Rose and geometric diamonds on forearm

The chart came back from the printers with the rose in the wrong place, so I have spent three nights with a set square and a bottle of Indian ink trying to make the diamonds sit square around it. Mr Pell says the harbour board will not pay for a second print, and I told him that a rose does not care where the lines fall, only that they are true. He laughed at that, then looked at the drawing for a long time without saying anything.

What I have settled on is this. The bloom sits at the crossing of two diamonds, the outer lines running up past the quay wall toward the lighthouse, the inner ones turning back on themselves like folded paper. I shaded the petals darker on the side facing the sea, because that is where the light goes grey by four o'clock in February. Every line I drew twice, once in pencil and once in ink, so that the rule and the flower agree about where the edge is.

The last thing I did was cut a thin wire across the middle and bend it into a small diamond, the way Father used to shape the eyes of a net. I hung it from the lamp. It throws a shadow on the paper that is exactly the shape of the rose, only smaller and sharper, and it moves when the tide turns the boats. I have not told anyone yet. Come home at Easter and I will show you before the board sees it.

Love, Nell