My Life as a Would-be Hardy Heroine

I fell in love with Thomas Hardy’s novel ‘Tess of the d’Urbervillles’ at the age of fifteen Written and set in 19^th century England, it tells the story of a young and innocent country girl, Tess, who is romantically torn between two men: a moustachioed, upper-class villain, Alec d’Urberville, who rapes and impregnates her; and Angel Clare, a seemingly gentle and virtuous young man who marries Tess but then rejects her on their wedding night after she confesses to her past. My passion for Hardy’s novel later impacted my own love life so that I fell for an ‘Alec’ but refused to let any man treat me like Angel.

Due to an unfortunate incident in my senior year of high school, I decided to swear off men for the whole of my first term of college, despite the fact that I’d somehow managed to land a scholarship to study English literature in a real British university where every man I encountered had an accent to make me swoon.

I first saw Darren Kershaw some time during the first week of the second semester. By then, I’d made a couple of close girlfriends on the English course and we’d got into the habit of going for coffee together after our Tuesday morning Victorian literature lecture. Rachel and Jess were teasing me a little because I was sitting reading ‘Tess’ when someone sat down on the spare chair at our table.

“Don’t tell me you like that Victorian melodrama!” he groaned, looking at me with mock despair.

“What’s it to you?” I retorted sharply.

“It’s a bit clichéd, isn’t it? It’s all sexist nonsense, with a few heaving bosoms thrown in for good measure?”

“I suppose you prefer all the Freudian analysis we were looking at last week,” I commented drily, wondering why I’d never noticed him in any of the lectures. He was far too good looking to fade into the background.

“I’m not doing an English Lit degree.” He regarded me coolly. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t read…”

*

Of course, it didn’t take long for Jess and Rachel to leap into the conversation – that’s how we discovered Darren’s name. We must have been discussing Thomas Hardy for half an hour by the time the others dragged me away.

Rachel told me later that she was jealous that I’d caught Darren’s attention. “He likes you, Sarah. That’s why he keeps talking to you.”

“Don’t be stupid!” I said uncomfortably. “You know I’m not intending to get involved with anyone right now.”

“You’re so lucky!” she insisted, her eyes sparkling. “He’s the best-looking guy we’ve seen so far this year.”

It was certainly a confidence-boost to be told that a genuine heart-throb found me attractive, but I still wasn’t prepared to break my self-imposed vow of chastity.

He probably isn’t into you anyway, I told myself sternly. You’re just intrigued because he likes reading.

Intrigued, but not attracted; and that was where it would stay…

*

As the semester progressed, I was working hard but still attracting the unwanted attentions of a certain Mister Kershaw. He had developed the habit of coming and sitting next to me in the coffee bar, usually when I was trying to read.

“You’re not still plowing through ‘Tess’, are you?” he asked one Thursday.

“If you must know,” I said through gritted teeth, “I’m writing an extended essay for coursework. Not that it’s anything to do with you.”

“You’re very sexy when you’re angry,” he said infuriatingly.

Was he actually flirting with me? There was an undeniable magnetism about him: one that both repelled and attracted me in equal measure.

I think he felt it too, because his eyes seemed to smoulder every time he looked at me.

Good grief! I thought in horror. I’ve spent too much time reading ‘Tess’! I can’t stop seeing Darren as Alec d’Urberville!

Of course, Rachel thought it was hilarious.

“I told you he liked you,” she said smugly when I complained about the pseudo-stalking in the coffee bar.

“Who does he think he is?” I muttered crossly. “It’s not even as if he’s that good-looking.”

Who was I trying to kid? Not only was Darren impossibly good-looking, but there was a certain element of danger about him that I found inexplicably attractive; and, worse still, I was gradually being worn down by his relentless literary analysis.

*

The next time we spoke, Darren told me he was studying Psychology. “That’s why I find Hardy fascinating,” he said casually. “He’s a mass of neuroses. Take that book you never stop reading…” He gestured at my well-thumbed copy of ‘Tess’. “You can’t deny that Alec’s a cardboard cut-out. There’s no depth to him: it’s all twirling moustaches and dragging Tess off to the woods to rape her.”

“But you can’t say Angel’s any better,” I asserted hotly, getting into the argument I’d been developing in my essay. “I don’t see how he can truly love Tess after what he puts her through: he’s in love with an ideal, not a real woman; and his double-standards are shocking.”

“You should read ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’,” he commented next. “I think you’d appreciate Hardy’s influence on DH Lawrence.” He gave me a slow, seductive look. “I’ve got a copy in my room if you want to come over.”

Of course, I turned down the invitation. I knew that while I quite enjoyed the intellectual flirting, I wasn’t ready for another relationship – not yet anyway.

