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Christmas with Wilkie Collins: Unraveling the Mystery of The Girl at the Gate
Wilkie Collins, the English novelist and playwright, made a name for himself in the second half of the 19th century for his sensationalist works and his role in the creation of the detective fiction genre.
Collins had a close friendship with Charles Dickens, and his stories are noteworthy for the innovative of their interwoven narrative structures and social commentary.
As an influential author of the period, he had been invited to write a short story for an American sportsman’s magazine that was reprinted the following month in “The English Illustrated Magazine”.
Victorian Christmas
I hope you have a charming Christmas, with lots of turkey and plum-pudding, and good people to forgive your misdeeds. ~From a letter Wilkie Collins wrote to his friend, Eliza Lynn Linton, a fellow author
The period known as the Victorian era, spanning from 1837 to 1901, played an important role in the way we celebrate Christmas today. Before this, Christmas was not widely observed as a national holiday.
During Queen Victoria’s reign, it became a cultural phenomenon. As with most dynasties, royal household traditions set trends for society. As a happily married monarch with a large family, their holiday celebrations led to a popularized idea of Christmas as a time for family, gift-giving, and goodwill.
In the light of this new cultural focus on Christmas as a family-focuses period of rest and joy, the Victorians established many of the traditions that we still observe today.
For instance, decorating Christmas trees became popular after the Illustrated London News depicted Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, and their 8 children around a decorated tree in 1848.
Similarly, the custom of sending Christmas cards became more widespread with the advent of affordable printing technology and with more reliable systems of mail delivery.
The popularity of Christmas carols also grew during this period, with many now-beloved tunes like “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World” first being published.
Who Is Wilkie Collins?
I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. ~Wilkie Collins in his Preface to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Like his friend, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins felt strongly about social issues and wove his views into the narrative of his stories. As the “Grandfather of English Detective Fiction”, Collins helped to evolve the “sensationalist” fiction genre from a vaguely suspenseful soap opera style of story to what we recognize as detective fiction today.
Wilkie Collins Biography – English Novelist and Playwright Life Story
Collins experimented with articles and short fiction in his younger years, but when he met Charles Dickens in 1851, he dove into longer forms of fiction under Dickens’ mentorship. The two collaborated on various works and Dickens helped to publish a number of Collins’ works until they had a falling out in the late 1860s.
Despite the garish, pulp-style approach to storytelling that Collins started off with, it would appear that Dickens had helped him hone his writing skills and story craft, as well as his social awareness. Collins introduced characters designed to make the staid Victorian reader wince while recognizing that they knew these characters in real life.
The Girl at the Gate: Plot and Characters
It was then the first week in December. I understood that I might reckon—at the utmost—on three weeks of life. What I felt, on arriving at this conclusion, I shall not say. It is the one secret I keep from the readers of these lines. ~Mr. Lepel
The Girl at the Gate is a short story that explores the complex relationships between friends and acquaintances within the wealthy elite of Victorian society. If you’re a fan of Collins’ detective fiction, you might be interested to know that “The Girl at the Gate” was written specifically for the “Christmas Spirit” issue of The Spirit of the Times, The American Gentleman’s Newspaper, in December 1884.
Later, in 1887, it was republished as “Mr. Lepel and the Housekeeper” in a collection of Collins’ short stories called Little Novels, which was released near the end of his life. This Christmas-inspired tale is just one example of Collins’ skill at crafting intricate stories with unexpected twists and turns.
The story centers around Mr. Lepel and his close friend, Rothsay, who were enjoying the best of Italian theater during their travels until Rothsay became ill, requiring that they leave a play after the first act. The plot of the play will come back to haunt them at the end of this story.
Rothsay continues on with his travels, joining another friend for a yacht cruise on the Mediterranean while Lepel returns home to deal with household matters and family duties.
We learn that Lepel is what we would refer to today as a “trust fund baby”. His considerable wealth is inherited from his aristocratic uncle and his bank executive father. Like Rothsay, he doesn’t have a particular career. They both enjoy lives of ease due to their social station.
Lepel and Rothsay are technically opposites. Rothsay is young, passionately volatile, a scion of an ancient royal line and regrettably penniless. Lepel, by contrast is wealthy, of high standing without being officially aristocratic, a mature bachelor and kind to an almost absurd fault.
After settling household matters that arose during his travels, Lepel is summoned to his uncle’s estate for an extended stay. He doesn’t particularly want to go, but he is bound by familial duty to spend some time with the head of his family and financial benefactor.
While walking the grounds, a torrent of rain drives him to seek shelter at the house of the former groundskeeper’s widow. Her daughter Susan, who he recalled as a sickly child, was now a lovely young woman. He offered to help her with her French lessons while he remained at his uncle’s and promised to continue by mail once he returned home.
As the story unfolds, Lepel falls ill. While convalescing, he continues to get worse despite the best doctors being called to his aid. His progressing illness suggests an attempted murder.
Since the story is told from a first-person perspective, our overly kind Mr. Lepel tells us that he is trying to vindicate his housekeeper, Mrs. Mozeen, from what he believes to be cruel slander. Despite warnings from Rothsay and his own doctor, Lepel remains blindly faithful to his seemingly dutiful servant.
Additionally, Lepel is oblivious to the fact that Susan, the titular girl at the gate, is hopelessly in love with him. Instead, Lepel tries to set Susan up with his friend, Rothsay.
To Lepel, this is all a reflection of his kind nature and a sense of noblesse oblige fitting his station as a gentleman of means. As we might hope from a Christmas story, all turns out well in the end.
The story delves into themes of friendship, love, and betrayal and showcases the societal norms of the Victorian era. Collins captured the essence of the holiday season, elevating it as a symbol of the human condition.
It would seem that his friendship with Charles Dickens inspired a love for the holiday season and its themes of family, generosity and forgiveness. Even if “The Girl at the Gate” wasn’t specifically a Christmas story, the unfailing kindness and generosity of Mr. Lepel portrayed a man who kept Christmas in his heart all the year.