Pandora Read online

  About the Book

  No picture ever came more beautiful than Raphael's Pandora. Discovered by a dashing young lieutenant, Raymond Kelvedon in a Normandy Chateau in 1944, she had cast her spell over his family - all artists and dealers - for fifty years. Hanging in a turret of their lovely Cotswold house, Pandora witnessed Raymond's tempestuous wife Galena both entertaining a string of lovers, and giving birth to her four children: Jupiter, Alizarin, Jonathan and superbrat Sienna. Then an exquisite stranger rolls up, claiming to be a long-lost daughter of the family, setting the three Belvedon brothers at each other's throats. Accompanying her is her fatally glamorous boyfriend, whose very different agenda includes an unhealthy interest in the Raphael.

  During a fireworks party, the painting is stolen. The hunt to retrieve it takes the reader on a thrilling journey to Vienna, Geneva, Paris, New York and London. After a nail-biting court case and a record-smashing Old Masters sale at Sotheby's, passionate love triumphs and Pandora is restored to her rightful home.

  Jilly Cooper

  PANDORA

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781409032212

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA

  a division of The Random House Group Ltd

  www.booksattransworld.co.uk

  PANDORA

  A CORGI BOOK : 9780552156400

  First published in Great Britain

  in 2002 by Bantam Press

  a division of Transworld Publishers

  Corgi edition published 2003

  Corgi edition reissued 2007

  Copyright © Jilly Cooper 2002

  Jilly Cooper has asserted her right under the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author

  of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of

  historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or

  dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,

  by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out

  or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent

  in any form of binding or cover other than that in which

  it is published and without a similar condition including this

  condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside

  the UK can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk

  The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Also by Jilly Cooper

  Dedication

  Map

  The Legend of Pandora’s Box

  Cast of Characters

  The Animals

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part 2

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Jilly Cooper is a journalist, writer and media superstar. The author of many number one bestselling novels, she lives in Gloucestershire with her husband Leo, her rescue greyhound Feather and her black cat Feral.

  She was appointed OBE in 2004 for services to literature, and in 2009 was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Gloucestershire for her contribution to literature and services to the County.

  Find out more about Jilly Cooper at her website www.jillycooper.co.uk

  By Jilly Cooper

  FICTION

  RIDERS

  RIVALS

  POLO

  THE MAN WHO MADE HUSBANDS JEALOUS

  APPASSIONATA

  SCORE!

  PANDORA

  WICKED!

  JUMP!

  NON-FICTION

  ANIMALS IN WAR

  CLASS

  HOW TO SURVIVE CHRISTMAS

  HOTFOOT TO ZABRISKIE POINT (with Patrick Lichfield)

  INTELLIGENT AND LOYAL

  JOLLY MARSUPIAL

  JOLLY SUPER

  JOLLY SUPERLATIVE

  JOLLY SUPER TOO

  SUPER COOPER

  SUPER JILLY

  SUPER MEN AND SUPER WOMEN

  THE COMMON YEARS

  TURN RIGHT AT THE SPOTTED DOG

  WORK AND WEDLOCK

  ANGELS RUSH IN

  ARAMINTA’S WEDDING

  CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  LITTLE MABEL

  LITTLE MABEL’S GREAT ESCAPE

  LITTLE MABEL SAVES THE DAY

  LITTLE MABEL WINS

  ROMANCE

  BELLA

  EMILY

  HARRIET

  IMOGEN

  LISA & CO

  OCTAVIA

  PRUDENCE

  ANTHOLOGIES

  THE BRITISH IN LOVE

  VIOLETS AND VINEGAR

&nbs
p; To Mark Barty-King, a hero in every way,

  with huge love and gratitude

  THE LEGEND OF

  PANDORA’S BOX

  There are many variations on the legend of Pandora but I have used the one that begins with a heroic mortal called Prometheus boldly storming Mount Olympus, the home of the Gods. As if on an SAS mission, he stole fire, which had hitherto been the preserve of the Gods. This audacity outraged Jupiter, their King, not least because he feared that mortals might now have a means of overthrowing him.

