The bigotries of Ma Gall, and the palaverings of Beamis were not the whole of Monica’s religious experience, however. Christian myth and Christian morality were part of the fabric of her life, dimly apprehended and taken for granted behind the externals of belief. And it is what is taken for granted in our homes, rather than what we are painstakingly taught, which supplies the bones of our faith. Monica believed, as literal truth, that her Lord had died on the cross to redeem her, Monica Gall, from the Primal Sin of Adam; a life of devotion of His will was her duty and her glory; strict adherence to the Ten Commandments was the whole moral law; her sins were fresh wounds in the body of her wounded Lord. Because of the special nature of the Thirteener faith—the notion that historic time was an illusion, and that it was possible to “make contact” with Christ by living a godly life—Christ seemed at times to be awesomely and reproachfully present and palpable, grieved because she could not break through the prison of her own imperfection and exist fully with Him. She had not been much troubled by this sense of His imminence since she was sixteen, when she had been somewhat worried by sexual fantasy, but it returned to her now, with new strength, as she worked over the pages of the Passion.

The noble utterance of Bach wakened in her a degree of religious sensibility of which she had never previously been conscious. She had outgrown the Thirteeners and in one or two daring moments had thought of herself as finished with religion; but in the presence of this majestic faith she was an unworthy pygmy. She was overwhelmed, frightened and repentant. It seemed to her that there was something ominous and accusatory in the fact that Domdaniel had chosen her to appear as a False Witness.

“But why?” she asked Molloy. “It says in the score that the part is to be sung by an Alto, and it’s plain enough that I’m no alto. Has there been a mistake? Should we tell him?”

“No mistake at all,” Molloy replied. “You can sing the notes all right, and the other Witness is a very light tenor, so the balance will be better than if he was paired with some girl with a big, bosomy note. Ben knows what he’s doing; it’s that covered, chalumeau effect of your lower register that he wants—hints at something a bit spooky.”

Revelstoke was quick to see the change in her, and it was characteristic of him that as Monica’s reluctance to yield increased, so did his demands as a lover.

“I like you much better in this Lenten mood,” he said one afternoon, as she lay beside him, very near to tears. “For a while I had begun to doubt if you could make love in anything but the key of C Major, but this is a far, far better thing. Mr Revelstoke is pleased to report to the Bridgetower Trust that the pupil is making steady progress.”

Wretched and guilty as Monica had felt, these words filled her with a piercing delight. If this were sin, how sweet it was!

In the front row of the Oxford Bach Choir sat Monica, soberly dressed and self-possessed, a professional in the midst of amateurs. Behind her rose the ranks of undergraduates, dons male and female, dons’ wives and daughters, which comprised the Choir; before her was the orchestra, part local and part brought down from London, and ranging in demeanour from the splendid calm of the concert-master and the aloof grandeur of the harpsichordist to the fussy eccentricity of the player of the viol da gamba. High above them, and inconveniently placed for the conductor, was the organ-loft, into which the ripieno choir of boys had been packed. The Sheldonian Theatre was crowded with a university audience, so much odder and frowsier than a London audience, so young in the main, so long of hair, so fortified with scores of the Passion. Monica was conscious that many eyes had found her, and that she was looking very well. And why not? Had she not been made free of the room in the Divinity School where the London artists made ready for the performance? Had not Miss Evelyn Burnaby, the great soprano, spoken to her in the pleasantest terms, when Domdaniel had introduced them, and asked for help with a difficult zipper on the back of her gown? Monica felt every inch a professional, and concealed her surprise that the Sheldonian Theatre was not a theatre at all, as she understood the word, but a kind of arena which looked as though it might be used for some sort of solemn, academic circus. The ceiling was beautifully painted, and she had to check herself from gaping upward at it; everywhere in the building there were odd little balconies, pulpits and thrones; part of the audience was very high up, almost under the roof. Altogether a wonderful place in which to make one’s first, real professional appearance as a singer. Nothing at all to do with the Heart and Hope Quartet.

It was five minutes past eleven, and by that curious instinct which audiences have, silence fell suddenly and Sir Benedict Domdaniel, elegant in morning dress, walked to his place, raised his baton, and the introduction to the Passion, rising majestically from its first deep pedal-point, began. Monica’s knowledge of this music was intimate but remote, for she had heard it only as it sounded on Molloy’s piano and her own. She had rehearsed once with Domdaniel in London, again with a piano, but she had no conception of how it would sound with the heavy forces of organ, double orchestra and continue, and the double choir. The mighty, ordered grandeur came from everywhere about her, and she seemed to shake and vibrate with it. It was a glorious and alarming experience. In her capacity as a very minor soloist she rose and sat with the choir, and sang with the sopranos, keeping her voice well down, both that she might not make mistakes through lack of rehearsal, and that its superior quality should not singularize it among the amateur choristers. Standing in the midst of these voices and instruments, she was conscious as never before of the power of music to impose order and form upon the vastest and most intractable elements in human experience.

She was conscious also, and for the first time, of why Domdaniel was regarded as a great man in the world of music. He conducted admirably, of course, marshalling the singers and players, succouring the weak and subduing the too-strong, but all that was to be expected. It was in his capacity to demand more of his musicians than might have been thought prudent, or even possible—to insist that people eased themselves, and to help them to do it—that his greatness appeared. With a certainty that was itself modest (for there was nothing of “spurring on the ranks” about it) he took upon himself the task of making this undistinguished choir give a performance of the Passion which was worthy of a great university. It was not technically of the first order, but the spirit was right. He had been a great man to Monica, for he could open new windows for her, letting splendid light into her life: but now she saw that he could do so for all these clever people, who thought themselves lucky to be allowed to hang on the end of his stick. Without being in the least a showy or self-absorbed conductor he was an imperious, irresistible and masterful one.

At one o’clock the performance halted, to be resumed again at half-past two. As soon as she left her place in the choir Monica was claimed by John Scott Ripon who bore her off to the George restaurant for lunch.

“Poached salmon and hock,” said he. “Fish is the only possible thing during the Passion, don’t you agree? And hock, to keep your pipes clear for your solo bit—just a single glass, because we don’t want you to be not only false but drunk. Now tell me all your news. How’s the ineffable Giles? Still the same old Satanic genius?”

“He’s well. Why do you inquire about him in that sneering way?”