Forever and always script with heart

The kettle has boiled dry twice since your letter came, and Mrs Pryce next door says I am to stop reading it at the table or the gravy will go cold on me. I have read it at the table anyway. Your hand has got worse, or the ship's ink has, because the word "Madeira" looks like a row of hedges. I made it out. I am proud of myself for that.

Mam asked whether you were eating properly. I told her the cook on the Serena puts barley in everything, and she said that was the most sensible thing she had heard from a sailor in forty years. She has the net room swept now, so you can stop worrying about the mess you left.

I have been practising the letters you taught me the winter before you went, the curly ones that join up without lifting the pen. My g still looks like a fishhook. Last night I wrote the thing you always used to write at the bottom of my slate, forever and always, and then I drew a heart beneath it, which was foolish. I could not rub it out because the chalk had stained the wood, so it stays there. You can see it when you come home, and you can tell me it is crooked.

The tide is turning and the boats are coming in low. I will go down to the harbour wall and look for the Serena's sails, though you said it would be a fortnight yet at the earliest. Keep the ink dry. Write me something I can actually read.

Your sister, Bess