Original novel by Thomas Hardy T D’U ESS OF THE RBERVILLES Modernised for the 21st century Edited by Professor John Sutherland Angel wants to make it ‘Facebook Official’ ‘Tis months he’s been courting you, Tess. Why not? I’m not fine enough a lady to be FB Official with him! TESS OF THE D’UBERVILLES Original novel by Thomas Hardy Modernised for the 21st century Edited by Professor John Sutherland For Drama is a channel that is passionate about bringing Britain the best in quality drama. Freeview 20, Sky 158, Virgin 128, BT, TalkTalk 020 and on demand via UKTV uktvplay.uktv.co.uk | @dramachannel Notes from the Editor: The following is an adaptation of the original novel by Thomas Hardy, which tests the theory that digital devices would ruin the ‘art of romance’ in classic love stories. The reworking of the novel, created by a team of writers from the TV channel Drama led by Pro- fessor John Sutherland, illustrates how the characters may have acted had the events taken place in today’s modern age – with the use of smartphones, social media and online communications. For example, if Angel hasn’t ignored his Tinder match with Tess, would the following unhappy chain of events have been averted? Or would the reader question the depth of Angel’s love for Tess when seeing his preoccupation with Instagram and Pinterest? This reimaging depicts the characters finding their way within a world of distraction by digital devices and the internet dating. Read on to see how Thomas Hardy’s classic could be retold in 2018. This adaptation was commissioned to celebrate TV channel Drama’s ‘Romantic Sundays’ season - showing classic love stories such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma and North & South. ‘Romantic Sundays’ season: every Sunday from 11 February, 12pm on Drama. Phase the First: The Maiden, I-XI I On an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line, which was possibly due to the weight of the tablet in his pocket. He occasionally stopped to re- trieve his phone from his other pocket, checking it for notifications, and occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some retweet or Facebook ‘like’, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off. Presently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a gray mare, who, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune. “Good night t’ee,” said the man with the basket. “Good night, Sir John,” said the parson. The pedestrian, after another pace or two, halted, and turned round. “Now, sir, begging your pardon; we met last market-day on this road about this time, and I said ‘Good night,’ and you made reply ‘Good night, Sir John,’ as now.” “I did,” said the parson. “And once before that—near a month ago.” “I may have.” “Then what might your meaning be in calling me ‘Sir John’ these different times, when I be plain Jack Durbeyfield, the haggler?” The parson rode a step or two nearer. “It was only my whim,” he said; and, after a moment’s hesitation: “It was on account of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the new county history on Wikipedia. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane. Don’t you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d’Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d’Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?” “Never heard it before, sir!” “Well it’s true. Look!” He pulled from his own pocket his phone and used his finger to tap the screen. “Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch the profile of your face better. Yes, that’s the d’Urberville nose and chin—a little debased.” He displayed the screen so the haggler could see the gospel truth. “It says here plain as day your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla in Normandy in his conquest of Glamorganshire. Branches of your family held manors over all this part of England; their names appear in Google in the time of King Stephen. In 4 the reign of King John one of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights Hospitallers; and in Edward the Second’s time your forefather Brian was summoned to Westminster to attend the great Council there. You declined a little in Oliver Cromwell’s time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles the Second’s reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty. Aye, there have been generations of Sir Johns among you, and if knighthood were hereditary, Google clearly states that, like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times, when men were knighted from father to son, you would be Sir John now.” “Ye don’t say so!” “The internet does not lie sir!” concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with his switch, “there’s hardly such another family in England.” “Daze my eyes, and isn’t there?” said Durbeyfield. “And here have I been knocking about, year after year, from pillar to post, as if I was no more than the commonest feller in the parish… And how long hev this news about me been knowed, Pa’son Tringham?” The clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, it had quite died out of knowledge, and could hardly be said to be known at all. His own online investigations had begun on a day in the preceding spring when, having been engaged in tracing the vicissitudes of the d’Urberville family, he had ob- served Durbeyfield’s name on his waggon, and had thereupon been led to make inquiries about his father and grandfather till he had no doubt on the subject. “At first I resolved not to disturb you with such a useless piece of information,” said he. “However, our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes. I thought you might perhaps know something of it all the while.” “Well, I have heard once or twice, ‘tis true, that my family had seen better days afore they