The Language of Flowers

“Oh! Oh, Annette, come quick! Come quick, dear, you have received flowers!”

Annette tried to reach the front hall at a lady-like pace but was only barely out of her room when she started sprinting down the hall like an untamed pony.

“Who are they from?” she called down to her sister as she skipped down the stairs as fast as she dared in her slippers. Lord Cavanaugh had been giving her quite telling looks at the last affair. But Sir Rufflesbee had invited her riding no less than three times in the past summer and Annette was sure there might be something there. If only the poor young man could pick up the nerve to look her in the eyes!

“It doesn’t say,” her sister said. “Oh, a secret admirer! How romantic!”

The flowers currently sitting on the front door table were enormous, and freshly cut! An entire floral landscape wafted toward her as she approached the violently colorful collection of blooms.

“Such a wonderful selection!” Annette said, touching a blossom here and there. “Whoever put this together has an eye for color, indeed!”

She felt that these must have been from Sir Rufflesbee. Lord Cavanaugh did not seem to have a single artistic cell in his body. Unless he asked his dear sister to put them together, which would have made Annette quite offended and forced her toward Sir Rufflesbee all the faster.

“It’s quite the…unique bouquet, isn’t it?” Alexandra said slowly, her eyes roaming the bundle of flowers. “I am quite certain there are flowers in here I have never seen given before. Is that…”

Before she could stop her, Alexandra reached out and plucked one of the small greens around the lower edge of the bouquet and sniffed it. A look of alarm crossed her face.

“My dear sister…this is basil.”

“What? No, surely not.”

But a single sniff of the leaf could leave no doubt in Annette’s mind. It was basil. And in the language of flowers, basil had only one meaning.

Hate.

“I don’t understand,” Annette said. “Perhaps it means, I hate being away from you.?”

“Sister…have a closer look at these flowers.”

It was all there. How could she not have noticed before? The columbine calling her a fool. The hydrangea and lavender calling her heartless and unworthy of trust. And sitting right next to each other, in the direct middle of this collection of hateful hues, were two flowers sending such a loud message it was unbelievable Annette hadn’t heard it before she reached the front hall.

Camellia. Long for you.

Hemlock. Death.

Longing for you to die.

“Why, this is not love knot from a secret admirer at all!” Annette stated. “This is a hateful message sent by a coward!”

Alexandra put her hands on her hips and sniffed the air. “Well, coward or no, I think we both know who sent this.”

“Moira Wendell,” they both said aloud.

“She’s been a jealous cow her entire life,” said Alexandra.

“Do ladies use such words?” their mother called from the sitting room.

“They do when they’re talking about Moira Wendell, mother,” Annette called back.

“Oh. Yes. Quite.”

“Well, I supposed there is nothing left to do,” Annette said. “Alexandra, fetch father’s pistols whilst I go don my dueling gear.”

“I shall, too! You’ll need a second.”

“Mother!” Annette called into the sitting room as she passed. “Alexandra and I are going to duel that miserable, jealous tart Moira Wendell. As she is such a coward I doubt this will take long. We shall endeavor to be home for supper.”

“Good luck, girls!”

Annette stalked into her room, no longer worrying about being lady-like, and pulled open the wardrobe.

If Moira Wendell thought she could simply send a bouquet of hateful messages and not answer to consequences, she surely had another thing coming. The soddening sow.

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