Gabriel Collins
From The Dark Shadows Wiki
- This article is about the crippled child of Daniel and Harriet Collins. For his Parallel Time equivalent, see Gabriel Collins (PT)
Gabriel Collins (d.1840) was the son of Daniel Collins and Harriet Collins. He was the brother of Quentin Collins. He was married to Edith Collins.
When he was a child, Gabriel was in an accident which left him paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. His father, Daniel, considered him to have died that day, but Quentin felt somewhat responsible for the accident and always took care of Gabriel. In time Gabriel taught himself how to walk again, but kept this information a secret, knowing one day he would be able to get revenge on Quentin.
Gabriel and Edith had at least one son, possibly more children, who were away at boarding school in 1840 when troubles besieged Collinwood. We never learned the name(s) of the child(ren), but their grandchildren were Edward Collins, Judith Collins, Quentin Collins and Carl Collins.
Gabriel's machinations led him to kill Randall Drew, Daniel Collins and his wife, Edith. He kidnapped Daphne Harridge and planned to hold her for ransom, then escape from Collinsport forever. The ghost of Daniel Collins finally appeared to him and told him the killing would stop. In an effort to evade the ghost of Daniel, Gabriel, now completely out of his wheelchair, climbed to the roof and fell to his death when a section broke off.
While she was kidnapped by Gabriel, Daphne Harridge told Gabriel about the room which led to (1841) Parallel Time and suggested he could escape there once he had his money (1188). She did not reveal that she had seen his equivalent, Gabriel Collins (1841PT) there already.
[edit] Notes
Although "confined" to a wheelchair, Gabriel seemed to move around the floors and wings of Collinwood with great ease, often in the Drawing room one moment, then upstairs in the main, East or West Wing almost instantly. How he did this without people knowing he was not actually handicapped is unknown.
The murder of Edith Collins in 1840 would set up a time ripple, as she was the Mistress of Collinwood when Barnabas Collins traveled to 1897. As long as Quentin and Daphne Harridge Collins never had children, nor did Quentin's son, Tad Collins, the 1897 timeline could still be largely preserved, but not the Family secret.
One of the mysteries of the 1897 timeline was who passed the Family secret to Edith Collins, Daniel or Gabriel. In the 1840 timeline the family secret did not seem to exist, as Daniel would have passed it to Quentin instead of Gabriel and as it appears everyone knew the vampire was out of his coffin, it would not even hold true anymore. So neither one passed the secret on, and most certainly not to Edith who died.
