Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/641

 6i5 MARRIAOC WAIVES OF FAMOUS LADY ROBERTS By H. PEARL ADAM MEN " A man's best fortune, or his worst, is "**• his wife," according to an old proverb. The truth of the saying has been proved beyond question. It is in the power of a wife to help her husband daily and hourly in his career, and indirectly, too, in the influence of her character on his ; she it is who makes or mars him. History is full of examples of wives who have devoted their lives to their husbands in much more than a domestic sense. For instance, to take an example of our own time, there is Lady Roberts. For over fifty years she has been a real helpmate to her husband ; she has never allowed her personal wishes to stand in his way ; she has never claimed Ihe privileges of a wife when they would have interfered with his duty or his advancement. From the very beginning she showed of what mQttle she was made. While she and Lieu- tenant Roberts were on their honeymoon in May, 1859, he was summoned from Scotl and to Windsor to receive his Victoria Cross. He meant to have resumed the honeymoon tour after this honour had been conferred 1^^ on him, but he ^Bi received a notifi- ^V cation that if he took the three months' extra leave for which he had applied, he would lose his appointment in the Quartermaster- General's Department. Without hesitation his bride urged an immediate return to India, I and, after a hasty visit of farewell to county Walerford, the young Irish girl, accustomed to the cool and gentle Irish climate, set out with her husband to face the Red Sea in July. Her fortitude was well tested. So excep- tional was the heat that twice the captain turned the ship to steam against the wind, in order to revive the passengers, some of whom were absolutely suffocating. After this experience, the next was the monsoon in the Bay of Bengal — rudder broken, all guiding lightships blown about drifting helplessly, anxiety as to provisions and coal — in short, an adventure of the most thrillmg and uncomfortable description. Mrs. Roberts, worn out and ill, may have hearted girl who rode to hounds in countv Waterford, but if she looked back, she was nevertheless indomitable. The young couple, arriving at Calcutta, were sent straight away to Morar, one of the hottest places in India in August. Ill-health could daunt neither of them, and they started up-country. A worse trial awaited the young bride. Two days after their arrival Lieu- tenant Roberts was sent back- to Calcutta. and his wife was perforce left with friends' kind and hospitable, but still strangers to herl When the period of separation was over Mr. and Mrs. Roberts had another journey. this time enlivened by floods. But at last a happier time was at hand. The lieutenant was appointed Quarter- master-General to Lord Canning on" his six months' tour through India. This meant that he had the whole ordering of the huge camp. The work was very heavy, but it was in- teresting, and his wife could ac- company him. On this tour he showed her all the ground he had covered during the Mutiny two years before. Small wonder that she was "intensely interested." as he records, and that it was Delhi that " had the greatest fascina- tion for her." She would not have been the soldier's wife that she is if she had not been moved to the heart by the sight of the places where her young lieutenant had won distinction and the supreme personal honour of the Victoria Cross ; where he had fought and suffered and conquered. On this tour the events of the Mutiny became living realities to her, and if never before, then she accepted the lot of a soldier's wife, with all its anxieties and partings, its need of courage, its patience in loneliness, its constant cheerfulness. Over and over again Lord Roberts has paid tribute to his wife's qualities. His book. " Forty-one Years in India." is dedi- cated " to the country to which I am so proud of belonging, to the Army to which I am so deeply indebted, and to my wife, without whose loving help my ' Forty-one Years in India ' could not be' the happy retrospect it is."