The climate of the Terai, unpleasantly but not unbearably hot in the summer
months, is pestilential and deadly during the rains, when malaria and the
more dreaded black-water fever take toll of the strongest. Noreen had
suffered in health in the hot weather, and her brother was seriously
concerned at the thought of her being obliged to remain in Malpura
throughout the Monsoon. He could not take her to the Hills; it was
impossible for him to absent himself even for a few days from the garden,
for the care and management of it was devolving more and more every day on
him, owing to the intemperate habits of Parry.
Fred Daleham's relief was great when his sister unexpectedly received a
letter from a former school-friend who two years before had married a man
in the Indian Civil Service. Noreen, who was a good deal her junior, had
corresponded regularly with her, and she now wrote to say that she was
going to Darjeeling for the Season and suggested that Noreen should join
her there. Much as the prospect of seeing a friend whom she had idolised,
appealed to the girl (to say nothing of the gaieties of a hill-station and
the pleasure of seeing shops, real shops, again), she was nevertheless
unwilling to leave her brother. But Fred insisted on her going.
From Darjeeling she told Dermot in a long and chatty epistle all her
sensations and experiences in this new world.
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