“I’m surprised she would even know where to find me. I stopped writing to her, oh, it must be at least ten or eleven years ago. I was beginning to feel like someone putting notes in a bottle that are never picked up.” She pursed her lips, from which vertical wrinkles sprouted. “Which brings me to ask, Whatever are you doing here all by yourselves? You are alone?”

“We’re not with Mother and Father, if that’s what you mean.”

“It is. This is a terribly long way for three young boys to come on their own. Surely not just to visit me?”

The opening Nathaniel had been hoping for. He gave her an abridged account of their journey from its beginning, hewing strictly to the facts until he drew near the end, when he said that they had been making for Beaufort with the intention of visiting her when their vessel was caught in a gale, damaged, and driven into St. Helene Sound. They had sailed from there this morning to see about repairs.

“So we thought, Mrs. Wilcox”—fresh springs of sweat on his forehead, his will struggling to control his traitorous face—“that it would be best if we called on you now, before the repairs got under way. We’re not going to have a whole lot of time, making sure they’re done right, and then we’ve got to work at the oyster plant.” He stopped to study her expression. “The boss told us they put in some awful long hours.”

A puzzled frown came to Aunt Judith’s bushy eyebrows. “Pardon me, but what do you mean, work at the oyster plant? Whatever would you be doing there?”

“Shucking oysters, ma’am.”

“Oh, I know you would be shucking oysters, what else would one do at an oyster plant? It isn’t work fit for gentlemen.”

“I didn’t explain, Mrs. Wilcox. We have to work there to pay for the repairs to our boat.”

“I’m sorry, I know nothing of boats and their repairs. Is it expensive?”

“It can be. We blew out some canvas, I mean, we lost a sail in the storm, and we need a new one cut. We saw a sailmaker this morning, a man named Geslin. Frenchy Geslin, they call him. Do you know him?”

“I’m quite sure”—archly—“I do not know anyone called ‘Frenchy.’ ”

“He gave us an estimate, and it’s a lot more than we’ve got, so we decided to get jobs at the oyster plant. If the three of us work for about two weeks, we figure to have the money together.”