Chapter 21: Une Mauvais Quart D'Heure After Another
In this chapter, everything is awful.
When we last left Claire, she was being dragged out of a stream by Black Jack Randall's aide, Corporal Hawkins. Since she did not immediately murder him, I must assume that there were other soldiers around as well. Not, it seems, Black Jack himself.
Chapter 21 opens with Claire waiting for Randall in his office. Knowing approximately what it contains, I am already ready to skip to the end.
Though, if I did that, I would miss this delightful vignette in which Claire methodically and dispassionately destroys Randall's personal possessions.
Carrying the wig stand over to the desk, I gently sifted the remaining contents of the sander over it before replacing it in the cupboard.
Bless.
Then Black Jack walks in and I will try to get through this quickly.
He's all calm and mannerly, giving his best Soft-Spoken Sadist. He even serves Claire wine.
Randall rehashes the evidence regarding Claire's loyalties. He is sure she is a spy, commenting on the "high devotion to duty" she displayed by "bedding one of those hairy, half-naked savages." At least he and Claire share the vocabulary of British Imperialism. He goes on, laying out the possibilities and evaluating them in turn. Claire just sits there, plowing through her wine, while he monologues.
"Oh," I said, elaborately polite, "I'm included in this conversation, am I? I thought you were doing quite well by yourself. Pray continue."
Good for you, Claire. The chances you are going to die just went up 5%, but good for you anyway.
They circle one another for a while longer, trading witty remarks and threats. Claire keeps seeing "damnable flashes of Frank," but keeps her head. She realizes that there is little chance of escape or rescue, so she goes bold instead.
"Just as you like," I said calmly. "What do you suppose the Duke of Sandringham will have to say about it?"
He upset the hot tea on his doeskin lap and made several very gratifying noises.
Her advantage does not last very long — Randall ties her up and pulls a knife on her. He interrogates her about her knowledge of Sandringham and starts to cut her clothes away and this is the part where I am reading faster to bring the end of this scene nearer.
Shades of Harry the deserter, I thought furiously. What in God's name is the British army coming to? Glorious traditions my aunt Fanny.
Right? Though, I mean, British soldiers did plenty of raping in WWII, too. As did Americans, Soviets, Japanese, and Germans. Soldiers raping women in occupied territories is not a century-specific thing.
Unable to resist physically, Claire screams, "more as a pro forma protest than anything else."
"Go ahead and scream, sweeting," he murmured, busy with his flies. "I'll enjoy it much more if you scream."
Eeeeeeeew.
Oh, here's something. Randall's inability to get enough of an erection to complete an attempted rape is in this scene, rather than in Jenny's flashback.
And then Jamie gets his Big Damn Hero moment:
"I'll thank ye," said a cool, level voice, "to take your hands off my wife."
Who is more pleased to see Jamie here? Claire or Black Jack Randall? It's a tough call.
Because, while Randall is surprised to learn that the flogging didn't kill Jamie, we get a lot of laughing and smiling and "their eyes locked tight as a lover's embrace."
Jamie tosses away his pistol when Randall threatens to kill Claire, but we TV viewers know this is a ruse. Randall decides to rape Claire while holding the pistol on Jamie, which, frankly, sounds difficult just from a logistical standpoint. Even if the gun were loaded, Jamie only needs Randall to get distracted for a second in order to snap his neck.
But, of course, the gun is not loaded. Jamie steps in and puts a fist through Randall's face, breaking his nose and knocking him unconscious.
"You bluffed your way in here with an empty gun?" I croaked hysterically.
"If it were loaded, I would ha' just shot him in the first place, wouldn't I?!" Jamie hissed.
This next part makes more sense in the book than in the TV show. In the show, they foolishly abandon the unconscious Randall, not taking the five extra seconds it would take to kill him. They sort of explain this away by saying that murder would mean more severe punishment if they were caught, but it was not very convincing. In the book, their failure to kill Randall makes more sense — Claire is bound and Jamie has to untie her while guards are running down the hall toward the room. They don't have an extra five seconds, which makes Randall's survival more plausible.
They escape, aided by an explosion that provides a diversion as they go over the wall. You would have thought that Fort William would have performed some sort of security performance review after half-dead Jamie escaped four years ago, but I guess not. Claire and Jamie rappel down the wall and ride off with Dougal and the MacKenzies. Scene.
But there is more!
Once they are safely away from Fort William, Claire and Jamie have an epic screaming fight. It is very satisfying. Like most good fights, this one features antagonists who both make valid points. A fight where one person is clearly 100% wrong tends toward the pathetic. Even better, this particular fight belongs to a particularly punishing genre: people who care about each other turning their unique knowledge of one another into the most hurtful invective they can imagine. Popcorn, plz.
Jamie leads off with a classic move: passive-aggressive body language:
He rode in grim silence, handling the reins with an angry jerkiness quite unlike his usual smooth grace.
Claire, ever the pragmatist, has little patience for this:
Upset and unsettled myself, I was in no frame of mind to put up with moods.
"Well, what is it, then? What's the matter?" I asked impatiently. Don't sulk, for heaven's sake!" I spoke more sharply than I intended, and felt him stiffen still further.
They turn aside from the road, away from the MacKenzie party, so that they can really let fly.
"What's the matter wi' me? I'll tell ye what the matter is, since ye want to know!" he said through clenched teeth. "I'm tired of having to prove over and over that you're no an English spy. I'm tired of having to watch ye every minute, for fear of what foolishness you'll try next. And I'm verra tired of people trying to make me watch while they rape you! I dinna enjoy it a bit!"
