Deeply furrowed brow

You'll know by now that I'm a keen reader. So when I spotted 'Deep Furrows', a Mills and Boon book written in 1975, on the campsite bookshelf, you'll understand I jumped at it.

Lorne Fraser is given carte-blanche to redesign the interior of Gleanings, a beautiful old house in the North of England. 'It had come at just the right moment, because she wanted something to take her mind off the heartbreak of a shattered romance' with Nick, who lives for the moment...in New Zealand. 'Nick Calder...how could she forget him?...the handsome racing driver who accepted his trophies of victory with the same easy nonchalance as he had accepted Lorne's heart...'

Undaunted by the distance, she takes her 6-year-old nephew on the long trip to England. 'Soon, she came to love the place as well as the work; in the quiet countryside and the never-ending peaceful bustle of farm life she felt she had come home. Did her feelings have anything to do with the owner, Guy Noble?' For when she arrives at the house, she meets 'long, slender' Guy, with his grey eyes and his 'quick, impatient' movements - and he breaks the news to her that her friend and client, his grandmother, has died while she has been travelling. Luckily, Lorne reflects, her client has left the house to someone who would take care of it: 'Guy's hands would care, she felt instinctively, and wondered for a moment at the satisfaction that gave her.' She is probably susceptible to this kind of thing because both her parents were, unsurprisingly for the genre, killed in a car crash.

When she arrives, she is introduced to Carol, apparently Guy's girlfriend, whose 'pouting, doll-like prettiness' is matched only by her rudeness and dislike for anything to do with farming. Not only that, she can't dress: 'the too-bright hue of the other girl's outfit' confirms 'her garish taste..she arrived downstairs in a dress of a particularly harsh violet...Lorne found herself wincing, as much at the shoddy material which was responsible for cheapening the colour as at the neckline, which offended her sense of fitness, being more suitable to a city night club than a country dinner at home.' 'The other girl', as she is frequently called, smokes (boo!) and paints her nails (we are told in the introductory paragraph that Lorne's own are 'short, and innocent of artificial colouring'), and wears platform shoes for a trip to the stableyard. Of course, she then falls off them in the mud, fluttering her unsuitable white cape in the air as she does so, thereby causing a nearby carthorse to rear and nearly strike Lorne's head with its descending hooves.

This is the first inkling we get that Guy has feelings for Lorne, although he expresses them indirectly (like Mr Rochester) by shouting at the horse. This horse, veteran of many a ploughing competition, is by the way the one responsible for the 'Deep Furrows' of the title, and is offended, but not as offended as the stableman, who then recruits Lorne in a campaign of making Guy think Beauty is the best horse ever.

Days turn into weeks as she works on complete designs and costings for the enormous, rambling house, attends long meals at which Carol picks at her food (Lorne, of course, has a normal, healthy appetite), goes for long walks (Carol stays in the house smoking), and takes her nephew on trips. In fact, one is hard put to know when she does actually work, although Guy is, of course, delighted with what she comes up with.

One day, she goes for a walk with Guy, and is pleased with her own 'flat suede slipons' as suitable footwear. In fact, she's always dressed in 'crisply smart' blouses and sensible shoes. But she realises, as Guy pins some celandines to her dress, that this man 'has an uncomfortable power to disconcert her'. It is around this point that she realises she has got over Nick.

We are almost at the end of the book, while they are watching the aforementioned horse ploughing a field, and Lorne still thinks 'It was a harvest that she would not be at Gleanings to see.' It is obviously not just her nails that are innocent. Has not Guy approved of her ability to wake up in the night on hearing dogs worrying the sheep? Has he not let her drive his Landrover? Has he not produced a 'deep wickerwork erection' to help her catch a wayward group of ducklings? And, finally, has he not been deeply impressed with not only her, but Beauty the horse, in their joint bid to get some drums of diesel across the raging torrent of the farm's ford to keep the generator going that will make sure 200 baby chicks don't die of cold?

Eventually, even Lorne realises he is interested in her. This is because he proposes marriage. 'His grey eyes darkly shadowed under the force of emotion.' Naturally, she is 'unable to force the words through the lump that constricted her throat'. Physically afflicted as they are, they both manage to turn and face Lorne's twin brother and his wife, returned at the same moment to claim their son after their unspecified - and deeply secret - 'government trip' abroad. 'Your sister's agreed to marry me', Guy enlarged.'

Guy's enlargement obviously goes down well with everyone. Carol has conveniently gone off by this point, having secured what she wanted from grandmother's will. The way is clear for future happiness (and a large house, and an offer to adopt the nephew if anything happens to his deeply secret government parents, and Beauty the horse, and Jet the collie, and the brood of robins in the postbox at the end of the drive, and Luke the horseman and Hannah the housekeeper, and Bundle the tame sheep, and a nameless lamb from central casting who head-butted Luke in the back of the knees and caused him to spill the diesel oil that was going into the generator to power the unit that kept the 200 chicks from dying of cold and thereby caused the whole diesel-fuel-ford-horse-landrover-bid-crisis in the first place).

It was a riveting read. I have learned 15 things.

(1) Do not have ordinary-coloured eyes. Have grey, or hazel.
(2) Do not wear nail-varnish. You will never get a husband.
(3) Do not smoke. You will never get a husband.
(4) Be cheerful and practical at all times.
(5) Wear flat shoes. Or you will never get a husband.
(6) Wear plain, well-cut, good-quality clothes. Or (etc.)
(7) Do not do anything with your hair except wash and brush it.
(8) Do not come down to formal breakfast in a cheap negligee. Wear plain, well-cut (etc.)
(9)) Make friends with the servants.
(10) And the horses.
(11) And the sheep.
(12) And the dog.
(13) And the robins in the postbox at the end of the drive.
(14) At times of crisis, be able to rescue things. Or hold things and not drop them.
(15) Want to get married in the first place.