I was looking for other Victorian era Christmas stories similar to Dickens. "Christmas at Thompson Hall" is pretty good but basic. A woman, Mrs Brown, wants to get back to England and celebrate Christmas at the estate (mansion) of her family (Thompson Hall).
Since her marriage, which was an affair now nearly eight years old, Mrs. Brown had never passed a Christmas in England. The desirability of doing so had often been mooted by her. Her very soul craved the festivities of holly and mince-pies. There had ever been meetings of the Thompsons at Thompson Hall, though meetings not so significant, not so important to the family, as this one which was now to be collected. More than once had she expressed a wish to see old Christmas again in the old house among the old faces. But her husband had always pleaded a certain weakness about his throat and chest as a reason for remaining among the delights of Pau. Year after year she had yielded, and now this loud summons had come.
For this trip, from Pau, she has to compel her husband to make the journey with her. He hates the cold and becomes ever more the boat anchor, by virtue of claiming he has a terrible cold and fever, attempting to prevent them from completing the trip.
But Mrs. Brown patiently sees through this:As they left Tours, Mr. Brown, in a hoarse whisper, had declared his conviction that the journey would kill him.
While at a hotel in Paris, attempting to dote on her husband, she promises to rush down to the dinner hall, procure some mustard, and put a "mustard plaster" on his throat. Apparently mustard coated on the throat was used to ameliorate colds.Mrs. Brown, however, had unfortunately noticed half an hour before that he had scolded the waiter on the score of an over-charged franc or two with a loud and clear voice. Had she really believed that there was danger, or even suffering, she would have yielded; but no woman is satisfied in such a matter to be taken in by false pretenses.
Around midnight she heads down, gets lost, finds a porter to help direct her to the dinner hall under the pretenses of trying to find a lost handkerchief... her being too embarrassed to admit that it's to swipe some mustard for her husband's throat.
Her unwillingness to be forthright ends with her coming back to her hotel room an hour later.. with no mustard for her husband, while she's in a little bit of shock after having entered the wrong hotel room (353 to her 333) and applying the mustard plaster to the wrong man's throat, while he was sleeping.