Betina Krahn (3 page)

Diamond sat back in her chair at the head of the board table, staring at the balance sheet and considering the report. It wasn’t exactly unexpected news. She always made money. Not on every investment or venture, true; but she made a large-enough profit on enough of her investments that her fortune had grown from sizable to nothing short of extraordinary in the last eight years.

A smothering feeling settled over her chest at the sight of those long, complex figures on the balance sheet. More … there was always so much more … She took a deep, determined breath and dispelled that feeling.

“Excellent,” she said, with conviction. “Just excellent.”

Smiles of relief, arm-clasps, and handshakes were exchanged all around the table … only to stop dead when she continued.

“Now, let’s get down to business.”

The secretary frowned. “But we have been down to business.”

“
Old
business,” she said, closing the heavy book on the table before her. “I can take the general books with me and look them over this evening. I think it’s time for some
new
business.”

Every man in the room tensed at those words and glanced at the door, recalling the collection of people they had waded through as they arrived for the meeting. She was going to give away money. Again.

This had happened after each of the last several meetings of the Wingate Company Board of Directors. Perhaps it was a reaction to the numbing recitation of accounts, or a realization of the staggering sums that her wealth involved, or simply the excessively charitable taint of her upbringing … whatever it was,
something
caused Diamond Wingate at the end of each glowing financial report to suffer a raging bout of philanthropy. She insisted on throwing open both the doors and the treasury of the Wingate Company and inviting the enterprising elements of Baltimore to make her a proposition.

And the enterprising elements of Baltimore responded. Aspiring financiers, market speculators, would-be investors, social reformers, commodity brokers, charity mavens, down-on-their-luck businessmen, itinerant preachers, and get-rich-quick schemers … everyone, it seemed, had a proposition of some sort for Baltimore’s “Patroness of Progress.” Since daybreak that morning, a crowd of citizens in the grip of a determined entrepreneurial spirit had been collecting outside the doors of the Wingate Company offices … crowding into the upper hallway, clogging the sweeping staircase, filling the downstairs lobby, and spilling out into the street.

Diamond turned to a chair by the windows where a portly older fellow with enormous muttonchops had been
reduced to a semiconscious state by the combination of a comfortable chair, warm sunshine, and boredom.

“Hardwell,” she called. “Hardwell!”

“Whaaa …?” He snapped upright, blinking against the bright light.

“The numbers,” she prompted.

He rubbed his face, looked around, and scowled as he recalled where he was and why he was being called. Retrieving a glass fishbowl from under the side of his chair, he carried it to Diamond at the head of the table.

“Are you sure you want to do this, my girl?” Her erstwhile guardian frowned as he placed the bowl on top of the ledger in front of her.

“Absolutely,” she said, rising to address her gentlemen directors. “You’ll be relieved to learn that I’ve come up with a plan to avoid the … 
problems
 … we had after the last board meeting.” The tension around the board table was palpable. “I know you’re probably remembering that little misadventure with the soap suds in the outer office.…”

“It took weeks to restore the files and paperwork,” the secretary declared.

“And what about the disaster caused by that lunatic on buffalo back who wanted to start a wild animal park?” Hardwell added with a glower.

“Well, it wasn’t his fault the poor beast didn’t take well to green corn feed,” she said, though with a bit less certainty. “And anyway, the rug was probably due for a good—” She waved it impatiently aside. “That is all in the past. I’ve come up with a much tidier and more efficient way to hear business proposals. I’ve decided to hold”—the gentlemen board members seemed to be holding their breaths—“a
lottery
.”

“A lottery?” The secretary exchanged puzzled looks with the others.

“Over the last three months, whenever I was approached regarding a business proposition, I responded by giving out a numbered business card. I informed the applicants that they should present both that card and themselves here this afternoon to participate in a lottery. The ten people holding cards with numbers corresponding to the numbers we draw from this bowl will each have a chance to present business proposals to the Wingate Companies.”

She paused, searching their faces and finding only reserved judgment.

“Don’t you see? This will eliminate the chaos that occurs when people feel they have to compete for the opportunity to make us a proposal.”

