Outlander Book Club: Book 2, Chapter 31 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
Claire shares what she does during the day now that she’s at Lallybroch. She’s stepped away from Court life and the gossip that comes with it. Instead, it’s all about helping people.
She’s treating people with as modern her medicine can be without the modern-day findings. The good news is she has herbs and plants that do have medicinal purposes and can help. However, that doesn’t help those who believe in spirits and demons.
This comes up during the chapter when Rabbie MacNab suffers from an epileptic seizure. Claire can’t do anything to help the seizures, but it’s about calming Rabbie’s mother. Mary is sure that demons are possessing him and doesn’t fully believe that there’s nothing she can do.
Fortunately, earlier in the chapter, Claire had received some stones with carvings in them. She knows they came from Master Raymond although he never addresses his letters (Louise, who has had her baby Henri, and Mother Hildegarde do address theirs when they write). Claire gives one of the stones to Mary to sew into Rabbie’s clothes. Claire says that it won’t stop the seizures, but it will protect him from the demons.
I love this side of Claire in the books. It’s the opposite of Claire in the show, but I’ll get to that in the show adaptation section.
Focusing back on the chapter, Claire thinks about how Jamie has always had Lallybroch as his home. Claire has never had that, running us through the life that she had with Uncle Lamb. She doesn’t regret that life, but part of her seems to long for a home. She thinks she can have that with Jamie at Lallybroch.
Jamie worries that Claire will find Lallybroch boring compared to Paris life. It looks like he doesn’t really know where Claire’s heart lies. He’ll find out!
Jamie does mention that they need to get the cellar ready for the potatoes. It makes Claire worry a little. She told Jenny to plant potatoes because there’s a famine coming, but that’s all she really knew. She has to hope that Jenny and the people at Lallybroch were able to do everything else necessary to get the crop.