Daphne du Maurier and her Sisters

It was inevitable that highly imaginative children, living with this everyday theatricality, would wonder what life was really about. Murderers and fairies crowded the stage, but did the dream end when one awoke? When the lights went up and the crowds left the foyer streaming into the bright night, what was real of whatever remained? Young men were dying in a bloody war just a few hundred miles away; their young cousin, their uncle, were already dead in the slaughter. Confusingly, at home the show went on, with actors pretending to die and children executing each other with imaginary axes, and Daphne dancing on stage as a fully-feathered Indian brave.

Two years earlier Gerald had viewed a Georgian mansion for sale in the leafy village of Hampstead. Cannon Hall had once been a courthouse and it stood in proud command of its demesne of large gardens and various outhouses including a lock-up – much to the sisters’ pleasure – a real jail at last. Gerald was immediately struck by the Hall’s theatrical staircase and decided then and there that he would have it. To return in some style to the area of London where his father had lived and he had grown up seemed to add a nice symmetry to his restless life and would perhaps help to recapture some of the happiness and contentment that had gone. As Gerald attempted to reconnect with his past, he was unconsciously setting a new scene for his daughters’ future.

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