Archive: The Journals of Frank Randall

Author: nightgigjo

Fandom: Outlander

Claim: Frank Randall

Archive: The Journals of Frank Randall

by ebwakefield78

posted 2014.11.06 17:32

It's been quite some time since I've posted here (life being ridiculously busy and all that) but I did manage to go to the manse and sort out a few things there. Hard to believe that after this long, the caretakers are still finding boxed-up papers my great-great-uncle had squirreled away. Most of them were a total loss - mice find their way into everything, given time. But there was, in a thickly-wrapped package inside another box, one fascinating discovery. It was a slim volume, on rather fine paper, with a plain leather cover.

[img alt="Image of a black leather-bound journal, with foxing and water stains around the edge. src= ]

Most of the book, amazingly, was preserved. There is a bit of water damage to the upper right-hand corner, so sections of text are completely lost. But the lion's share remains, although some sections are missing enough context so as to make little sense.

The handwriting's very tight and cramped, making the most of the paper, since post-war rationing went on long after V-E Day. I'll be transcribing them for the archive in full eventually, but here are a few of the rough scans. It is uncertain when this first excerpt begins, but it is estimated to be a few days previous to the first dated entry, somewhere around 25th October, 1945.

At long last, Claire and I have managed to break loose of London,

and undertake a second honeymoon. Indeed, we are in many ways

like newlyweds: the war kept us so divided - I in London, and she

on the front - we have not yet developed the settledness I had hoped

we would have by this time, as my parents had. My mother knew from

how my father sat in his chair whether he would light his pipe of an

evening, or if he'd pick up a book and read intently, or work himself

frantic over a cryptic crossword. My father always spoke in hushed

tones to my mother, and gently, but as I grew to manhood, I began to

spy the playfulness in their banter, the teasing and occasional ribaldry

in my father's subdued humor that would draw from my mother her best,

most elusive, smile.

Claire has that smile, mysterious and alluring, and I haven't the foggiest

notion how to purposefully produce it. But she grants it to me, just the

same. The woman I married at the outset of war is as much a puzzle

to me at war's end, but I maintain the hope that some extended time

together will provide us both with a chance to change all that. We de-

part tomorrow morning for Inverness, and a well-earned retreat, before

I am to report to Oxford and re-enter civilian life in three weeks' time.

I shall be glad to be rid of London and its associations. I much prefer

to settle into life as a professor of history.

28 October 1945

We should arrive at Inverness early tomorrow, in enough time to see

a bit of the town before retiring for the night. Rev. Wakefield has invit-

ed the two of us for tea the following afternoon, which should prove

enlightening. Reg has been a friend of the family for so long, I think

of him more as an uncle or older brother than merely one of my father's

acquaintances from bygone days.

I'm afraid that our mutual enthusiasm for all these ragged bits of parch-

ment and dusty tomes drives poor Claire to distraction. We should take

a little excursion out to Castle Leod, though, and get out of the for a

while. There should, at the very least be some interesting plant life for

At this point there are two entire leaves torn from the journal. A few partial letters appear on the scraps, but they're too small to scan. It appears that three days of journaling are gone, during which time Frank's wife has mysteriously disappeared.

I don't care what those blasted police want to insinuate: She wouldn't

simply disappear, without a trace, no money, no handbag, no extra

clothing. They're talking nonsense, like this is some disgruntled house-

wife making off with the pin money.

4 Nov.

Three days we've been beating the countryside for any sign, any news

of her. Even recruited a bloodhound to the task, and it followed the scent

up to the crest of the hill, but no further. The poor confounded creature

lead us up to the standing stones, and whined and circled around the

center plinth, but could find no further trace of her. It's as though she

went from the car to the stones and then suddenly disappeared or flew

away.

I try to sleep, but I'm plagued with dreams of her, of seeing her atop the

hill, and she's dancing among the druids at the stones that night, whirling

and spinning, face hidden, except that when she passes me, her eyes

glint out from underneath the deep hooded cowl, and she smiles that sly

smile that I have yet to puzzle out. Then she begins to rise off the ground,

to float away towards the clouded heavens. I race to catch her foot, to

pull her back to me, but the very earth grabs me by the ankles and keeps

me anchored, my fingers brushing the hem of her robe but too far, too far

to grasp. And I wake, and she is gone.

6 Nov.

Reg is right. I have to go to Oxford, to teach history, to live, to provide for

myself and for Claire, so that when she is found, we will have something

to keep us. I cannot abandon my post, but I cannot abandon her, either.

I have scoured Inverness and the county round for employment, but there

is nothing. Too many soldiers already unemployed, too many coming back

to places that may or may not have been kept for them.

There is nothing here for me, nothing but dust and memory. I'll have to

throw myself into study, into historical documents and the stories they

tell, into the accounts that fascinated me, even as a child, but now they

have no more meaning, no more savor. But it is my duty to carry on, to

do what is necessary to live. In case…in case she should come home.