16 Times Victoria Made Us Wish History Didn’t Happen
By Lacy Baugher
Image via PBS
Orchids are the Greatest Flowers Ever
After Victoria confesses her feelings to Melbourne, he gently rebuffs her. Among his various reasons for why they can’t be together include the fact that he’s still hung up on his dead wife. As a result, he has “no use for her heart”. You may be able to tell that this statement is a complete lie by the fact that, even as he’s saying it, Melbourne’s clinging to her hands like she’s Rhianna and he’s Drake. Or you may have guessed it simply because it’s a standard romantic trope in period dramas to have someone reject their own personal happiness out of some intense sense of duty.
However, rather than let Victoria think he doesn’t care at all, Melbourne still manages to make a romantic gesture for her costume ball. He sends her some orchids which he apparently had to reopen his long-closed greenhouse to grow especially for her. As Lady Emma points out, that’s kind of a lot of effort for someone he doesn’t care about at all, right? And if that doesn’t make his true feelings clear, it also turns out that orchids also have a rather interesting meaning as far as symbols go.
Floriography, or “the language of flowers,” is a practice that attaches specific meanings to certain types of flowers. So, if you want to send someone a message, but you don’t want to say it out loud, use flowers to tell them instead. For example, red roses tend to convey romantic love, white roses signal purity, and yellow roses mean friendship. That kind of thing. (Weirdly, this practice also happened to flourish in the Victorian era. Weird, huh?) For what it’s worth, orchids can also be used to “express your love to the longtime partner in your life”. They are, apparently, a “testament to adoration, desire and longtime respect”.
Just in case anyone at all was confused about how Lord Melbourne really feels. Or happened to be looking for a way to make a grand romantic gesture without saying anything at all. (Go get the women in your life some orchids, boys.)