came to Blackmoor. And once I did try to trace my family tree on www.FindmyAncestrors.com but it came to nothing, and I took no notice o’t, thinking it to mean that we had once kept two horses where we now keep only one. I’ve got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal at home, too; but, Lord, what’s a spoon and seal? … And to think that I and these noble d’Urbervilles were one flesh all the time. ‘Twas said that my gr’t-granfer had secrets, and didn’t care to talk of where he came from… And where do we raise our smoke, now, parson, if I may make so bold; I mean, where do we d’Urbervilles live?” “You don’t live anywhere. You are extinct—as a county family.” “That’s bad.” “Yes—what the mendacious family chronicles call extinct in the male line—that is, gone down—gone under.” “Then where do we lie?” “At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill: rows and rows of you in your vaults, with your effigies under Pur- beck-marble canopies.” “And where be our family mansions and estates?” “You haven’t any.” 5 “Oh? No lands neither?” “None; though you once had ‘em in abundance, as I said, for you family consisted of numerous branches. In this county there was a seat of yours at Kingsbere, and another at Sherton, and another in Millpond, and another at Lullstead, and another at Wellbridge.” “And shall we ever come into our own again?” “Ah—that I can’t tell!” “And what had I better do about it, sir?” asked Durbeyfield, after a pause. “Oh—nothing, nothing; except chasten yourself with the thought of ‘how are the mighty fallen.’ It is a fact of some interest to the local historian and genealogist, and perhaps a few internet trolls, noth- ing more. There are several families among the cottagers of this county of almost equal lustre. Good night.” “But you’ll turn back and have a quart of beer wi’ me on the strength o’t, Pa’son Tringham? There’s a very pretty brew in tap at The Pure Drop—though, to be sure, not so good as at Rolliver’s.” “No, thank you—not this evening, Durbeyfield. You’ve had enough already.” Concluding thus, the parson rode on his way, with doubts as to his discretion in retailing this curious bit of lore. When he was gone, Durbeyfield walked a few steps in a profound reverie, and then sat down upon the grassy bank by the roadside, depositing his basket before him. In a few minutes a youth appeared in the distance, walking in the same direction as that which had been pursued by Durbeyfield. The latter, on seeing him, held up his hand, and the lad quickened his pace and came near. “Boy, take up that basket! I want ‘ee to go on an errand for me.” The lath-like stripling frowned. “Who be you, then, John Durbeyfield, to order me about and call me ‘boy’? You know my name as well as I know yours!” “Do you, do you? That’s the secret—that’s the secret! Now obey my orders, and take the message I’m going to charge ‘ee wi’… Well, Fred, I don’t mind telling you that the secret is that I’m one of a noble race—it has been just found out by me this present afternoon, p.m.” And as he made the announce- ment, Durbeyfield, declining from his sitting position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon the bank among the daisies. The lad stood before Durbeyfield, and contemplated his length from crown to toe. “Sir John d’Urberville—that’s who I am,” continued the prostrate man. “That is if knights were baronets—which they be. ‘Tis recorded on Google all about me. Dost know of such a place, lad, as Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill?” “Ees. I’ve been there to Greenhill Fair.” “Well, under the church of that city there lie—” “’Tisn’t a city, the place I mean; leastwise ‘twaddn’ when I was there—’twas a little one-eyed, blinking sort o’ place.” 6 “Never you mind the place, boy, that’s not the question before us. Under the church of that there par- ish lie my ancestors—hundreds of ‘em—in coats of mail and jewels, in gr’t lead coffins weighing tons and tons. There’s not a man in the county o’ South-Wessex that’s got grander and nobler skillentons in his family than I.” “Oh?” “Now take up that basket, and goo on to Marlott, and when you’ve come to The Pure Drop Inn, tell ‘em to send a horse and carriage to me immed’ately, to carry me hwome. And in the bottom o’ the carriage they be to put a noggin o’ rum in a small bottle, and chalk it up to my account. And when you’ve done that goo on to my house with the basket, and tell my wife to put away that washing, be- cause she needn’t finish it, and wait till I come hwome, as I’ve news to tell her.” As the lad stood in a dubious attitude, Durbeyfield put his hand in his pocket, and produced a shilling, one of the chronically few that he possessed. “Here’s for your labour, lad.” This made a difference in the young man’s estimate of the position. “Yes, Sir John. Thank ‘ee. Anything else I can do for ‘ee, Sir John?” “Tell ‘em at hwome that I should like for supper,—well, lamb’s fry if they can get it; and if they can’t, black-pot; and if they can’t get that, well chitterlings will do.” “Yes, Sir John.” The boy took up the basket, and as he set out the notes of a brass band were heard from the direction of the village. “What’s that?” said Durbeyfield. “Not on account o’ I?” “’Tis the women’s club-walking, Sir John. Why, your da’ter is one o’ the members.” “To be sure—I’d quite forgot it in my thoughts of greater things! Well, vamp on to Marlott, will ye, and order that carriage, and maybe I’ll drive round and inspect the club.” The lad departed, and Durbeyfield lay waiting on the grass and daisies in the evening sun. Not a soul passed that way for a long while, and the faint notes of the band were the only human sounds audible within the rim of blue hills. II The village of Marlott lay amid the north-eastern undulations of the