1<br > The House of Women<br >Father wanted a small family， but he also wanted an heir，<br >and he had four daughters and two wives before he<br >eventually had a son.<br > He was not， he said， adverse to daughters as such， but<br >his grandfather had had four sons， his father two and he<br >felt obliged to have at least one - a replacement ， as he<br >called him - to keep his branch of the family going，<br >especially as other branches had faded out of their own<br >accord. His family name was Courlander. Two of his<br >uncles had changed their name to Lander， and a third to<br >Lance~ ， which was perhaps just as well， for apparently<br >none of them had brought particular credit to the family，<br >and in any case two of them had died without issue.<br >Father s own brother Willie was a bachelor， and therefore<br >the full burden of perpetuating the line fell on him， and he<br >approached it with a gravity which he did not display in<br >other walks of life and which must have borne heavily on<br >poor mummy.<br > Father had a younger sister called Stevie， and in 1931 or<br >1932， when she was eighteen， she was sent to Berlin to<br >perfect her German and there became friendly with Thea，<br >a banker s daughter. Thea later came to England to study，<br >spent three years at Cambridge and stayed frequently<br >with my grandparents. She was tall and slender， with<br >great， soulful eyes， and a severe， rather manly hairstyle.<br >All her photographs show her to be a rather handsome<br >young woman. None show her smiling， and I could never<br >understand the basis of her relationship with Stevie， who<br >was large and ~enial， even if she rarely had anythin~ to be<br >