A Will To Murder by Hilary Thomson

cover to join his father.
    “Well, kid, I see she didn’t kill you this morning.”
    The boy felt better.  His father would have yelled if he’d been angry.
    “Richie was trying to stab me with a fork,” said Arthur in a low voice, “and I was only trying to stop him.  I didn’t mean to get into trouble.”
    “Yeah, your cousin is really something.  Your Mom says Mrs. Marshpool was pretty extreme with you kids.  She’s talked to Armagnac about it.  Hopefully that woman will restrain herself in the future.”
    “I’m still hungry, and Mrs. Marshpool locked all of us in our rooms last night.”
    “And I think you can wait until lunch, and that Mrs. Marshpool didn’t.  Now pay attention so you can greet your cousins.  These are the Wileys.”
    Two people were climbing out of the taxi while the cabdriver lifted luggage from the trunk.  The cabbie seemed annoyed.  The first passenger was a crew-cut male about college age, in a T-shirt and shorts.  His features, neither handsome nor ugly, were best described as generic state university frat boy.  He was standing with his hands behind his head as if stretching from the cramped ride, but really to display his muscles.  Ignoring the assembled company, he lifted a lip in a perplexed sneer at the odd black exterior of the house.
    “Hey, Colette!” the crew-cut yelled, “quit fussing with your clothes and pay that driver!  I want to get in some time with my weights.”
    The other passenger was a very pretty girl, about the same age as the young man.  Her hair was white blonde and long, and was trimmed in bangs in front.  She wore black velvet trousers, high-heeled wooden clogs, and a tight  sweater she was tugging down.  A cigarette drooped negligently from her mouth.  “Pay him yourself, shithead,” she said to the young man without bothering to look in his direction.
    “You have to do it.  I don’t have any money,” crew-cut retorted.  “Hey, there’s people waiting for us.  Don’t take all day.”
    The blonde girl extracted a few bills from her pants pocket to pay the driver, her cigarette pinched artfully between two crooked knuckles.
    Arthur recognized them.  They were in those photos he had asked Aunt Katherine about, the ones on the living room table.  He hid behind his father in case the blonde girl looked his way.  She was unnervingly attractive.
    “These are your cousins,” said Bert to his son.  “Lance and Colette Wiley.”
    Armagnac strode down the marble steps, puffing his cheeks and chest out like the man-of-the-manor.  Behind him, Mrs. Marshpool was peering through the diamond-shaped panes of the foyer with a measuring squint.  The cabdriver lifted a pair of obviously heavy bags out of the trunk and let them fall to the pavement with a dull thunk.  Then he drove off with a thankful expression.  
    “Hey,” Lance Wiley barked at his sister, “c’mere and help carry my weights.”
    Colette only replaced her cigarette in her mouth.  “Carry them yourself,” she retorted, her lips showing a monkey-like dexterity with the cigarette as she spoke around it.  “You’re the idiot who’s always picking them up and putting them down.”  She gave her sweater a final tug at the waist.  Not once had she bothered to look at her hosts.
    “Oh my God,” gasped Armagnac, “they’re proles .”
    Jac, who had been watching the newcomers closely, crossed her arms and looked meaningfully at her sister.   “You see?” Jac declared, “you wasted a good cry over nothing.”
    Rose was taken aback by the Wileys’ manners, but Katherine was undismayed.  “Welcome to Rollingwood!” the old lady exclaimed.  “I am so happy I can finally receive you here.  It’s a shame your poor mother didn’t live to see this day.”  Katherine made a motion as if to embrace her niece, but Colette’s cigarette was poking out prominently, and her hands did not move from her hips.  Katherine diverted her embrace to Lance, who was