Outlander Book Club: Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone Chapter 40 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Lord John Grey walking into a room where Hal is writing a letter. Well, Hal is trying to write a letter. It turns out that Hal is struggling with writing. He wants to tell Minnie what happened to Ben, but also that he doesn’t believe that Ben is dead. However, he doesn’t want to put all that in writing, especially if it turns out that Ben is dead.

John notes how Hal has started the letter with “Dear.” That isn’t normal for him, and Hal just says that he was trying to fill the time and page with something while he thought about what to write. That’s when we learn that John can tell what the tone of a letter is going to be based on the salutations, especially when it comes to Jamie.

John then starts to think about the ways that Hal starts letters. He always starts with the first initial of the person he is writing to, and in this case, it would be M for Minnie. However, the M was used for his first wife, too, who died with his child in childbirth. He was called Esme, but Hal called her Em and wrote letters that started with “M.”

Hal breaks the thoughts. He decides not to write anything until he learns if Ben is dead or not. This is when John shares that William found Ben’s grave, but Ben’s body wasn’t in there. Was it a mistake, or was it something that Ben planned?