Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 29 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

Everything picks up with Claire at an apothecary. It’s the same place she went to 20 years earlier when she was buying things for those fighting in the Jacobite rebellion. However, the shop is now run by the son of the previous man who owned it.

This son isn’t well-versed in the items just yet. Claire is able to help him find what she needs, which is a poison that can be used for medicinal purposes.

This is where she meets Reverend Archibald Campbell. He is there looking for something to help with fits. It turns out that someone he lives with suffers from silent and screaming fits (although not at the same time). Claire assumes this woman is his wife, but it is his sister, Margaret.

Claire agrees to seeing Margaret to see how she can help. There’s no much that she can do, though. Claire does learn that Margaret was traumatically attacked by British soldiers after Culloden. She’d made her way there for her lover only to find out that he’d been killed. Some tinkers looked after Margaret until her brother found her. She was silent until Archibald found her, and since the attack, she’s switched between starring at the wall for days and screaming.

There’s nothing Claire can do. She does find out that Archibald is heading to the West Indies with Margaret, so she recommends a lot of fruit and a few ingredients for a tea and that’s about it.

With Jamie, she waits for Young Ian to confess his sins. Jamie says that he went in to confession first to show how it’s done, and Claire sees Jamie’s rosary. His great-nephews have chewed the rosary.

There is a short discussion about Ian Murray not believing the tale they have told for where Claire has been. Her story is that she went back to family in France. It’s not surprising that Ian doesn’t believe it.

To end the chapter, Jamie needs to finish off the business that he still had going. The insurance money from the fire will pay off those waiting for the print shop and to find new premises, but Jamie needs to focus on the smuggling business that he’s going to continue despite everything that happened with the seaman.

Someone may have known the first location, but there are others that even Fergus doesn’t know. Jamie will now give the secondary location. Will something happen?

After that, it will be back home to Lallybroch.