Dagger and banner on a calf

The dagger came off the Saturday boat with the rest of Mr Pardoe's crates, wrapped in a bolt of pink silk that was meant for the Whitby cousins. I found it in the back kitchen beside the bacon slicer, stuck through a sheet of brown paper, and I knew at once whose it was. Your father carried a dagger like that in the war, though he always said the hilt was the only honest part of it.

Mrs Lusk, who has the front room over the harbour and talks more than she pays, says the banner is a dreadful piece of nonsense. She had it read aloud to her three times at breakfast and then asked for her egg boiled a minute longer, which is her way of conceding a point. The girls from the chip shop laughed until one of them knocked over the marmalade. I told them the words belonged to whoever had the nerve to wear them.

Here is what I have decided. The blade goes on the wall above the cellar stairs, where the damp can't reach it, and the little stars can keep the ceiling company. Tell Ada she may have the key to the glass case when she is twelve, not a day sooner. Come home at Easter. The red drips on the point are only paint from the tin Mr Pardoe left behind, but I have stopped pretending they look like nothing at all.

Your loving mother, Edie