Nautilus shell on upper chest

The shell came in the post wrapped in a page of The Times, which is why the Latin on the back of it is now printed in reverse across the nautilus's belly. Father always said the creature lives only in its newest chamber, sealing off each room behind it as it grows, so the whole spiral is a record of houses it has outgrown. I thought of that when I cut the string on the box and found it lying in the straw like a sleeping ear.

I have drawn it for the garden book, in the bed beneath the wall where the sweet peas went over in July. Pencil first, then the hatching, the fine lines going round and round until my wrist ached. The light at four o'clock comes through the glasshouse and lies across the spiral the way it lies on the pond, and I kept trying to catch that shimmer by leaving the paper bare. Mr Ashdown from the next allotment peered over the fence and said it looked like a snail that had been to university.

Your letter asked whether I am going to sell the house. I am not. The rooms behind me are shut and I have stopped opening them, but the newest one still has a window onto the lane, and this morning a blackbird sat on the gatepost singing as if the whole garden belonged to it. I will post the drawing when it is dry. Keep the shell if you want it; I have already learned its shape by heart.

Love, Eleanor