Compass rose with mandala design

The rose came back from the engraver on Tuesday with its points sharpened and its middle gone to lace, and Mr Hollis has not stopped looking at it since. He wanted the eight winds drawn plain, the way the Admiralty charts have them, but I kept the filigree he hated, the little rings of dots and the petals that open out like a fern. A rose that only points is no use to a man lost in fog. You do not need a star to know which way is north. You need something to hold your eye while the sea argues with you.

Hollis found a gull's feather on my desk and asked if I had turned poet. I told him it was the only pen that did not drip on the vellum, which is true, and it is also true that I took it from the sill of the window you left open the morning you sailed. It still smells of tar and oranges. I have pinned it to the south line where the meridian runs off the edge of the sheet, so that anyone following the chart must pass it before they reach the bottom.

This morning the printer's boy brought a proof with my initials gone and Hollis's name set in their place, and I laughed so hard I had to sit on the stool. Then I held the medallion under the lamp and saw that I had drawn the north arrow pointing at the harbour mouth instead of the open water. Nobody would catch it but you. I did not correct it. Let the boats come home the easy way once in a while.

Write when the post boat reaches you. The compass is no good to me without something far off to check it against.

Yours, with ink on both hands, Nell