One night somebody suggested going to a famous little restaurant
in the Tottenham Court Rd. district for dinner. So Dorothy,
Lillian and I got into a taxi and drove to it, three very forlorn
females.... It was over that dinner that Lillian came to what
seemed at first her preposterous decision to take her mother back
with her to California, but as usual, she carried her point, and
within a week Mrs. Gish, with a good English doctor and nurse in
attendance, Lillian and I, were all aboard the _Mauretania_ en
route for New York.
Mrs. Gish bore the journey much better than we had expected and
the days passed quickly. The morning we arrived at Quarantine
Lillian and I were sitting up in bed eating breakfast when our
stewardess rushed in looking quite alarmed, to warn us to bolt all
the doors as our stateroom was shortly to be stormed by a mob of
reporters.
Lillian herself told of the hectic overland journey:
“In New York I chartered a private car and took Mother to Hollywood. I
was no longer so poor, and if ever there was a time when I was thankful
for money it was then. Across the blazing southern desert we had tubs of
ice, with fans going over them, night and day. The car was cool, and the
change, or the thought that she was going back to California, which she
always loved, was good for Mother. When we reached California, instead
of being on her back, she was sitting up. But she could not speak—she
knew all that we said to her, but she could not answer, and she could no
longer read. We were told that this condition might last three to six
months. That was five years ago. She has improved a great deal; she can
walk a little, but most of her right side is helpless, and her words are
very limited.
“At Santa Monica we lived in Mrs. Pickford’s house until September, then
moved up to the beautiful Millbank place on the cliff, with a lovely
garden, and all, away from the dampness and the sound of the waves,
which made Mother nervous. On her birthday, September 16, she seemed
suddenly to pick up, and we felt there was a chance for her to get well.
“She does not suffer, but must get very tired of always being obliged to
sit, or lie down. But she is sweet and patient. The nurse and I read to
her, and she enjoys working the picture puzzles, of which she has always
a supply. She likes motion picture magazines. She cannot read them, but
she loves the illustrations—many of them of people she knows. And
always, if the name ‘Gish’ is on any printed page, she can find it.”
* * * * *
“The Scarlet Letter” had its première in August, 1926, at the Central
Theatre, New York City. The evening _Sun_ next day, among other things,
said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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