Watercolour flower on ankle and foot

The ink bottle went over on the third day out of Falmouth, which is why this page is spotted like a thrush's egg. Captain Rudd swore at me for ten minutes, then sent the cabin boy for a rag, and I sat staring at the black pool spreading across my sketch of the lily I had found on the cliffs at the Lizard. I had meant to paint it properly once we reached port. Instead the ink ran along the grain of the table and up the edge of the paper in threads, and I thought it looked more like a flower than my drawing ever did.

Since then I have been trying the same accident on purpose. I draw the bloom in a few quick strokes, lift the pen before the petals close, then flick the brush so the spatter lands wherever it pleases. Mr Fenwick, the ship's cook, thinks I have gone soft in the head. He brings me the rinse water from the galley and holds the basin steady while I work the pink wash over the lines. The sea is very blue this far south, and the pink refuses to sit still, bleeding past every outline I give it.

Tell Father the lily is not going in the herbarium after all. I have decided it belongs to the water, which takes whatever I spill and hands it back in colours I could never have planned. The captain says we raise the Horn in a fortnight. Keep the letters coming, and do not let Mother read the part about the cook.

Your loving sister, Margaret