After a moment, the secretary of the board looked at the others around the table and shrugged. “Well, I suppose it has to be better than … What can it hurt?” Following his lead, the others gave hesitant nods.

Visibly pleased, she stirred the pieces of paper on the bottom of the bowl, then pulled out one after another, until ten numbers lay on the tabletop.

“Number fourteen will be our first applicant.” She turned to Hardwell Humphrey. “If you’ll be so good as to summon our first presenter.”

Diamond’s first lottery winner proved to be a big German meat cutter who smelled faintly of schnapps and proposed a novel method for stuffing sauerkraut
inside
of wieners. Number thirty-three was a pair of genteel older ladies who had come to plead the plight of “barefoot” natives in tropical regions. They wanted funds to buy and ship shoes to missionaries … shoes, in their cosmology, being somehow fundamental to both salvation and godly behavior. Number forty-seven clanked and rattled through the door with a prototype of a mechanical chopper which could be used on an astonishing range of edible material,
from cow silage to cannery beets. His demonstration with a bag of said beets left a worrisome crimson-purple puddle on the floor. In every case, she wrote out a bank draft and assigned a director to oversee the project.

Next came number sixty-four, a fellow with an idea for a mechanized bread bakery, who also left the boardroom with a bank draft in his hands. Then came an enterprising young chemist with a new formula for bug spray … which he demonstrated by attaching a jar of it to a hand bellows and pumping the room full of noxious kerosene-based vapors. The directors staggered to the windows with handkerchiefs over their noses and frantically fanned away the fumes while Diamond dabbed at her tearing eyes and wrote out another draft.

When the air had finally cleared, Diamond looked up to find several board members standing shoulder to shoulder, staring at her.

“Sauerkraut
inside
wieners … mechanical food choppers … bread from a machine … now we’ve nearly been suffocated by poisonous vapors.” Only one spoke, but they all glowered. “You’ll never see a penny from such nonsense.”

Diamond assessed their forbidding expressions, smiled, and played her trump card. “I believe that was exactly what you said about the electrical water-bath can-sealing process. And if memory serves, it made us one hundred thirteen thousand this quarter alone.”

That gave them pause for a moment. Then another director spoke up.

“But five thousand dollars just to peel a few beets—”

“Is a bargain … if it leads to an efficient new machine for peeling and processing food,” she answered, sensing that their uneasiness required a broader response. “I know it is sometimes difficult for you to understand why I feel so strongly about this. But I’ve been blessed with
means far beyond my needs, and with that blessing comes a great responsibility to use my wealth for the benefit of others. Progress can be a very expensive thing. And it has to start somewhere.”

They lowered their gazes and shifted their feet and, one by one, retreated to their chairs to see what else Diamond Wingate and “progress” had in store.

“That’s ten,” Hardwell said with an air of finality, an hour later, ushering the tenth lucky presenter to the door. “I’ll send the others home.”

“You see?” Diamond, feeling somewhat vindicated in her largesse, rose, checked the pinning of her hat, and began to draw on her gloves. “No major catastrophes. And you must admit, we discovered some interesting prospects in our lottery.” She looked to her treasurer. “How much did we spend?”

“I’ll have the number for you in just a moment.” The treasurer adjusted his spectacles and began a quick bit of arithmetic, which had to be redone when something disrupted his concentration. By the time he looked up with the answer, Diamond and everyone else in the room was staring at the door in alarm.

Noise was rising beyond the heavy walnut panels: a cacophony of voices and scuffling sounds, overlayered by Hardwell Humphrey’s beleaguered voice.

“Please—go home! I’m tellin’ you, Miss Wingate and the board are not seein’ anybody else today!” The door flew open, admitting both the sound of the chaos from the outer office and Hardwell … who careened around the edge of the door and then planted his back against it, slamming it shut.

“They’ve gone mad—the lot of ’em!” Hardwell panted as the other directors rushed to help him hold the door against the mob outside. “Stark ravin’ looney—wavin’ cards an’ demandin’ to see you!”

