The Duel, January 3, 1800

The Duel, January 3, 1800
by Ken Leland

The line of men over by the river are wrapped in fur.
They stand in new snow near the footbridge.
Why do they stare at me?
Who are they?

“. . . then you will both turn and fire.” A pause. “Mr. White. Are you listening, Sir?”
“What?” I ask.
“I will count as you take seven paces. Then you will turn and fire. Do you understand?”
At grey dawn, we tremble on the plain beside the Don River. My adversary and friend, a tall, burly man preposterously named Joseph Small, glares down at me. Over his chest and arms, the wind ripples his long-sleeved, white shirt.
“I will ask one last time. Is there a chance for reconciliation . . . Mr. White?”
I glance at the grim, bloody-minded Small and wonder, did she confess? If not, how much does he know? How could I possibly ask what he knows?
I shake my head in despair.
The conductor of this dreadful business holds out a shallow, open box. “Both were carefully loaded,” he says. “Take your choice, Mr. Small.”
Small grasps one of the identical, walnut-handled pistols and holds it upright to cock the hammer. His face flames in driving snow.
“Have you used a pistol before, Mr. White?”
The steel barrel shines in my hands. The weapon is heavy. I pull the spring hammer back.
“If you fire before the count of seven, it’s murder.”
How ridiculous, I think, as we turn back to back. I imagine myself in my usual powdered wig, standing before the Court of Quarter Sessions to ask one of those witnesses along the creek, “Did I, John White, Attorney General of Upper Canada, wait upon the count of seven before firing on Joseph Small, Clerk of the Executive Council?”

ONE

* * * *

“Mr. Russell!” Pompy yells into the echoing hallways, “White and Small. They’re fixin’ to kill each other.”
Limping, the Honourable Peter Russell, recently retired Administrator of Upper Canada, descends the mansion stairs. His gout is excruciating. Pompy, the black man Russell employs as his farm manager, waits inside the oak panelled foyer in a puddle of melting snow.
“Saints defend us, Pompy. What’s all the commotion?”
“You got to come quick, Mr. Russell. I brought the wagon.”

TWO

* * * *

Russell’s long woollen scarf hangs down past the bouncing wagon bench as he struggles to button his fur coat. Once stout, the aging Russell has shrunk, withered like a late autumn pumpkin forgotten in a field. Pompy reaches out to steady him as the wagon lurches through the ice-rimmed slush pits that are Front Street.
“You! Woman!” Russell raises his fist and shouts at a figure on the plank sidewalk. “Confound you. What have you done this time?”
Mrs. Emily Small is a petite, enticing coquette with strands of long brown curls that peep from beneath her bonnet. Raising gloved hands to hide her tear-streaked face, she hurries down the street.
“On her way, no doubt, to wail to my sister,” Russell growls. “Much good it will do her.”
“I left White’s boys still asleep,” Pompy says, as they rumble through the frozen slough that is the intersection with Yonge Street.

THREE

* * * *

“Miss Russell? Are you home?”
Miss Elizabeth Russell, greying spinster and sister to the now retired Provincial Administrator, Peter Russell, hurries into the foyer when she hears Mrs. Emily Small. At Miss Russell’s close approach, Mrs. Small throws off her bonnet, clutches Miss Russell’s hands and wilts to her knees in lamentations. Miss Russell, still in her dressing gown, wonders how Emily has managed to dress impeccably and yet achieve a state of emotional collapse, both before breakfast.
“Oh, Miss Russell. They’ve gone to fight each other.”
“There, there, my dear,” Miss Russell replies, amazed by the trace of thrilled anticipation in Emily’s voice. “Whatever can you mean?”

Mrs. Small’s face is upturned; flawless skin, sweet peaked nose and lustrous hair carefully trained into curls that fall to her shoulders. In Society, men babble insipidly in Emily’s presence – though today, her tortured eyes spoil the effect.
“My husband didn’t come home last night. Then just before dawn, he did,” Emily says.
“Oh. I see,” Miss Russell says.
“He spent the night at an inn.”
“Yes, yes. I’m sure he did,” Miss Russell says, slowing lifting Emily to her feet.
“And he was quite sharp with me. At first I couldn’t imagine why.”
“No, no. Of course, you couldn’t, my dear.”
“When he left at dawn, my husband said he was going to kill John White, in a duel across the river.”

The aging spinster is aghast that two gentlemen she and her brother have received in their home for years could come to such a pass.
“Do you have any idea why?”
“John White pretends, he pretends that he and I have had . . . relations.”

