The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 2 of 2

by Sir Edward Tyas Cook

Miss Nightingale's manner of life made her messenger an important member of the South Street staff. She had taken a great and liberal interest in the Corps of Commissionaires established in 1859, and a Commissionaire was in her regular service, acting both as Cerberus and Mercury. Miss Nightingale's messenger must have been a familiar figure, with his notes for Dr. Sutherland, at the War Office, and, for the Matron, at St. Thomas's Hospital. For the rest, Miss Nightingale kept a staff of maidservants. Her own particular maid for many years was Temperance Hatcher; but at the time with which we are now concerned she had married one of Miss Nightingale's Crimean protégés, Peter Grillage,[182] who for some years had been a manservant at Embley. Miss Nightingale was much attached to this exemplary pair, constantly sent presents to them and their children, corresponded with them almost to the end of her life, and remembered them in her Will. At an earlier date Mr. Jowett in letters written after visits to Miss Nightingale—letters known as “roofers” by “the younger gown”—refers gratefully to the care of neat-handed Temperance. Miss Nightingale took infinite pains in the selection of her maids. Kind Mrs. Sutherland did much of the work in this sort for her, and when she was away in the country Mrs. Sutherland was often asked to keep an eye on South Street. Miss Nightingale's love of method and precision, her fondness for having everything in black and white, appear in many a formidable schedule of duties and requirements which she drew up for the information of applicants. Perhaps these had the effect of weeding out the unfit; for, with some exceptions, Miss Nightingale was well served: as was meet and right, for good mistresses make good servants, and she was solicitous of their comfort and welfare. She was an excellent housekeeper; and here again she brought into play the methodical and critical habits which she had practised in larger spheres. I have seen a book in which a young cook entered the day's menu and, on the following morning, the mistress wrote comments on each course—for the most part kindly and encouraging, but sometimes trenchant; as in this note upon stewed cutlets, “Why was the glue-pot used?”; or this upon a dish of minced veal, “Meat hard, and remember that mincing makes hard meat harder.” Miss Nightingale was a small, though delicate, eater; it was for her visitors that she took most pains. Cakes of different kinds, fresh eggs, and coffee used to be sent regularly to St. Thomas's Hospital, to two wards every week; and meat soufflées and jelly were sent weekly to two invalids at Lea Hurst and one at Liverpool. If a nursing friend was coming to South Street, who was likely to want “feeding up,” or, suffering from overwork, would require to have her appetite coaxed, Miss Nightingale would draw up the menu herself, and write out her own recipes for particular dishes. She had not served in the East with the great Soyer in vain. Her father, after his first visit to South Street, pronounced “Florence's maids and dinner perfect”; and the Crown Princess, going down to lunch by herself after seeing Miss Nightingale, sent word that the luncheon was “a work of art.”

III

Of Miss Nightingale as a hostess, and of the pleasures of South Street to her nursing visitors, one of her pupils who was often invited gives this account:—“Early tea, if you would accept it, was brought to you; and following close upon the housemaid, came Miss Nightingale's own maid to inquire how you had slept; and then to ask if you had any plans for the day or would like any visitor invited to lunch or otherwise. When this had been ascertained there came, by note or message, proposals for the vacant time; and an hour was appointed for your visit to her: that is, for the visit in chief, for you might have other glimpses of her during the day. She was always on the look-out to make your visit not only restful and restoring by all manner of material comfort, but to make it interesting and brightening as well. If the Verneys were in residence at No. 4, Miss Nightingale laid them under contribution for our entertainment, and right kindly did they both respond. Sometimes the guest went there to dinner, dining alone with Sir Harry and spending the time before and after with Lady Verney, then in some degree an invalid, in the drawing-room. The conversation there was amusing, relating to a world not centred in hospitals, for Sir Harry loved to talk of his early days in France and Spain. Lady Verney would sometimes take you driving with her, and as she was of the great world you were likely to have a peep at its attractions. Perhaps the carriage would be stopped while she chatted with Dean Stanley; or it would pause to allow of cards being left at some great house. Then Lady Verney would turn and tease her guest from the hospital about coming to town in the season and leaving cards at the French Embassy. Or Sir Harry would include you in his party, going to visit Miss Octavia Hill in her London Courts, and houses not at all resembling the Embassy. Or he would take you to the House of Commons when the Irish members were lively, and you would see Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Trevelyan and Mr. Parnell, and have an exciting story to bring home to the Chief. Or it might be that you were taken to a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society where Stanley, surrounded by Dr. Moffat, Sir Samuel Baker, and other great travellers, was telling a crowded audience amid breathless silence how he crossed the Dark Continent.

