv. Finally, by a series of felonious manoeuvres, he had seized tho finds of a neighbouring abbey. Tho outcome of all this was that, having collected a largo fortune in money and valuables and carefully hidden it away, he found himself, at his death, refused admittance to the next world. "Since money is what you love, stay with your money," St. Peter had notified him. "Stay with your money until you have spent it to the very last coin. Only then will these gates be open to you, my robber friend. And take good care that ' you spend it straightforwardly and well, or it's the infernal regions that will have a claim to you, not these."

And now the Green Knight held a colloquy with himself which outdid, by its alternations, tho stanzas of The Cid. "Why," he said, "am 1 the object of these unprovoked injuries? Must 1 face death from the eold each winter, henceforward, and death from the heat in the summer? This is indeed an unjust world! Without tho comforts I have grown used to during these last years 1 shall certainly die slowly of exposure. But to give up my treasure! What is that but to die, too . . .? And could any other death be as painful. . . .?"

This went on for a long time. The summer without the refrigerator had been almost insupportable. Night after sleepless night he groaned and grew weak in the heat. Oil for the days when lie used to help himself to iced claret-cup while the cook's back was turned! There was a short and temperate respite in the autumn; but at the first grim breath of winter he made up his mind.

M. and Mine, do Lnngrepoix were taking a last look round, before putting the castle up for sale. The Green Knight followed them until they were all three together in the right place. It was the last possible moment. Then he surreptitiously pushed a stone, which swung 011 a pivot and disclosed a hiding-place in the wall. M. de Lnngrepoix thought ho had done it himself by accident. His eyes nearly came out of his head. "The treasure!" ho stuttered. "The treasure, Yolandel" "Now they can order some coal for the winter," said the Green Knight. "Perhaps they will still bo in time to get it at summer prices. . . ." But he found difficulty in articulating these remarks, even to himself. Already the figures of his descendants,

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who were on their knees and babbling with joy before boxes of gold coins and jewellery, were becoming indistinct. He just had time to observe, without the least ironic intention: "Anybody would think they were a couple of ghosts." Already the air was full of the twang of harps and the jangle of Peter's keys. . . . Hut Baudoin de Langrepoix had a peculiar sensation at the sight of so much wealth, which was that it was utterly repugnant to him to share it with his wife. The only way to avoid sharing it was to do away with Yolaiule, which he did by poisoning her discreetly. Consequently, upon his own death he became the Green Knight, in accordance with the family tradition.