Kasba (White Partridge): A Story of Hudson Bay

by George R. Ray

Kasba sat on her narrow bed in a thoughtful and melancholy posture. Her pretty oval chin rested in the palm of her hand, and she leaned forward so that her elbow rested on her knee and upheld the forearm. She was gazing at her reflection in a small hand-mirror, but without interest. In fact her gaze was one of disparagement rather than of admiration, and with a heavy sigh she let the glass fall into her lap and sat lost in thought. The master was not in love with her and she knew, as if by direct intuition, that he had no intention of becoming so. There was not the least chance for her any longer, and she threw the glass behind her, somewhat petulantly it must be admitted, and dropped her face into her hands; for of what use was beauty if it did not win her the man she loved? She had known him a long time, many years it seemed to her, and had grown to love him. Love him! oh, how she loved him! Yet in all that time he had not spoken one word of love to her. And now that she had showed him her heart perhaps he despised her, or pitied her, which was worse. At that she sprang to her feet. She was no longer the calm, gentle-natured Kasba, but Kasba the Indian in whose veins ran the blood of a great race. She was a strange mixture of humility and pride, this Indian maid. As she stood there, her head raised proudly, her nostrils quivering, her eyes flashing, her form rounded yet slight, her varying color, her tender youth and singular grace of attitude would have inspired an artist with the ideal of Indian beauty. Then her eyes filled and she gulped down a sob. She was feeling very bitter and rebellious. She felt that she had a grudge against Fate.

To every pure and innocent young girl, we are told, love is a condition of mind, not a strain on the senses. But Kasba knew nothing of this. She had not the conventional and sensitive delicacy of white girls. She was well aware of life’s evil truths, and knew that Broom would have gone to any lengths to have possessed her. Roy was not that kind of a man; though in her secret heart she wished that he had been. Poor Kasba! She was such a child. Physically she was quite grown up, but her mind was a child’s mind. So confiding, so unprotected even by her own sense of right, she would have gone to him and not been aware of the fall. Was he not the Master? And was she not his, body and soul? Which goes to prove that Kasba’s notions of love were very simple, rudimentary, and, certes, in no way coy. How should they be?

If the good lady at Churchill could have known the girl’s state of mind at that moment she would have been greatly startled and appalled and had serious doubts as to whether her instruction, instead of the service she had intended, had not unsettled the girl and done her a deadly injury. It cannot be denied that it was shocking, but all that the girl felt was very natural. How should it be otherwise? Her people had never been married, that is to say in the white man’s way, until after the missionary had come amongst them; still they had been happy, while she had seen properly married white people who had not lived happily together. She, who had seen but few white people, had seen that, so what did it matter, married or unmarried, as long as they were together? So argued the girl, but deep down in her heart there was the Churchill lady’s teaching, which was confused, dim, uncertain, but clamoring to be heard, and a guilty blush rushed to her cheek as she sat and covered her eyes with her hands in very shame; for she was conscious of the wickedness of what she felt and longed for, though she could not understand it.

Suddenly she dropped her hands from her eyes and sat bolt upright, staring at the wall opposite, and gave a little shuddering sigh. For all at once she understood that Roy had turned away because he was honorable, because he wished to be true to another, a girl of his own race, whom he loved. The girl’s name was Lena. She knew that, for she had once heard someone chaffing him about a girl of that name and he had grown very red and confused. That was very long ago, but it all came back to her now, and she hated the girl Lena with her whole heart and soul. Why did he love that other girl? In striving to solve this riddle she was struck by a new idea. “He cannot care for me,” she thought, “because my skin is not white and I do not dress like the women of his people,”—like the women did in the drawings she had seen in some papers Roy had given her some time or other. Doubtless this other girl’s—this Lena’s—dresses covered her whole body, as the women’s did in the pictures. She looked down at her own scanty garment, which was nevertheless very serviceable and becoming, though in sooth it might have displayed the curves of her form to better perfection, which left a considerable expanse of blue stroud legging exposed; the blood mounted in a wave to her face and throat and she kicked out her legs vexatiously, viewing them with offence; then drew them up beneath her as if to hide them forever from sight. You could not see the women’s legs in the drawings because their dresses covered them to the ankles. Also they wore pretty hats instead of shawls, and boots instead of ugly moccasins. Still they looked very uncomfortable. Then she remembered how heartily she and the boy David had laughed over the pictures and wondered how white women could run before dogs, or paddle a canoe, or even make bannocks in such tight-fitting garments. As for herself, she would be suffocated, she was sure she would. And David had declared that he wouldn’t have one of them for his partner on a trip for anything, not even if she promised him a new gun, which was saying much, and together they had poked fun and laughed uproariously at the idea.

Poor Kasba! Had she known how little Roy really troubled his head about her dress she might have saved herself all this vexation of spirit. In saying this I do not for one moment wish to make our hero appear superior to other men. He was a man, with all a man’s appreciation of what was beautiful in women; but if truth forbids me to depict Roy Thursby as a highly virtuous young man, justice forces me to declare that the sight of this young girl’s legs had never caused him an untoward thought, though they were certainly not objects of offence.

But Kasba did not know what was in Roy’s mind, and just then she would have risked suffocation or any such horrible calamity to be able to display herself before Roy for a few moments clothed after the fashion of the women of his race. She snapped her pretty white teeth like a little savage animal at the thought of the white girl, whom she envied the possession of civilized garments. She sat for a long time cogitating over the shocking immodesty of her costume. She could not have explained her thoughts in these words, it is true; but this is really what vexed her mind. Then her mood changed. A creature of many moods was this Indian girl. Why should she be ashamed of wearing her clothing according to the custom of her tribe? Then she was ashamed for ever having felt ashamed. Suddenly she stopped this train of thought, also, and her face clouded. Broom’s name had crossed her mind. Then she remembered Sahanderry and her promise to him, and thoughts crowded in upon her till her brain reeled. She was a wicked girl, a very wicked girl. How shocked her dear father would be if he knew. And the man she loved who had turned away that she might be an honest girl, what would he think? Yes, she was very, very wicked. Filled with disgust and loathing of herself she turned on her face and lay violently sobbing.

Presently she got up and lit a lamp. The fight was over; she had conquered the evil thoughts that had so cruelly beset her, which was due to her own nature, in which there was much good and hardly any evil. She had determined to face the situation bravely, and do what was right, according to her ideas of right, without any regard for her own feelings and inclination.

Probably Kasba had never heard of Satan’s proclivity to provide employment for idle hands, but she was seldom found idle, and chiding herself now for the time she had wasted, in what she somewhat vaguely called “her folly,” she began to make “cakes” (bannocks) against her father’s return, for she was expecting him home hourly.

So engrossed was she in her work that she did not hear the door open, nor was she aware that David, an orphan Indian boy whom Delgezie had adopted, was in the house till a pair of cold arms caught her round the neck, and a still colder face was pressed against her own. Kasba drew the boy towards her and stroked his cold face with her warm hands.

“Well, dear,” she said with a welcoming smile, “you gave me quite a start!”