But these pleasures which Miss Nightingale lavished on her workers and in which she shared only by sympathy, were not the event of the day to her visitor. The chief privilege was always the interview with herself. It was usually arranged to begin at half-past four and often lasted through several hours; sometimes with a short interval. At times Miss Nightingale was well enough to come down to the drawing-room and rest on a couch there while she received her guests. Couch or bed was always strewn with letters and papers, and a pencil was ever at hand. It was cheerful to find her on the couch, relieved from the imprisonment of the bed. She was dressed then in soft black silk with a shawl over her feet; always the transparent white kerchief laid over her hair and tied under the chin. [The ‘transparent white kerchief’ was an exquisite little curtain of fine net, edged with real lace, often very fine; for Miss Nightingale was of the old-fashioned persuasion that a gentlewoman cannot wear imitation lace. Some of her lace was Buckinghamshire, made in cottages near Claydon.] Whether sad or glad, there was a bright smile of welcome. Once or twice I found her with her Persian kittens about, but they were soon dismissed. If you had come only for the interview on business, that might occupy all the time; though even on such occasions, business might be dispatched in time for other pleasant talk. But if you were staying in the house, though business was discussed and counsel given, a wide range was allowed to other conversation. Naturally you gave her an account of the day's doings; she entered into them with zest and was led on to other subjects. Sometimes she would speak of India and the Ryots; sometimes of Egypt and the Fellaheen; it was rare for her to touch upon the Crimean episode: if she did so, it was generally to speak with affectionate remembrance of Mrs. Bracebridge. Miss Nightingale encouraged her pupils to speak at these interviews, and it was a common matter of self-reproach with me that whereas I went desirous and resolved to listen, I had occupied too much of the time talking. However it was perhaps her design and gave her the best opportunities of helping her pupils. She listened to all one said with an open mind and made much of any point of which she approved. But now and again she flashed out a dissent, in a tone of maternal authority, and gave you a forcible exposition from the point of view of her powerful intellect and wide outlook. She was enthusiastic, but she was not a prey to illusions. Sometimes when there was not a clear contradiction, there was a quiet questioning. Indeed many of her lessons were given in the form of questions. Among our happiest subjects of conversation were the children in the hospitals. Miss Nightingale seemed never to weary of hearing of them; of their sufferings, their home circumstances, their pathetic knowledge of life, their heroic patience, their quaint sayings, their brave fun in intervals of ease, their interest in one another, their thousand sweetnesses. Not the less was her sympathy given to the older patients, while the Nurses had, if possible, a still larger place in her regard.”

Florence Nightingale in her room in South Street
from a photograph by Miss Bosanquet, 1906

IV

The room in which these treasured interviews took place was either the drawing-room, or Miss Nightingale's bedroom on the second floor—both at the back of the house. The bedroom had a crescent-shaped outer wall with pleasant French windows and flower-balconies. The bed stood between the windows and the door, with its foot facing the fireplace, and behind the bed was a long shelf conveniently placed for books and papers. There were always flowers in the room. Those in pots on a stand were provided by Mr. Rathbone (as already related) until his death; and a box of cut flowers was sent every week from Melchet Court by Lady Ashburton. The walls were white and there were no blinds or curtains; the room seemed full of light and flowers. What impressed visitors was the exquisite cleanliness and daintiness of all the appointments which served as the frame to their mistress. “It always seemed a beautiful room,” says one visitor, “but there was very little in it beside the necessary furniture, which was neat, but cheap and simple, except a few pieces which had come from Embley and Lea Hurst. A large arm-chair, in which Miss Nightingale would sometimes sit, stood between two of the three windows. There were few pictures on the walls—a photograph of Lord Lawrence's portrait, a water-colour of an Egyptian sunset, and one or two other gifts. The two things of most meaning were a long chromolithograph of ‘the ground about Sebastopol,’ as she called it in her Will[183]—this was opposite her on the right; and, on the mantelpiece, exactly facing her bed, a framed chromolithographed text, ‘It is I. Be not afraid.’ The drawing-room was loftier and more severe, and on the walls were some fine engravings and photographs of the Sistine ceiling. There were many bookcases in the drawing-room, the back drawing-room, and the dining-room, mostly full of Blue-books. As a little girl, I spent many hours in the dining-room while my mother was upstairs, and can bear witness that except Blue-books the only reading was The Ring and the Book.”

Occasionally Miss Nightingale would be seen standing or moving about in her room; what was then remarked was the grace and dignity of her bearing, though the “willowy figure” which distinguished her in earlier years had now become large. More often she received her visitors in bed or on her couch. What they then observed was the head, the face, the hands. Her head, in girlhood and early womanhood, had been remarked as small. Possibly it had grown somewhat, and something must be put down to the increased size of the face as affecting the appearance; but at any rate her head in later years was certainly large. An Army Surgeon who visited Miss Nightingale frequently in the 'eighties and 'nineties tells me that he was always struck by the massiveness of the head, comparable, he thought, to Mr. Gladstone's. There was an unusually fine rounded form of the fore-part of the head just above where the hair begins. The eyes were not specially remarkable, though there was a suggestion of intellectual keenness in them. The nose was fine and rather prominent; the mouth, small and firm. The hands were small and refined. Every one who saw her felt that he was in the presence of a woman of personality—of marked character, energy, and capacity. As her visitor entered, Miss Nightingale would bend forward from her bed or couch with a smile of welcome; the visitor would be invited to an easy chair beside her, and talk would begin.