*

 Determined to put my attraction to Darren behind me, I decided that I needed to start talking to other men. I was well aware that most of Darren’s words seemed laden with hidden meanings; and although a part of me enjoyed flirting in code with thinly veiled book references, it was all making me far too hot and bothered. Deciding to get him out of my system once and for all, I arrived early at the Victorian literature lecture the following Tuesday and made sure I took a seat next to an unsuspecting male.

For a moment, the young man at my side didn’t notice me. I decided to be bold.

“What did you think of last week’s feminist reading of ‘Jane Eyre’?” I asked him.

The eyes he turned on me were intelligent and searching – and an incredible shade of khaki. I found myself thinking of Darren and his deep, brown, come-to-bed eyes that usually rendered me incapable of coherent thought.

“I think it was one way of looking at it,” the stranger said diplomatically. “I did try to get hold of ‘The Mad Woman in the Attic’ afterwards, but all the copies in Short Loan were already checked out.” He smiled shyly and the simple gesture lit up his face. “I’m Alex, by the way.”

Alex, not Alec, I reminded myself. His name wasn’t symbolic: we were just having a chat.

“Sarah,” I responded.

The lecture started then, and we were both busy, scribbling away for a while. Once it was all over, Alex looked at me. “Fancy a coffee?”

Having experienced so much UST in my conversations with Darren, it was incredibly therapeutic to talk to a male without there being a hidden agenda. We walked slowly to the coffee bar, dissecting some of the more interesting parts of the lecture, and a part of me wondered if I should see if he’d read ‘Tess’. There was time for that later, I concluded; for the time being, it felt good just to be talking to an intelligent man.

*

For the rest of the week, I concentrated on essay-writing and Darren-avoidance in equal measure. The former was much easier than the latter. Darren seemed to be lying in wait for me almost every day, and his comments were becoming increasingly more provocative. As one week merged into another, I began visiting the coffee shop at random times, just to avoid being chatted up. At heart, I was still convinced that I needed to date another English student; but Alex, lovely though he was, just didn’t affect me physically the way that Darren did.

“I don’t normally see you round here at this time,” said a voice in my ear one Thursday, making me jump.

Darren was standing beside me, his proximity doing strange things to my insides.

“Are you stalking me?” I said, annoyed.

He had the grace to look guilty.

“If you must know,” I tried not to feel guilty at the lie, “I’m supposed to be meeting my boyfriend, but he’s running a little late.”

Darren was regarding me thoughtfully. “Is that the guy with the curly hair? The one I see you in here with sometimes?” Before I could say anything, he continued cryptically, “I’ve a feeling there may be trouble brewing…”

I followed the direction of his gaze and noticed Alex entering the coffee bar with a pretty blonde girl in an exceptionally short skirt. I was surprised how much it hurt.

“Hey, don’t take it out on me,” Darren admonished, backing away slightly from my thunderous gaze.

He was right, of course: it was Alex I should be angry with, not him. Although… What right did I have to be angry when Alex was just a friend and not a boyfriend? It wasn’t as if he’d cheated on me, after all.

“Why don’t you come back to my place for a coffee?” Darren suggested next. I cynically wondered if he was hoping I’d fall into his arms on the rebound.

“Because I know that ‘coffee’ doesn’t always mean ‘coffee’!” I snapped. “Why can’t you stop flirting with me, Darren? You’re driving me crazy!”

By way of response, he kissed me, right then and there in the coffee bar. I have to admit, it was pretty cool. At the same time, it scared the hell out of me.

“You feel it too, don’t you?”

This time I definitely wasn’t imagining the heat between us. I was surprised that no one had jumped out of their seat to throw a bucket of water over us.

“There’s a lot more to sex than just feeling turned on,” I said honestly.

His smile was seductive. “Why don’t you teach me?”

And I knew then how easy it would be to go back to Darren’s dorm room, to see if I could follow this ridiculous attraction to its logical conclusion. I knew how easy it would be to do something like that, just to make myself feel better about Alex not wanting me as a girlfriend; and I knew, too, that I would never do it, because sheer physical attraction wasn’t enough.

“It wouldn’t mean anything though, would it, if I slept with you?” I asked, knowing already what the answer would be.

His reply was painfully honest: “Maybe not in the long run, no – but it would be pretty special at the time.”

*

I left him there and walked back to my own hall of residence. How ironic that my body could respond so strongly to Darren, a boy I wasn’t sure I even liked, let alone loved, and yet it had never shown the slightest bit of interest in Alex, despite how comfortable we felt in each other’s presence. I wouldn’t let Darren kiss me again – he had taken me by surprise this time, in the coffee bar. No, Darren was dangerous, setting off all sorts of fireworks inside me, opening doors that were better off closed.

My eyes filled with tears as I contemplated the mess my life was in. I knew I was physically attracted to Darren, but I couldn’t trust him: not with my body; not with my heart. If knew that if I let anything happen with him, it would end up being a repeat of my last year in high school and that I’d be hurt all over again. Alex had seemed safe: someone I could talk to, with no strings attached. We had the intellectual connection, the shared interest in books; but that was obviously as far as it went. He’d never seen me as girlfriend material; never would.

