Cold All the Way Through, But Warming

Mrs. Moody

Christmas at the Vanderbilts was tolerable, even if Mother did have to spend a few hours soothing me after I had a straining day and wanted nothing but Will's company. It wasn't the fault of the Vanderbilts, they were wonderful hosts and did everything they could to provide us with a merry Christmas. Liz and I decorated their massive parlor with greenery and ribbons, Oscar came to me and begged for my help with wrapping all of his gifts and even the Fields showed up Christmas Eve and released the girls to run around the house and drive everyone crazy.

Their cook made us a veritable feast, so that by the time the flaming pudding and a number of pies had been brought out, I could only manage a few forkfuls of each before collapsing into a settee. Ezekiel and Oscar quickly joined me, and Ezekiel amused himself by poking me every time I started to doze off. After I swatted his hand for the third time, he laughed. "Annie, no sleeping until we've finished A Christmas Carol, you know that."

"I know." I sighed, leaning back into the settee. "I brought it, it's in my trunk. But I don't think I can manage the stairs."

Oscar snorted, raising a hand to bring a footman over. "That's what a staff is for. Please bring down the book in Mrs. Murdoch's trunk." The footman bowed, and returned swiftly with Father's old book. Oscar lifted it, "I can read, if you like."

Ezekiel reached across me and snatched it from his hands. "I'm afraid you haven't earned the right to read it by yourself yet."

"And you have?" Oscar rolled his eyes, "What, pray tell, gives one those privileges?"

"Well, you have to have been locked in a room with this one," Ezekiel shoved my shoulder, jarring me out of my doze again. "For an entire day, at the least. I think out of all of us, your sister, Ruth, my mother, my father, and myself have those privileges."

"I can understand Liz and her mother, and even your parents, but how in the world have you been locked up with her for a day?"

I groaned, eyeing the eggnog that was being brought around. "Chicken pox, he gave them to me. Our mothers thought it best to keep us in the same room, even though we almost killed each other."

"You said I snored!" Ezekiel snorted, "I had to defend my honor."

"You do snore!" I stood, moving for the eggnog. "Go ahead, read, and I'll have Abe carry me up to bed after I fall asleep halfway through." Ezekiel did his best to be entertaining, although when I sat by Mother and listened, I had to sigh. Ezekiel was a wonderful friend, the closest thing I had to a brother, but he wasn't Will.

He didn't throw a Scottish burr into his voice, or stop reading to tease me about something. Mother must have noticed my focus slipping, for she took my hand a gave it a squeeze. "When he's home, he'll have to read it multiple times to make up for it."

"We'll have to have the Lightollers there for it." I muttered, my eyes heavy. "That was a very merry Christmas with all of them." I must have dozed off, the rum in the eggnog not helping, for when Mother stirred underneath me Scrooge had already begun travelling with the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Ezekiel cast a look my way as he read, "Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him."