beautiful Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor, aforesaid, an engirdled and secluded region, for the most part untrodden as yet by tourist or landscape-painter, though within a four hours’ journey from London. It is a vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the summits of the hills that surround it—except perhaps during the droughts of summer. An unguided ramble into its recesses in bad weather is apt to engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, tortuous, and miry ways. 7 This fertile and sheltered tract of country, in which the fields are never brown and the springs never dry, is bounded on the south by the bold chalk ridge that embraces the prominences of Hambledon Hill, Bulbarrow, Nettlecombe-Tout, Dogbury, High Stoy, and Bubb Down. The traveller from the coast, who, after plodding northward for a score of miles over calcareous downs and corn-lands, sud- denly reaches the verge of one of these escarpments, is surprised and delighted to behold, extended like a map beneath him, a country differing absolutely from that which he has passed through. Behind him the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give an unenclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges low and plashed, the atmosphere colourless. Here, in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine. Arable lands are few and limited; with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmoor. The district is of historic, no less than of topographical interest. The Vale was known in former times as the Forest of White Hart, from a curious legend of King Henry III’s reign, in which the killing by a certain Thomas de la Lynd of a beautiful white hart which the king had run down and spared, was made the occasion of a heavy fine and viral Twitter storm preceded by #delaLyndTheMurderer with his picture used to create various murderous memes and GIFs. In those days, and till compara- tively recent times, the country was densely wooded. Even now, traces of its earlier condition are to be found in the old oak copses and irregular belts of timber that yet survive upon its slopes, and the hollow-trunked trees that shade so many of its pastures. The forests have departed, but some old customs of their shades remain. Many, however, linger only in a metamorphosed or disguised form. The May-Day dance, for instance, was to be discerned on the afternoon under notice, in the guise of the club revel, or “club-walking,” as it was there called. It was an interesting event to the younger inhabitants of Marlott, though its real interest was not observed by the participators in the ceremony. Its singularity lay less in the retention of a custom of walking in procession and dancing on each anniversary than in the members being solely women. In men’s clubs such celebrations were, though expiring, less uncommon; but either the natural shyness of the softer sex, or a sarcastic attitude on the part of male relatives, had denuded such women’s clubs as remained (if any other did) or this their glory and consummation. The club of Marlott alone lived to uphold the local Cerealia. It had walked for hundreds of years, if not as benefit-club, as votive sister- hood of some sort; and it walked still, often acquiring an online following of people taking salacious pictures of what each were wearing to decide who looked at their most ‘sartorial’. The banded ones were all dressed in white gowns—a gay survival from Old Style days, when cheer- fulness and May-time were synonyms—days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emo- tions to a monotonous average. Their first exhibition of themselves was in a processional march of two and two round the parish. Ideal and real clashed slightly as the sun lit up their figures against the green hedges and creeper-laced house-fronts; for, though the whole troop wore white garments, no two whites were alike among them. Some approached pure blanching; some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the older characters (which had possibly lain by folded for many a year) inclined to a cadaverous tint, and to a Georgian style. In addition to the distinction of a white frock, every woman and girl carried in her right hand a peeled willow wand, and in her left a bunch of white flowers. The peeling of the former, and the selection of 8 the latter, had been an operation of personal care – although if one was to look hard enough, ‘how to’ instructions could be found online. There were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in the train, their silver-wiry hair and wrin- kled faces, scourged by time and trouble, having almost a grotesque, certainly a pathetic, appearance in such a jaunty situation. In a true view, perhaps, there was more to be gathered and told of each anxious and experienced one, to whom the years were drawing nigh when she should say, “I have no pleasure in them,” than of her juvenile comrades. But let the elder be passed over here for those under whose bodices the life throbbed quick and warm. The young girls formed, indeed, the majority of the band, and their heads of luxuriant hair reflected in the sunshine every tone of gold, and black, and brown. Some had beautiful eyes, others a beautiful nose, others a beautiful mouth and figure: few, if any, had all. A difficulty of arranging their lips in this crude exposure to public scrutiny, an inability to balance their heads, and to dissociate self-con- sciousness from their features, was apparent in them, and showed that they were genuine country girls, unaccustomed to many eyes. And as each and all of them were warmed without by the sun, so each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, at least some remote and distant hope to appear on the latest reality TV show which, though perhaps starving to nothing, still lived on, as hopes will. They were all cheerful, and many of them merry. They came round by The Pure Drop Inn, and were turning out of the high road to pass through a wicket-gate into the meadows, when one of the women said— “The Load-a-Lord! Why, Tess Durbeyfield, if there isn’t thy father riding hwome in a carriage!” A young member of the band turned her head at the exclamation. She was a fine and handsome girl—not handsomer than some others, possibly—but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape and had often been captured on the mobile phones of the younger male locals to be shared on their WhatsApp group. