Side by side with Dr Bairstow, hearing her own heart thudding and the ringing rush of blood behind her ears, she stepped out into the vast space. Applause surged towards them. She glanced around the pews; to one side, some well-heeled listeners: a silk scarf, a glimmer of jewellery. These people would contribute to the collection. At the back, those who would benefit: people who could pay nothing, yet would enjoy the performance in just the same way, possibly more. Music has no respect for bank accounts. Jelly thought of the children she’d met the day before, and prayed that they, too, might be there, somewhere at the back, though she’d prefer them to sit at the front. The crowd was so large that she could scarcely take in the faces; families huddled in the distant pews, elderly couples came in with walking sticks, and at the end of one row she spotted a tall man, one of whose legs was missing below the knee – an ex-serviceman, she was sure. A makeshift wooden crutch was propped beside him.

Once silence fell, Dr Bairstow started the Mozart Andante cantabile from the D major Concerto; Jelly was staring down at the stone under her feet, trying to absorb herself in the music’s tranquil atmosphere. Drawing out her first phrases, reaching up to a high note that seemed to last for ever, suspended in ecstasy above the shifting harmonies, a welcome sense of security took her, the knowledge that nothing could go wrong tonight after all. The acoustic nourished her sound, letting it sail out to the rapt audience; and between the pieces the clapping pounded and pleaded: more, more, give us more… Lowering her violin after the Mendelssohn Concerto slow movement, she spotted the one-legged veteran wiping his eyes with his sleeve.

At the end she greeted well-wishers in a daze of hope and a certainty that what she had decided to do was, after all, necessary beyond doubt, even if it might provide only a drop of comfort compared to the amount needed. But there, in the throng making for the door past the collectors, wasn’t that the little girl who was Adrienne’s age? Jelly tried to catch her eye and wave. The child gave her a lopsided grin, then took a coin out of her threadbare pocket – it must have been from the money Jelly gave them yesterday – and to Jelly’s astonishment, deposited it with a flourish in the collection bucket.

*

Time to move on; the next day it was Hexham, and after that, Durham, which to Jelly was the most beautiful of all, yet which brought even more pain than York. You can perform the Bach Chaconne at sunset by the altar of a holy site more than ten centuries old, while a thousand people drink music through golden dusky light; but when they come to you afterwards and tell you their stories, the reality begins to hit home.