Humphrey Carpenter - J. R. R. Tolkien

From half past nine to half past four the child had to remain indoors, out of the blaze of the sun. Even in the house the heat could be intense, and he had to be clothed entirely in white. ‘Baby does look such a fairy when he’s very much dressed-up in white frills and white shoes,’ Mabel wrote to her husband’s mother. ‘When he’s very much undressed I think he looks more of an elf still.’

There was more company for Mabel now. Soon after the baby’s first birthday, her sister and brother-in-law May and Walter Incledon arrived from England. Walter, a Birmingham merchant in his early thirties, had business interests in the South African gold and diamond mines, and he left May and their small daughter Marjorie at Bank House and travelled on to the mining areas. May Incledon had arrived in time to keep her sister cheerful through the bitterness of another wintry summer in Bloemfontein, a season more hard to bear because Arthur too was away for some weeks on business. It was intensely cold, and the two sisters huddled around the dining-room stove while Mabel knitted garments for the baby and she and May talked about Birmingham days. Mabel was making little secret of her irritation with Bloemfontein life, its climate, its endless social calls, and its tedious dinner-parties. Home leave could be taken soon now, in a year or so – though Arthur was always suggesting reasons for postponing their visit to England. ‘I will not let him put it off too long,’ wrote Mabel. ‘He does grow too fond of this climate to please me. I wish I could like it better, as I’m sure he’ll never settle in England again.’

In the end the trip had to be postponed. Mabel found that she was pregnant again, and on 17 February 1894 she gave birth to another son. He was christened Hilary Arthur Reuel.

Hilary proved to be a healthy child who flourished in the Bloemfontein climate, but his elder brother was not doing so well. Ronald was sturdy and handsome, with his fair hair and blue eyes – ‘quite a young Saxon’, his father called him. By now he was talking volubly and entertaining the bank clerks on his daily visit to his father’s office downstairs, where he would demand pencil and paper and scribble away at crude drawings. But teething upset him badly and made him feverish, so that the doctor had to be called in day after day and Mabel was soon worn out. The weather was at its worst: an intense drought arrived, ruined trade, spoilt tempers, and brought a plague of locusts that swarmed across the veldt and destroyed a fine harvest. Yet despite all this, Arthur wrote to his father the words that Mabel had dreaded to hear: ‘I think I shall do well in this country and do not think I should settle down well in England again for a permanency.’

Whether they were to stay or not, it was clear that the heat was doing a great deal of harm to Ronald’s health. Something must be done to get him to cooler air. So in November 1894 Mabel took the two boys the many hundreds of miles to the coast near Cape Town. Ronald was nearly three now, old enough to retain a faint memory of the long train journey and of running back from the sea to a bathing hut on a wide flat sandy shore. After this holiday Mabel and the children returned to Bloemfontein, and preparations were made for their visit to England. Arthur had booked a passage and had engaged a nurse to travel with them. He badly wanted to accompany them himself; but he could not afford to be away from his desk, for there were railway schemes on hand that concerned the bank, and as he wrote to his father: ‘In these days of competition one does not like to leave one’s business in the hands of others.’ Moreover time spent away would be on half pay, and he could not easily afford this in addition to the expense of the voyage. So he decided to stay in Bloemfontein for the time being and to join his wife and children in England a little later. Ronald watched his father painting A. R. Tolkien on the lid of a family trunk. It was the only clear memory of him that the boy retained.

The S.S. Guelph carried Mabel and the boys from South Africa at the beginning of April 1895. In Ronald’s mind there would remain no more than a few words of Afrikaans and a faint recollection of a dry dusty barren landscape, while Hilary was too young even to remember this. Three weeks later, Mabel’s little sister Jane, now a grown woman, met them at Southampton; and in a few hours they were all in Birmingham and cramming into the tiny family house in King’s Heath. Mabel’s father was as jolly as ever, cracking jokes and making dreadful puns, and her mother was kind and understanding. They stayed on, and the spring and summer passed with a marked improvement in Ronald’s health; but though Arthur wrote to say that he missed his wife and children very badly and was longing to come and join them, there was always something to detain him.

Then in November came the news that he had contracted rheumatic fever. He had already partially recovered, but he could not face an English winter and would have to regain his health before he could make the journey. Mabel spent a desperately anxious Christmas, though Ronald enjoyed himself and was fascinated by the sight of his first Christmas tree, which was very different from the wilting eucalyptus that had adorned Bank House the previous December.

When January came, Arthur was reported to be still in poor health, and Mabel decided that she must go back to Bloemfontein and care for him. Arrangements were made, and an excited Ronald dictated a letter to his father which was written out by the nurse.

9 Ashfield Road, King’s Heath, February 14th 1896.

My dear Daddy,

I am so glad I am coming back to see you it is such a long time since we came away from you I hope the ship will bring us all back to you Mamie and Baby and me. I know you will be so glad to have a letter from your little Ronald it is such a long time since I wrote to you I am got such a big man now because I have got a man’s coat and a man’s bodice Mamie says you will not know Baby or me we have got such big men we have got such a lot of Christmas presents to show you Auntie Gracie has been to see us I walk every day and only ride in my mailcart a little bit. Hilary sends lots of love and kisses and so does your loving

Ronald.

This letter was never sent, for a telegram arrived to say that Arthur had suffered a severe haemorrhage and Mabel must expect the worst. Next day, 15 February 1896, he was dead. By the time a full account of his last hours had reached his widow, his body had been buried in the Anglican graveyard at Bloemfontein, five thousand miles from Birmingham.

When the first state of shock was over, Mabel Tolkien knew that she must make decisions. She and the two boys could not stay for ever in her parents’ crowded little suburban villa, yet she scarcely had the resources to establish an independent household. For all his hard work and conscientious saving, Arthur had only amassed a modest sum of capital which was chiefly invested in Bonanza Mines, and though the dividend was high it would not bring her an income of more than thirty shillings a week, scarcely sufficient to maintain herself and two children even at the lowest standard of living. There was also the question of the boys’ education. Probably she could manage this herself for some years, for she knew Latin, French, and German, and could paint, draw, and play the piano. Later when Ronald and Hilary were old enough they must take the entrance examination for King Edward’s School, Birmingham, which Arthur had attended and which was the best grammar school in the city. Meanwhile she must find cheap accommodation that she could rent. There were plenty of lodgings to be had in Birmingham, but the boys needed fresh air and the countryside, a home that could make them happy despite their poverty. She began to search through the advertisements.