FOUR

* * * *

Susanna Page hears the hard scrape of a wagon axle plunging into a frozen pothole. At the sound of an oath, she glances outside to see Peter Russell clinging to the driver’s bench as Pompy’s wagon careens towards the Don River.
John must have gone straight home, Susanna thinks. Pompy’s already out and about.
Pompy was to stay overnight with John White’s two growing sons while John slept in Susanna’s arms. Early in the morning, long before light, John woke her sweetly with great longing. Gasping, finally, he clutched her tight. A little later he whispered how much he loved her and then rose to dress in darkness before going to the next room to kiss their two young daughters goodbye.

Susanna sighs as she thinks of John. My house here in York is just four mean rooms – and so dear at that. In Niagara, John and I had a brave cottage with flowers by the sidewalk and a garden. Fran and Lucy were born there and we were happy. But then, a year ago, Mrs. White sailed from Wales, bringing John’s two fine sons and her fiery temper. Their reunion failed, thank the Lord. When Mrs. White returned to Cardiff in the fall, she left the boys behind in a ruinously expensive, second house.
Now John says he and I can share one home, just as soon as we can explain Fran and Lucy to his sons.

FIVE

* * * *

Miss Russell and Mrs. Emily Small sit behind the fire screen next to the rose wood fireplace.
“Why would John say such an outlandish thing? Do you think my husband blames me?” Emily asks.
“Blames you for what, my dear?”
“At the subscription ball, Mrs. White was most horrid to me. Everyone heard her. Joseph was mortified.”
“Oh, yes. It was scandalous,” Miss Russell says.
“Why, of course the three of us lived together at first. It was so crowded in Niagara when all the government officials arrived together. And not even shacks to rent,” Emily says.
Miss Russell nods. She remembers those early days in Upper Canada.
“But the things Mrs. White said! As if John White and my Joseph shared more than the house.”
“No one credits that, Emily.”
“Mrs. White thinks I’m a loose woman. Is that why she returned to Wales?”
“No, no. It’s a blessing she’s gone,” Miss Russell says, knowing full well no woman would trust her man, no man could trust himself, under the same roof with the irresistible Mrs. Emily Small.

SIX

* * * *

Miss Russell stares quietly at the ash-strewn, parlour floor. The servants are hopelessly inept. After a moment she glances up at Emily.
“My dear. What exactly did John say to your husband?”
“They didn’t speak. There was a letter.”
“From John?”
“No, unsigned. Something about proof overheard at the Nag’s Head.”
“Tavern gossip, proof! And your husband believed it? Imbecile!”

Miss Russell shouts for her boots and winter coat.
“Lord in Heaven. Where’s Peter?” Miss Russell asks in confusion as a servant hurries to bring her galoshes and wrap.
“Your brother and Pompy are headed for the Don,” Emily says. “I saw them in the street.”
“Emily, run tell Doctor Baldwin to harness his sleigh,” Miss Russell says. “I’ll be there directly.”

SEVEN

* * * *

I turn at the count of seven. The snow filled world spins past watching faces to settle upon a tall, white-shirted man, standing alone. My arm is heavily weighted. In extension it waves past my solitary adversary, to the earth, then skyward.
A soundless effusion of smoke leaps towards me. My ribs are struck a hammer blow. I rock backwards, as my legs buckle. The pistol in my hand drags down my arm. I am startled by its explosion as I fall face down into the snow. A searing iron has plunged into my side and I begin to scream.

* * * *

“I killed him!” Joseph Small shouts as he runs forward. A ring of witnesses already surrounds the moaning, writhing John White.
Small pushes through the crowd until he sees the tickle of blood oozing from underneath White’s body. “Dear God! I’ve killed him.”
Someone rolls White onto his back. His linen shirt is crusted with red, powdered snow, congealing upon the pierced cloth. White’s wide eyes stare upward. As he clutches at his side, he spreads blood across his belly.
Pompy clears a path, the tottering Peter Russell calls to all and sundry, “Let us through.”
In a gout-driven agony of his own, Russell kneels to take White’s hand.
“John, are you with us still?”
White nods and grinds his lower lip to keep from wailing.
“Good, man. Hold on.”

The sleigh carrying Doctor Baldwin, Miss Russell and Mrs. Emily Small arrives just as White is carried over the footbridge to Pompy’s wagon. Emily cries out as she runs to her husband. Her hands smooth over his windblown shirt, then, satisfied that he is whole, she turns to the wounded man.

