Jenny

Here it is: Spoilers

September 16, 1771

Brother,

Well. Having taken up my pen and written the single word above, I have now sat here staring at it ’til the candle has burned almost an inch, and me having not one thought what I shall say. It would be a wicked waste of good beeswax to continue so, and yet if I were to put the candle out and go to bed, I should have spoilt a sheet of paper to no purpose—so I see I must go on, in the name of thrift.

I could berate you. That would occupy some space upon the page, and preserve what my
husband is pleased to compliment as the most foul and hideous curses he has been privileged to hear in a long life. That seems thrifty, as I was at great pains in the composition of them at the time, and should not like to see the effort wasted. Still, I think I have not so much paper as would contain them all.

I think also that perhaps, after all, I do not wish to rail or condemn you, for you might take this as a just punishment, and so ease your conscience in perceived expiation, so that you leave off your chastising of yourself. That is too simple a penance; I would that if you have wove a hairshirt for yourself, you wear it still, and may it chafe your soul as the loss of my son chafes mine.

In spite of this, I suppose that I am writing to forgive you—I had some purpose in taking up my pen, I know, and while forgiveness seems a doubtful enterprise to me at present, I expect the notion will grow more comfortable with practice.

You will be curious to know what has led me to this action, I suppose, so I will tell you.

I rode to visit Maggie early Monday last; she has a new babe, so you are once more an uncle; a bonnie wee lassie called Angelica, which is a foolish name, I think, but she is very fair and born with a strawberry mark on her chest, which is a charm for good. I left them in the evening, and had made some way towards home when my mule chanced to step into a mole’s hole and fell. Both mule and I rose up somewhat lamed from this accident, and it was clear that I could not ride the creature nor yet make shift to travel far by foot myself.

I found myself on the road Auldearn just over the hill from Balriggan. I should not normally seek the society of Laoghaire MacKenzie—for she has resumed that name, I having made plain in the district my dislike of her use of “Fraser,” she having no proper claim to that style—but it was the only place where I might obtain food and shelter, for night was coming on, with the threat of rain.

So I unsaddled the mule and left him to find his supper by the road, while I limped off in search of mine.

I came down behind the house, past the kailyard, and so came upon the arbor that you built.

The vines are well grown on it now, so I could see nothing, but I could hear that there were folk inside, for I heard voices.

The rain had begun by then. It was not but a smizzle, yet the patter on the leaves must have drowned my voice, for no one answered when I called. I came closer—creeping like a spavined snail, to be sure, for I was gromished from the fall and my right ankle gruppit—and was just about to call once more, when I heard sounds of a rare hochmagandy from inside the arbor.

I stood still, of course, thinking what was best to do. I could hear that it was Laoghaire shedding her shanks, but I had no hint who her partner might be. My ankle was blown up like a bladder, so I could not walk much farther, and so I was obliged to stand about in the wet, listening to all this inhonesté.

I should have known, had she been courted by a man of the district, and I had heard nothing of her paying heed to any—though several have tried; she has Balriggan, after all, and lives like a laird on the money you pay her.

I was filled with outrage at the hearing, but somewhat more filled with amazement to discover the cause. That being a sense of fury on your behalf—irrational as such fury might be, in the circumstances. Still, having discovered such an emotion springing full-blown in my breast. I was reluctantly compelled to the realization that my feelings for you must not in fact have perished altogether.

September 18, 1771

I dream of Ian now and then. These dreams most often take the shape of daily life, and I see him here at Lallybroch, but now and again I dream of him in his life among the savages—if indeed he still lives (and I persuade myself that my heart would by some means know if he did not).

So I see that what it comes to in the end is only the same thing with which I began—that one word, “Brother.” You are my brother, as young Ian is my son, the both of you my flesh and my spirit and always shall be. If the loss of Ian haunts my dreams, the loss of you haunts my days, Jamie.

I have been writing letters all the morning, debating with myself whether to finish this one, or to put it into the fire instead. But now the accounts are done, I have written to everyone I can think of, and the clouds have gone away, so the sun shines through the window by my desk, and the shadows of Mother’s roses are falling over me.

I have thought to myself often and often that I heard my mother speak to me, through all these years. I do not need to hear her now, though, to ken well enough what she would say. And so I shall not put this in the fire.

You remember, do you, the day I broke the good cream-pitcher, flinging it at your head because you deviled me? I know you recall the occasion, for you once spoke to Claire of it. I hesitated to admit the crime, and you took the blame upon yourself, but Father kent the truth of it, and punished us both.

So now I am a grandmother ten times over, with my hair gone grey, and still I feel my cheeks go hot with shame and my wame shrink like a fist, thinking of Father bidding us kneel down side by side and bend over the bench to be whipped.

You yelped and grunted like a puppy when he tawsed you, and I could scarce breathe and did not dare to look at you. Then it was my turn, but I was so wrought with emotion that I think I barely felt the strokes. No doubt you are reading this and saying indignantly that it was only Father was softer with me because I was a lass. Well, maybe so, and maybe no; I will say Ian is gentle with his daughters.