To be fair to Jamie, yes, Claire does act suspiciously. And yes, she is insufficiently attentive to the dangers of her surroundings. But ending on that last point isn't a very strong finish, logic-wise, as Claire knows:
"And you think I enjoy it?" I yelled. "Are you trying to make out it's my fault?!"
Go, Claire, go!
"It is your fault! Did ye stay put where I ordered ye to stay this morning', this would never have happened!"
Sorry, no. It may be true that Claire took a reckless risk by running away. But obeying you does not keep her from getting raped. Have you forgotten last chapter, when she stayed with you and went with you to a place of your choosing and was still sexually assaulted? You can't fight the patriarchy with more patriarchy, my friend.
We were almost nose to nose by this time, shouting into each other's face. Jamie was flushed with fury, and I felt the blood rising in my own face.
I would be sad that my pals are fighting, but I'm just so pleased to see a female character allowed to be righteously pissed off that I am giggling through this.
"Would you listen to me? No! I'm only a woman, why should you pay any attention to what I say? Women are only fit to do as they're told, and follow orders, and sit meekly around with their hands folded, waiting for the men to come back and tell them what to do!"
He shook me again, unable to control himself.
"And if ye'd done that, we wouldna be on the run, with a hundred Redcoats on our tail!"
Technically, they are chasing you because you decided to break her out of Fort William, not because she got captured. So . . .
"God, woman, I dinna know whether to strangle ye or throw ye on the ground and hammer ye senseless, but by Jesus, I want to do something to you."
Listen to her? J/K!
At this, I made a determined effort to kick him in the balls.
Now, now, Claire. I understand the impulse to resort to cruder means when you feel ignored. But turning to violence will not improve this situation. Even though he is shaking you, which is also hella inappropriate.
Oh, it seems that Jamie has not forgotten Chapter 20:
"I do think ye did it on purpose, to get back at me for what happened in the glade!"
My mouth fell open.
"In the glade? With the English deserters?"
"Aye! Ye think I should ha' been able to protect ye there, an' you're right. But I couldna do it; you have to do it yourself, and now you're tryin' to make me pay for it by deliberately putting yourself, my wife, in the hands of a man that's shed my blood!"
Oof. Christ, Jamie. Not everything is about you.
Claire responds with an appropriate splutter:
"Your wife! Your wife! You don't care a thing about me! I'm just your property; it only matters to you because you think I belong to you, and you can't stand to have someone take something that belongs to you!"
Preach, Claire. You are the protagonist of this novel and any effort to have your supporting characters knock you out of your rightful place at the center of your own story must be annihilated with extreme prejudice.
"You are my wife, whether ye like it or no!"
Oh fuck off.
"I don't like it! I don't like it a bit! But that doesn't matter as long as I am there to warm your bed, you don't care what I think or how I feel! That's all a wife is to you — something to stick your cock into when you feel the urge!"
She is really on a roll. And, she's starting to tip over into "unfair" territory. Which I would feel worse about if he would stop shaking her.
"Let go, you" — I deliberately used the words of Harry the deserter, trying to hurt him— "you rutting bastard" . . .
"Ye foul-tongued bitch! Ye'll no speak to me that way!"
I'm sorry I'm quoting so much of this. You should probably just read the whole thing for yourself. It's a good fight.
They're screaming at each other, full throttle, when Claire strikes home:
"It's your bloody pride that's hurt!" I shouted. "I saved us both from the deserters in the glade and you can't stand it, can you? You just stood there! If I hadn't had a knife, we'd both be dead now."
This is both true and very hurtful, and Jamie deflates. Instead of attacking, he goes down another path, explaining what it meant for him to rescue her from the place where he was flogged nearly to death, knowing that he'd probably be flogged or executed for doing so. Also, he killed a guard.
Which is true, but kind of not the point. It's true that he is very brave and that rescuing her was both difficult and dangerous. But that doesn't mean he's right about her obedience. She didn't make him follow her. That was his decision.
"And when ye screamed, I went to you, armed wi' nothing but an empty gun and my two hands." Jamie was speaking a little more calmly now, but his eyes were still wild with pain and rage.
Now, Claire is going to forgive you because she cares about you and showing her your own pain and suffering is a sure way to get her attention. But that still doesn't make you right about the other stuff. Claire may forgive you because she loves you. But I'm not going to forget this horseshit.
"My pride is hurt. And my pride is about all I've got left to me."
Poor baby. Claire, being a woman, doesn't have the luxury of pride, what with the constant rape threats and the husband threatening to tie her to trees and beat her bloody. Get the fuck over it.
"You're tearin' my guts out, Claire."
No. Claire is not hurting you. The way you feel about Claire is making you vulnerable, and that is what is hurting you. You don't get to project that onto the object of your love. Particularly not in this situation, where she was forced into marrying you and has been doing all she can to get away from you.
But, of course, Claire does care about him. And he's in pain. So she turns tender toward him and comforts him. On the one hand, I want her to resist his demand that she perform this emotional labor. On the other, she does care about him, and they've shouted themselves out. She asks forgiveness first, but he also asks, and they end up saying they forgive one another. Even so,
There was still a vague sense of injury and constraint; things were not yet healed between us. We had forgiven each other, but our words still hung in memory, not to be forgotten.
Body Count:
Jamie: 5 + assorted redcoats + two years as mercenary in France
Claire: 1