“Oh, John,” Emily says as she leans into the wagon to touch his shoulder. His eyes focus when he turns to her voice.
“Never.” White moans, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Never.”
“Bastard!” Small snarls. “Still lying. Still denying your guilt.”
The diminutive Emily wheels, and with the crack of a horse whip, she slaps her husband’s face. “He’s not lying, you precious fool! He never touched me.”

Doctor Baldwin clambers into the wagon box to rip open White’s shirt. The bullet has entered between the second and third lower ribs. There is no exit wound. The ball is lodged somewhere inside his belly.
“Take him to Susanna Page’s house,” Doctor Baldwin tells Pompy. “He’s fading.”
The witnesses part as Pompy lashes the team back towards town.
* * * *
“Keep that door closed!” the doctor shouts to the neighbours clustered in Susanna Page’s tiny kitchen.
White lies in Susanna’s bed – their daughters, Fran and Lucy, stand at the doorway, eyes wide with fear for their blood-covered father. Draped in a shawl, Susanna sits on the bed in horrified silence, her eyes locked with John’s as he struggles in hushed wretchedness. The doctor completes his examination.
“Miss Russell,” Doctor Baldwin says gently to the aging lady, “please ask if anyone has extra clean towels.” Miss Russell marches to the kitchen and begins to organize those she finds there. In the bedroom, her brother Peter leans back against the curtained wall to ease his aching foot.
“Pompy, we’ll need warm water to wash him. At least two pails.”
“I’ll borrow some buckets,” Pompy says as he heads out the door.
“Mr. Small.”
“Yes? Anything.”
“It’s cold.” The doctor glances at Susanna Page, who wrings her hands then reaches out to touch John’s face.
“Mrs. Page is short of firewood.”
“I’ll buy some,” Small says and squeezes his wife’s hand before hurrying out into the snow-filled street. Emily smiles distractedly as her husband departs, then turns to stare at the plainly dressed woman caressing John’s cheek.
“Mrs. Page,” Doctor Baldwin whispers, “come away, please. Just for a moment.”

Susanna Page and the doctor enter the children’s bedroom. The doctor closes the door. “Susanna. It’s very bad. The bullet passed through the liver. I think it’s lodged somewhere near the spine.”

Alone and unnoticed beside the curtains, Russell watches as Emily approaches the bed. She drops quickly to one knee, leans close. John’s voice is slow but clear.
“Never . . . tell. I go . . . to the grave.”

A short time after Emily leaves, Doctor Baldwin and Susanna Page return to the bedroom.
“Laudanum,” the doctor says as he places two thin, brown bottles on the dressing table. “Give him one now. He will sleep. When he wakes, give him the second.”
“There’s nothing else?” Susanna sobs. The girls clasp tight to her skirts.
“No, nothing. I’ll return to clean his wound while he’s asleep.”

As snow swirls beyond the window, Susanna cradles John’s head in her lap. Their daughters sit motionless at the foot of the bed. Russell limps over to collapse onto the chair by the door.
“This will ease the pain,” Susanna says holding the laudanum close.
John gently pushes the vial away.
“A moment,” he murmurs. “Susanna, my love, my only love. Had I found you first, I swear things would have been different.”
“I know. I’ve always known. It can’t be helped.”
“I’ve nothing left, just debts. You must be strong, for our girls.”
Russell frowns as he rises to limp out the door.

* * * *

The Duel was first published by Simone Press in 'Selected Places" in 2017.

In summer’s crushing heat, Pompy and Russell file into the back row of the smoky courtroom. With a handkerchief, Russell wipes sweat from his neck and then picks up a paper fan. A town warden approaches the high bench to address the triune judges.
“Your Honours, it has come to my attention that a Mrs. Page, a former servant . . .”
The warden coughs.
“. . . of the deceased Attorney General and her two daughters are destitute, homeless. They pray relief.”
The judges confer, powdered wigs bent close. “The Court is of the opinion that the Acts of this Province do not authorize such wastrel use of public funds. Next item.”

Peter Russell leans on Pompy’s arm. It is a relief to stand on the Court House steps, bathed in cool breezes from Lake Ontario.
“What will she do?” Pompy asks Russell.
“I don’t know.”
“You paid passage for his boys back to Wales,” Pompy says.
“Yes. Yes, I did that.”
“Miss Russell wants a better housekeeper. You got plenty of room.”
“I can’t accommodate all the strays in Upper Canada,” Russell says.
“No. No you can’t,” Pompy smiles gently as he helps the old man down the steps. “Just John’s wife and girls.”

The End