What was to be done next? Lillian must return to California, or cancel her contract. What must she—what could she—do? Miss Moir tells what happened:
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.