But then Father said you would have another whipping, this one for lying—for the truth was the truth, after all. I would have got up and fled away then, but he bade me stay as I was, and he said to me, quiet, that while you would pay the price of my cowardice, he did not think it right for me to escape it altogether.

Do you know that you did not make a sound, the second time? I hope you did not feel the
strokes of the tawse on your backside, because I felt each one.

I swore that day that I should not ever be a coward again.

And I see that it is cowardice indeed, that I should go on blaming you for Young Ian. I have always kent what it is to love a man—be he husband or brother, lover or son. A dangerous business; that’s what it is.

Men go where they will, they do as they must; it is not a woman’s part to bid them stay, nor yet to reproach them for being what they are—or for not coming back.

I knew it when I sent Ian to France with a cross of birchwood and a lock of my hair made into a love knot, praying that he might come home to me, body and soul. I knew it when I gave you a rosary and saw you off to Leoch, hoping you would not forget Lallybroch or me. I knew it when Young Jamie swam to the seal’s island, when Michael took ship for Paris, and I should have known it, too, when wee Ian went with you.

But I have been blessed in my life; my men have always come back to me. Maimed, perhaps; a bit singed round the edges now and then; crippled, crumpled, tattered, and torn—but I have always got them back. I grew to expect that as my right, and I was wrong to do so.

I have seen so many widows since the Rising. I cannot say why I thought I should be exempt from their suffering, why I alone should lose none of my men, and only one of my babes, my wee girl-child. And since I had lost Caitlin, I treasured Ian, for I knew he was the last babe I should bear.

I thought him my babe still; I should have kent him for the man he was. And that being so, I know well enough that whether you might have stopped him or no, you would not—for you are one of the damnable creatures, too.

Now I have nearly reached the end of this sheet, and I think it profligate to begin another.

Mother loved you always, Jamie, and when she kent she was dying, she called for me, and bade me care for you. As though I could ever stop.

Your most Affectionate and Loving Sister,
Janet Flora Arabella Fraser Murray.

Jamie held the paper for a moment, then set it down, very gently. He sat with his head bent, propped on his hand so that I couldn’t see his face. His fingers were splayed through his hair, and kept moving,massaging his forehead as he slowly shook his head, back and forth. I could hear him breathing, with a slight catch in his breath now and then.

Finally he dropped his hand and looked up at me, blinking. His face was deeply flushed, there were tears in his eyes, and he wore the most remarkable expression, in which bewilderment, fury, and laughter were all mingled, laughter being only slightly uppermost.

“Oh, God,” he said. He sniffed, and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. “Oh, Christ. How in hell does she do that?”

“Do what?” I pulled a clean handkerchief from my bodice and handed it to him.

“Make me feel as though I am eight years old,” he said ruefully. “And an idiot, to boot.”

He wiped his nose, then reached out a hand to touch the flattened roses, gently.

Right, so that's Jenny's fault then? Nope. That's outright BJR's fault. He was sent to provoke the highlanders, and that's what he did. Come to think of it, it was Duke of Sandringhams fault. He set BJR on that mission. So, what do we see here? A chain of events, and it's almost everyone's fault that landed them in the position they were in.

Also, people should take in consideration that why Jenny sent for Laoghaire, and a good thing she did, too. Everyone thought Claire was dead, and suddenly Claire makes an appearance after years of her supposed death. What should Jenny make of it? As far as Jenny is concerned, Claire left them and lived a 20 years life with no difficulties while Jenny and her family and the Lallybroch tenants almost starved to death every year.

redheid - 👍

------------------------
"How do you know this?"
"That's what I do... I drink, and I know things."

Jenny acted for her own benefit

I'm not seeing that this was a good thing.

Now, even if it wasn't for Jenny, somehow, someday, Claire would learn about Laogahaire. And what would she do? Who knows? Maybe RUN back to the stones.. Most probably.

I respectfully disagree again. I don't think Claire would have run for the stones had Jamie had the opportunity to explain the Laoghaire situation to her himself, on his own terms and in his own words. He eventually did, and Claire didn't run again, right? She could have tended his gunshot wound and left again, but she didn't.

It wasn't up to Jenny to meddle in Jamie's marriages, whether it was custom of the time to try to control your loved ones or not. Jamie didn't try to control her...

What benefit could she possibly achieve?

I don't see how that could possibly be in Jamie's interest as he mourned Claire for 20 years before her return.

Jenny wanted Jamie to stay at Lallybroch, or at least have a permanent tie to the area.

I agree with all this redheid. ☝

Could I just throw in the point that when Jenny sent for Laoghaire to come to Lallybroch for the showdown following Claire's return, Jenny was really mad at Jamie re Young Ian, and that may have skewed her judgement more than usual. Emotional people do not make rational decisions, generally speaking. She'd suffered a lot over Young Ian's disappearance and maybe a little bit of her wanted to see Jamie suffer when this situation came to a head. Some of you will probably say this this makes her a terrible person, but it sounds very human to me.