Thuds from the other side threatened to force open the door as more directors rushed to pile hands and shoulders against it. Diamond was distraught at the demands of the unruly crowd on the other side.

“It was a lottery,” she said in disbelief. “I told them they would have a chance … I never promised them that we would hear and fund them all.”

The door thudded back a few inches and the people outside spotted Diamond through the opening.

“There she is!”

“Miss Wingate, we need yer help!”

“Miss Wingate—you’ve got to look at my fertilizer spreader!”

Arms and legs snaked through the opening, forcing the door back despite the gentlemen directors’ best efforts.

“This way!” Hardwell grabbed her elbow and dragged her toward a door half hidden by a drape at the far end of the room. It was an exit onto a rickety set of fire stairs that led to the alley behind the Wingate building.

“I have to talk to them, Hardwell.” Diamond’s resistance stopped him at the door. “I have to make them understand.”

“They’re not of a mood to listen,” he declared with a glance past her. “She who gives and runs away, lives to give another day! Come on!”

The board members, unused to such primal exertion, suddenly gave ground. The door swung open and people surged into the room. “There she is!” They spotted her near the exit and headed for her. The Wingate directors scrambled to re-form ranks, but their struggles bought only a short delay. It was just time enough for Hardwell to throw the bolts and plunge out onto the narrow iron scaffolding.

Clinging tightly to the railings, they descended the precarious stairway to the floor of the alley. As they hurried
toward their carriage at the far end of the narrow lane, they saw Ned, Diamond’s veteran driver, rushing around the corner beside the coach with a frantic look on his face. Behind him came a small crowd of people … carrying rolled-up blueprints, legal folios, and contraptions, and waving Diamond’s business cards. Spotting Diamond and Hardwell, Ned jerked open the door, vaulted up onto the footman step, and beckoned them on.

The crowd reached Diamond and Hardwell just as they reached the carriage. There was a moment’s confusion in which Diamond was buffeted and momentarily deafened by the shouting. Ned and Hardwell were able to keep their feet, and with their help she hoisted her skirts and climbed into the carriage. Hardwell hurtled in after her, the door slammed, and a moment later the heavy black landau lurched into motion. A howl of disappointment rose from the crowd and followed them down the street as they sped away.

Inside the coach, Diamond and Hardwell Humphrey sat in stunned silence for a moment then slowly began to right hats, tug jackets back down into place, and brush skirts and trousers. Diamond looked up at the broken egret feather hanging over the brim of her tailored hat and gave a long-suffering sigh. Some days it just didn’t pay to be the richest young woman in Baltimore.

A stifled sound of surprise caused her to look up. Hardwell was staring out the carriage window wearing an incredulous look.

“Gawd A’mighty. Don’t they ever give up?”

Diamond leaned to the window to see what had caused his reaction. Someone was pursuing the coach on foot down the dusty street.

“Miss Wingate—I implore you!” The fellow’s lanky arms and legs churned as he came abreast of the coach. “If only you will have a look at my … motorized steps … see
how practical …” He managed to launch a bundle of papers through the front window, and it rolled onto the floor between their feet.

Hardwell’s response was to stick his head out the window and shout: “Go away—d’you hear?”

“If she will only”—the fellow panted, clapping one hand over his jiggling bowler and rescuing his spectacles with the other—“
listen
to my proposal …”

“Miss Wingate is not acceptin’ any more blessed proposals!” Hardwell struggled briefly to raise the stubborn window glass, then abandoned it to thump the roof of the coach with his fist, signaling their driver to go faster. The petitioner matched the coach’s quickening pace for only a few more strides.

“Miss Wingate!” His strained voice began to fade. “You’re my last hope!”

Diamond turned to look through the oval rear window at the fellow’s spent and doubled figure disappearing into the dust. When he was no longer visible, she sank back into her seat and smoothed her skirts again, finding her roused feelings harder to settle.

The plaintive edge in the man’s voice—in all those disappointed voices—permeated her thoughts until it seemed to echo through every chamber of her heart. “… 
my last hope
 …” The sight of his heroic effort refused to fade from her mind. He was one of many, so many, who were desperate for help. And she always seemed to be their last hope.