with an aunt in a small country town to accompany her brother and keep
house for him.

To most girls life on an Indian tea-garden would not seem alluring; for
they would find themselves far from social gaieties and the society of
their kind. Existence is lonely and lacking in the comforts, as well as the
luxuries, of civilisation. Dances, theatres, concerts, even shops, are far,
very far away. A woman must have mental resources to enable her to face
contentedly life in a scantily-furnished, comfortless bungalow, dumped down
in a monotonous stretch of unlovely tea-bushes. With little to occupy her
she must rely for days at a time on the sole companionship of her man. To a
young bride very much in love that may seem no hardship. But when the
glamour has vanished she may change her mind.

To Noreen, however, the isolation was infinitely preferable to the
narrow-minded and unfriendly intimacy of society in a country town with
its snobbery and cliques. To be mistress of her own home and to be able
to look after and mother her dearly-loved brother was a pleasant change
from her position as a cipher in the household of a crotchetty,
unsympathetic, maiden aunt. And fortunately for her the charm of the
silent forest around them, the romance of the mysterious jungle with its
dangers and its wonders, appealed strongly to her, and she preferred
them to all the pleasures that London could offer. And yet the delights
of town were not unknown to her. Her father's first cousin, who had
loved him but married a rich man, often invited the girl to stay with
her in her house in Grosvenor Square. These visits gave her an insight
into life in Mayfair with its attendant pleasures of dances in smart
houses, dinners and suppers in expensive restaurants, the Opera and
theatres, and afternoons at Ranelagh and Hurlingham. She enjoyed them
all; she had enough money to dress well; and she was very popular.