But did I really need a man in my life to feel complete? No! I thought with determination. I had learned a lot, studying ‘Tess’ in so much detail. No man would seduce me and cast me aside again, the way Alec had done Tess; and I certainly wouldn’t let any man treat me the way she had let Angel treat her. I was a strong, feisty, independent twenty-first century girl …

So why did I so often feel like a weak-willed Victorian heroine? I asked myself silently. On the one hand, Darren offered me Alec’s danger, both of them epitomizing the eternal bad boy; on the other, Alex was everything Angel should have been: kind, considerate, caring. He had even lent me some of his seminar notes when I had a sore throat and couldn’t make it into campus myself.

In the book, Tess tries to stay true to Angel, even when he abandons her and goes off to Brazil. Alec pursues her relentlessly until she gives in – and that’s only when she genuinely thinks Angel wants nothing more to do with her. It seemed that I had cast Darren and Alex in the roles of her two love rivals; but which competitor did I really want?

*

Despite the fact that I’d decided to avoid Darren from now on, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d kissed me in the coffee bar and what might have happened next. To my disgust, I sat in my English lectures, not taking notes but dreaming about exactly how one thing would lead to another, and where it would lead to another, and how good it might be … And then I found myself thinking about Alex and wondering if his kisses would be different to Darren’s and whether he’d ever sweep me off my feet in the coffee bar…

It was all Hardy’s fault, I thought crossly: he’d conditioned me to start imagining unrequited passion in every area of my life: first with Darren, then Alex.

*

Somehow, I made it through the second semester without succumbing to Darren’s animal magnetism or Alex’s intellectual charms. I still sat with Alex occasionally in lectures, but he seemed cool towards me these days. Our former ease with each other had disappeared, and it seemed that any possibility of romance between us was definitely dead and buried.

It was a relief to hand in my extended essay on ‘Tess’ so that I could start focusing on my next piece of coursework. But even though the essay writing was over, I still found myself obsessed with the girl, convinced that so many aspects of her life mirrored my own.

*

By now we had moved onto D. H. Lawrence. I found myself remembering one of Darren’s comments and turned to Alex after the lecture to ask his opinion. “Do you think Lawrence was influenced by Thomas Hardy?”

Alex regarded me gravely. “I think that’s at least an hour’s conversation. Do you want to discuss it over coffee – unless you’re already doing something with your boyfriend?”

“I haven’t got a boyfriend!” I exclaimed.

Was it my imagination, or was that a spark of hope in his eyes?

While we sat sipping coffee and eating cookies, our conversation appeared to be drifting away from literature and onto ourselves, as Alex asked me what had happened to my boyfriend and I realized that he had seen Darren kiss me and assumed that we were an item.

“I’d spotted the two of you together in here before then,” he confessed as I tried to put the record straight.

I told him how Darren had pursued me.

“It never went anywhere,” I said matter-of-factly. “I can’t talk to him about books the way I can with you, Alex – but when I realized you had a girlfriend, and I knew you’d never be more than a friend, it felt good to have all the flirting with Darren, to feel wanted.”

“Girlfriend?” he echoed, mystified.

“The blonde girl with the short skirt,” I explained.

A smile spread across his face. “She’s my room-mate’s girlfriend, not mine. Anyway,” the smile grew broader, “she hates reading – and I could never go out with anyone who doesn’t like books as much as I do.”

The air around us grew strangely still.

Looking into Alex’s eyes, I recognized all the love and longing I hadn’t realized until then that I was feeling for him.

“I always wanted you…” he said simply. “But I could tell you’d been hurt before, so I decided to take things slowly. And then I thought I’d left it too long when I saw someone else kissing you.”

One of the most tragic lines in ‘Tess’ comes near the end, when Angel finally returns to claim Tess as his wife again and she tells him, “It is too late.”

 “It’s not too late to kiss me now,” I said slowly.

Right in front of a room full of people, Alex leaned over and stroked my face. Placing his hands on either side of my head, he gently kissed me on the mouth. I closed my eyes; the kiss deepened; and then fireworks began very softly to explode.

*

I discovered, pretty quickly, that Darren wasn’t the only man to have a devastating effect on me physically. After the first few weeks of getting to know each other properly, Alex and I discovered that our best conversations about literature normally occurred when we were wrapped around each other, under the bedsheets in his room or mine, and that D. H. Lawrence gave us quite a bit of inspiration in that department.

I’ve stopped seeing myself as Tess, and it’s just as well, because neither Alec nor Angel were right for her, in my opinion. Maybe I’ll find another heroine to identify with at some point – but for now, I’m just enjoying being me.