Sweet pea vine and butterfly on a shoulder blade

The sweet peas you sent in the tin came up on the wall outside the lamp room, though the salt air has made them thin and bent towards the sea. I gave them the old cork-lined bucket of rainwater and a length of string to climb, the way you showed me, and by the third week they had found the iron rail and gone round it twice. Father would have called it wasteful, a useless flower on a rock where nothing is meant to grow. I kept watering them anyway.

The supply boat came on Tuesday with the tide and brought no letter from the Board office, only a crate of paraffin and a rumour that the new keeper at Pennick Head has taken to the drink. Mr Vosper, who rows out with the post, said the sea was the colour of pewter all the way across, and I thought of your kitchen window with the sun on it.

Yesterday a painted lady came in off the water, pale grey-lilac at the edges, her wings worn thin like an old sail. She settled on the top bloom and sat there with her wings shut while the light swung round above us, once every twelve seconds, and I did not move for the better part of an hour. I think she had come a very long way and only wanted somewhere to rest.

I have decided the flowers will stay through the winter if I keep the wind off them. Write and tell me whether the pea crop is in at home, and whether the old dog is still sleeping in the porch. The lamp is lit at dusk, as always.

Your loving sister, Ada