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment. As she looked round Durbeyfield was seen moving along the road in a chaise belonging to The Pure Drop, driven by a frizzle-headed brawny damsel with her gown-sleeves rolled above her elbows. This was the cheerful servant of that establishment, who, in her part of factotum, turned groom and ostler at times. Durbeyfield, leaning back, and with his eyes closed luxuriously, was waving his hand above his head, and singing in a slow recitative— “I’ve-got-a-gr’t-family-vault-at-Kingsbere—and knighted-forefathers-in-lead-coffins-there!” The clubbists tittered, except the girl called Tess—in whom a slow heat seemed to rise at the sense that her father was making himself foolish in their eyes. “He’s tired, that’s all,” she said hastily, “and he has got a lift home, because our own horse has to rest to-day.” “Bless thy simplicity, Tess,” said her companions. “He’s got his market-nitch. Haw-haw! I can’t wait to get this on Twitter.” “Look here; I won’t walk another inch with you, if you put up even one tweet or make one meme about him!” Tess cried, and the colour upon her cheeks spread over her face and neck. In a moment 9 her eyes grew moist, and her glance drooped to the ground. Perceiving that they had really pained her they said no more, and order again prevailed. Tess’s pride would not allow her to turn her head again, to learn what her father’s meaning was, if he had any; and thus she moved on with the whole body to the enclosure where there was to be dancing on the green. By the time the spot was reached she has recovered her equanimity, and tapped her neighbour with her wand and talked as usual. Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience and free from the clutches of a Tinder match. The dialect was on her tongue to some extent, despite the village school: the characteristic intonation of that dialect for this district being the voicing approx- imately rendered by the syllable UR, probably as rich an utterance as any to be found in human speech. The pouted-up deep red mouth to which this syllable was native had hardly as yet settled into its definite shape, and her lower lip had a way of thrusting the middle of her top one upward, when they closed together after a word. Phases of her childhood lurked in her aspect still. As she walked along to-day, for all her bouncing handsome womanliness, you could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth spar- kling from her eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now and then. Yet few knew, and still fewer considered this. A small minority, mainly strangers, would look out for her Tinder profile once they had seen her casually passing by, and grow momentarily fascinated by her freshness, and wonder if they would ever see her again: but to almost everybody she was a fine and picturesque country girl, and no more, for she had yet to swipe right thus far. One or two of her friends had tried internet dating to varied success, one happily engaged, and the other sworn off men altogether after meeting one gentleman who snuck out through the bathroom window without paying for their dinner. Nothing was seen or heard further of Durbeyfield in his triumphal chariot under the conduct of the ostleress, and the club having entered the allotted space, dancing began. As there were no men in the company, the girls danced at first with each other, but when the hour for the close of labour drew on, the masculine inhabitants of the village, together with other idlers and pedestrians, gathered round the spot – phones raised to capture this year’s scene for posterity’s sake – and appeared inclined to negotiate for a partner. Among these on-lookers were three young men of a superior class, carrying small knapsacks strapped to their shoulders, and stout sticks in their hands. Their general likeness to each other, and their con- secutive ages, would almost have suggested that they might be, what in fact they were, brothers. The eldest wore the white tie, high waistcoat, and thin-brimmed hat of the regulation curate; the second was the normal undergraduate; the appearance of the third and youngest would hardly have been sufficient to characterize him; there was an uncribbed, uncabined aspect in his eyes and attire, imply- ing that he had hardly as yet found the entrance to his professional groove. That he was a desultory tentative student of something and everything might only have been predicted of him. These three brethren told casual acquaintance that they were spending part of their gap year in a walking tour through the Vale of Blackmoor, their course being south-westerly from the town of Shaston on the north-east. They leant over the gate by the highway, and inquired as to the meaning of the dance and the white- frocked maids. The two elder of the brothers were plainly not intending to linger more than a mo- ment, but the spectacle of a bevy of girls dancing without male partners seemed to amuse the third, and make him in no hurry to move on. He unstrapped his knapsack, put it, with his stick, on the hedge-bank, and opened the gate. 10