Geometric blackwork band on forearm

The rain has come in sideways across the market since Tuesday, and every stall has its tarpaulin sagging like a wet sail. I am writing this on the back of Mr Pardoe's invoice because the ledger has gone spotted through and I cannot bear to look at it. Ma says to tell you the cabbages are a shilling dearer and that she has not forgiven the Corporation for the new bins.

I went down to the cellar on Thursday to find the old lattice gate from the Halifax works. You remember it, the one with the diamonds cut so close you could not get a thumb through. Pardoe wanted it for scrap. I took a rubbing instead, in the wet, with a stub of charcoal and brown paper, and I stood there a long while tracing where one line crossed another and thinking how a man could carry that about his wrist and never once be lost.

The two solid rules I left as they were. Pardoe asked why I bothered with the plain bars and I told him they were the reason the lattice held its shape, the way a sailor's knot needs a stop. He laughed and called me a romantic. I did not argue. I cut the stencil from the rubbing that same night by gaslight, and it is pinned above my bench now, damp at one corner.

So come home when the boat is paid off, and bring the band with you if the black has not faded. I will go over the lines myself, one crossing at a time, until the wet has nothing left to say about them. Your loving sister, Nell.