The “old squire,” as Mr. Nightingale is still called at Lea, took a great interest in the village school, and Florence became his right hand in looking after the amusements of the children. There were many little treats devised for them from time to time, but the great event of the year was the children’s “feast day,” when the scholars assembled at the school-house and walked in procession to Lea Hurst, carrying “posies” in their hands and sticks wreathed with garlands of flowers. A band provided by the squire headed the procession. Arrived at Lea Hurst, the company were served with tea in the field below the garden, Mrs. Nightingale and her daughters assisting the servants to wait upon their guests. After tea, the band struck up lively airs and the lads and lasses danced in a style which recalled the olden times in Merrie England, while the squire and his family beamed approval.
Then there were games for the little ones devised by “Miss Florence,” who took upon herself their special entertainment; and so the summer evening passed away in delightful mirth and recreation until the crimson clouds began to glow over the beautiful Derwent valley, and the children re-formed in line and marched up the garden to the top terrace of the lawn. Meantime “Miss Florence” and “Miss Parthe” had mysteriously disappeared, and now they were seen standing on the terrace behind a long table laden with presents. As the procession filed past, each child received a gift from one or other of the young ladies, and there were kindly words from the squire and gracious smiles from Mrs. Nightingale and much bobbing of curtseys by the delighted children, and so the “feast day” ended in mutual joy and pleasure.
The scene was described to me by an old lady who had many times as a child attended this pretty entertainment at Lea Hurst, and still treasures the little gifts—fancy boxes, books, thimble cases and the like—which she had received from the hands of the then beloved and now deeply reverenced “Miss Florence.” She recalls what a sweet young lady she was, with her glossy brown hair smoothed down each side of her face, and often a rose placed at the side, amongst the neat plaits or coils. Her appearance at this period can be judged from the pencil sketch by her sister, afterwards Lady Verney, in which, despite the quaint attire, one recognises a tall, graceful girl of charm and intelligence.
In Derbyshire, Florence Nightingale’s interest in Church work was divided between the historic little church of Dethick, described in a former chapter, and the beautiful church which Sir Richard Arkwright had built at Cromford on the opposite side of the river from his castle of Willersley. To-day, Cromford Church is thickly covered with ivy and embowered in trees, and, standing on the river bank with greystone rocks towering on one side and the wooded heights of Willersley on the other, presents a mellowed and picturesque appearance. In our heroine’s girlhood it was comparatively new and regarded as the wonder of the district for the architectural taste and decoration which Sir Richard had lavished upon it. The great cotton-spinner himself had been laid beneath its chancel in 1792, but an Arkwright reigned at Willersley Castle in Miss Nightingale’s youth—as indeed there does to-day—and carried on the beneficent schemes of the founder for the people of the district. Then the Arkwright Mills—long since disused—gave employment to hundreds of people, and the now sleepy little town of Cromford was alive with an industrial population. It was something of a model village, as the neat rows of low stone houses which flank Cromford hill testify, and there were schools, reading-rooms, and other means devised for the betterment of the people. Many schemes originated with the vicar and patron of Cromford Church, and the young ladies from Lea Hurst sometimes assisted at entertainments.
We may imagine “Miss Florence” when she drove with her parents down to Cromford Church making a very pretty picture indeed, dressed in her summer muslin, with a silk spencer crossed over her maiden breast and her sweet, placid face beaming from out the recesses of a Leghorn bonnet, wreathed with roses.
It was, however, in connection with the church of Dethick and the adjoining parishes of Lea and Holloway that Florence Nightingale did most of her philanthropic work. This district was peculiarly her father’s domain, and also embraced the church and village of Crich. Like Cromford, it was the seat of a village industry. Immediately below Lea Hurst were Smedley’s hosiery mills, which employed hundreds of women and girls, many of whom lived on the Nightingale estate, and Miss Florence took great interest in their welfare. As she grew into womanhood, she started a Bible-class for the young women of the district, holding it in the old building at Lea Hurst known as the “chapel.” The class was unsectarian, for “Smedley’s people,” following the example of their master, “Dr.” John Smedley, were chiefly Methodists. However, religious differences were not bitter in the neighbourhood, and Miss Nightingale welcomed to her class all young girls who were disposed to come, whether their parents belonged to “chapel” or “church.”
The memory of those Sunday afternoons, as they sat in the tiny stone “chapel” overlooking the sunny lawns and gardens of Lea Hurst, listening to the beautiful expositions of Scripture which fell from their beloved “Miss Florence,” or following her sweet voice in sacred song, is green in the hearts of a few elderly people in the neighbourhood. A softness comes into their voice, and a smile of pleasure lights up their wrinkled faces, as they tell you how “beautifully Miss Florence used to talk.” In years long after, when she returned for holiday visits to Lea Hurst, nothing gave Miss Nightingale greater pleasure than for the young girls of the district, some of them daughters of her former scholars, to come on summer Sunday afternoons and sing on the lawn at Lea Hurst as she sat in her room above. Infirmity prevented her from mingling with them, but the girls were pleased if they could only catch a sight of her face smiling down from the window.
During the winter months spent in her Hampshire home, Florence Nightingale was also active amongst the sick poor and the young people. Embley Park is near the town of Romsey, in the parish of East Willow, and Mr. Nightingale and his family attended that church. “Miss Florence” had many friends amongst the cottagers, and a few of the old people still recall seeing the “young ladies” riding about on their ponies, and stopping with kind inquiries at some of the house doors. Although the sisters were such close companions, it is always “Miss Florence” who is remembered as the chief benefactress. She had the happy gift for gaining the love of the people, and the instinct for giving the right sort of help, though “Miss Parthe” was no less kind-hearted.
At Christmas, Embley Park was a centre from which radiated much good cheer. “Florence” was gay indeed, as, in ermine tippet and muff and beaver hat, she helped to distribute the parcels of tea and the warm petticoats to the old women. She devised Christmas entertainments for the children and assisted in treats for the workhouse poor. Local carol-singers received a warm welcome at Embley, especially from Miss Florence, who would come into the hall to see the mince-pies and coin distributed as she chatted with the humble performers. Training the boys and girls to sing was to her a matter of special interest, and she did much in those far-away days to promote a love of music amongst the villagers both at Lea Hurst and Embley. It would afford her pleasure to-day could she listen to the well-trained band formed by the mill-workers at Lea, which one hears discoursing sweet music outside the mills on a summer’s evening.
Embley overlooked the hills of the Wiltshire border, and the cathedral city of Salisbury, only some thirteen miles distant, afforded Miss Nightingale a wider field of philanthropic interest. She was always willing to take part in beneficent work in the neighbourhood, and the children’s hospital and other schemes founded and conducted by her friends Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Herbert, afterwards Lord and Lady Herbert of Lea, formed a special interest for her in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the Crimean War.