I had a separate voice for Rosina, higher and fiercer than mine, and sometimes our exchanges would become quite heated, if she was taunting me for refusing to do something forbidden, such as creeping downstairs before dawn to play in the moonlight. As I grew more adventurous, it was always fear of Rosina’s scorn, which I could summon as vividly as any feeling of my own, that kept me from turning back. When my mother was resting, I liked to play by myself in the garden, which was enclosed by a rough stone wall—I suppose it was no more than six feet high, but to me it seemed immense—partly hidden from the house by a coppice of ancient fruit trees. I was forbidden to climb it, but at Rosina’s urging I went a little higher each time, until I was perched on the very top. Looking along the coast, I could see the edge of the cliff, cut as cleanly as a pat of butter, and hear the wash of the sea far below.
That was as far as I dared go for a week or more, and it was even longer before I made my first tentative descent to the rough, tussocky grass outside. The hillside around was overgrown with gorse, which made it easy to keep out of sight of the house, though I learnt to be very careful of the thorns. Despite my apprehension, I knew at once what the next dare would be: to go right down to the edge of the cliff and look over.
I do not know how far I believed in Rosina as a separate being. Part of me, at least, was aware that I was playing a game with myself; yet the Rosina-voice also seemed to come from outside. I did not want to be bad, or cause my mother distress, but Rosina simply did not care; I was afraid of the cliff and had promised never to go near it; but Rosina was not afraid of anything. And so, day by day, I ventured closer to the edge.
Though the slope down to the cliff was quite steep, there was a place where the ground curled up like a lip: a small patch of grass, growing right to the edge, flanked by two gorse bushes. The afternoon I chose for my attempt was mild and still, but I was scarcely conscious of the sun’s warmth on my back, or the droning of the bees amongst the gorse, as I crawled up the lip on my hands and knees, too intent even to notice the stains accumulating on my pinafore. But the grass was higher than it had seemed from above, and I could no longer tell where the edge was; the gorse bushes on either side obscured everything beyond the small circle of crushed grass. All I could see before me was a tangle of green and brown stalks against the shimmering blue of the sky.
It did not occur to me that I could turn back. With my heart thudding violently, I lay flat on my stomach, stretched my hands as far ahead of me as I could reach, and inched forward, expecting every moment to feel empty space beneath my fingers. The coarse, springy grass confused me. Was the ground sloping up, or down? Was I pushing myself along, or beginning to slide toward the brink? Panic seized me. I dug in my toes into the earth, and pressed myself even flatter. I felt my fingers slipping through the grass, until they encountered a large stone, at which I clutched frantically, pushing myself back with all my strength.
The stone stirred like a live thing. It seemed to lift itself slightly, and shiver, before the grass beneath me vanished in a great slithering rush. Something caught me across the chest, and I was left suspended in midair while a mass of earth and rock hurtled down the cliff-face. It struck the undercliff in a silent explosion of debris, followed by a sound like a muffled peal of thunder. A plume of reddish-brown dust hung in its wake.
I found that my hands were gripping a gnarled tangle of roots, projecting from what was now the cliff-face. Small rivulets of dirt were spilling around me. I was lying side-on to the precipice, too terrified to move or breathe. Far below, jagged spurs of rock protruded from a mound of rubble, like teeth waiting to devour me. My perch was trembling in my grasp.
Whimpering with fear, I turned my head very slowly away from the abyss. The gorse bush whose roots had saved me, was now poised on the very edge of the cliff, the base of its trunk half-exposed. With every slight movement I made, more dirt trickled from around the roots.
I was perhaps two feet below the brink. To survive, I would have to pull myself closer to the trunk, wedge my feet amongst the roots, and actually stand up, balanced against the crumbling bank, before I could scrabble over. It was impossible: my feet and hands would not move. I tried to scream for help, but no sound came out.
Climb, you fool! Rosina’s voice seemed to explode inside my head, scornful, imperious. The roots shook; a rush of earth and pebbles spurted from the bank. I remember one glimpse, as if looking down from above, of myself pressed against the cliff with my fingers clawed over the brink. The next instant, as it seemed, I was sprawled on the ground, scraped and bloodied and weeping with shock and relief.
I do not know how long I lay there before realisation struck me. I had broken my solemn promise never, ever, to go anywhere near the edge; I had set off a landslip; and what if more of the cliff should fall? I was covered in dirt from head to foot, and my pinafore was torn and filthy. I sprang to my feet, raced up the hillside, heedless of the need to keep out of sight of the house, and scrambled back over the wall with a horrid rending of cloth. I dared not tell the truth; I would have to say that I had fallen in the garden; or perhaps I should say that I had tried to climb the wall to look over and had fallen off. Then at least I should be confessing to a small part of my sin. Yes; I could say that I had heard a strange noise from the cliff, climbed up to see what it was, and slipped. And I knew that I must go indoors straightaway, and not wait to be called and have to explain why I had stayed in the garden in such a dreadful state.
As it happened, my mother was still asleep, and the first person I met was Amy, who scolded me roundly, scrubbed me down, and gave me a clean pinafore. Mama was alarmed rather than angry when she saw my scrapes and bruises, said she hoped I had learnt my lesson, and made me promise, which I did with heartfelt sincerity, never to climb the wall again. I was still afraid that more of the cliff might collapse—what if our house was swallowed up in the night?—but as no one had heard the noise, they assumed I had imagined it.
I tried not to show how shaken I was, but every time I closed my eyes I would find myself back on the cliff-face, and I was so pale the next morning that Mama thought I might be sickening for something. Though I would much have preferred to do my lessons with her, I was made to rest in bed, with nothing to do but brood upon what I had done. If Rosina had not shouted at me—as it had truly seemed—I should certainly have died; but then if she had not taunted me with my fear of the cliff, I should never have gone near it. After a while I slipped out of bed, confronted my reflection in the mirror, and berated her for putting me in such danger. “I might have died!,” I was shouting, when my mother appeared behind Rosina—as it momentarily seemed—in the glass, staring down at me with a look of consternation.
“Georgina! What are you doing?”
“I was only playing at charades, Mama,” I said lamely. I was not sure what charades were, but I knew that they involved pretending to be other people.
“But you were shouting at your own reflection, and calling it Rosina; you said you might have died.”