  As retribution, he therefore instructed his Gods and Goddesses to create the most beautiful mortal ever seen: a woman called Pandora, which means ‘all-gifted’. Jupiter then ordered his messenger, Mercury, to deliver this exquisite creature to the door of Prometheus’s brother, Epimetheus. A susceptible young man, Epimetheus ignored his brother’s warning not to accept any presents from the Gods and promptly asked the lovely Pandora to marry him. His only condition was that she should never open the oak chest in the corner of the room.

  The newly married Pandora, however, was overwhelmed with curiosity, and one day when Epimetheus was out hunting she yielded to temptation and opened the chest. Immediately all the evils and diseases of the world, which had been trapped inside, flew out. After viciously stinging Pandora and a returning Epimetheus, they flew off, contaminating the earth with a biological storm and bringing dreadful pain and misfortune to the human race.

  Pandora and Epimetheus were still weeping and writhing in agony when they heard tapping on the inside of the oak chest and out stepped a radiant, angelically smiling fairy.

  ‘My name is Hope,’ she told them, ‘and I have come to bring comfort and to relieve the suffering of you and all mankind.’

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  GENERAL ALDRIDGE Lord-Lieutenant of Larkshire – so boring he’s known locally as ‘General Anaesthetic’.

  COLIN CASEY ANDREWS England’s greatest painter, according to Casey Andrews. A Belvedon Gallery artist with exalted ideas of his own genius and sexual prowess. Long-term lover of Galena Borochova.

  ZACHARY ANSTEIG Zac the Wanderer. An American journalist of Austro-Jewish extraction, whose tigerish beauty and air of suppressed violence in no way conjure up cheery images of The Sound of Music.

  NEVILLE BAINES Vicar of St James, Limesbridge, predictably known as ‘Neville-on-Sundays’.

  JEAN BAINES His very tiresome, ecologically correct wife, known as ‘Green Jean’.

  RAYMOND BELVEDON An extremely successful art-dealer, owner of the Belvedon Gallery in Cork Street.

  JUPITER BELVEDON Raymond’s machiavellian eldest son, who, after Cambridge, joins him in the gallery.

  HANNA BELVEDON Jupiter’s blonde Junoesque wife, a very gifted painter of flowers.

  ALIZARIN BELVEDON Raymond’s second son, a genius tormented by a social conscience. Produces vast tortured canvasses no-one wants to buy.

  JONATHAN BELVEDON Raymond’s colossally glamorous younger son. A genius as yet unhampered by any conscience at all.

  SIENNA BELVEDON Raymond’s elder daughter. A truculent, talented wild child.

  DICKY BELVEDON Raymond’s youngest son – an artful dodger.

  DORA BELVEDON Raymond’s younger daughter and Dicky’s horse-mad twin sister.

  JOAN BIDEFORD A Belvedon Gallery artist and splendid bruiser with a fondness for her own sex. Unenthusiastically married to Colin Casey Andrews.

  MICKY BLAKE The Curator of the Commotion Exhibition at the Greychurch Museum in New York.

  GALENA BOROCHOVA An inspired and extremely volatile Czech painter with a fondness for sex.

  SAMPSON BRUNNING A brilliant QC, famous for keeping the Belvedon family out of gaol.

  RUPERT CAMPBELL-BLACK Enfant terrible of British showjumping, as beautiful as he is bloody-minded, later leading owner-trainer who dabbles idly in paintings.

  TAGGIE CAMPBELL-BLACK His adored second wife – an angel.

  ADRIAN CAMPBELL-BLACK Rupert’s younger brother – a cool and successful gallery owner in New York.

  XAVIER CAMPBELL-BLACK Rupert and Taggie’s adopted Colombian son.

  COLONEL IAN CARTWRIGHT Former commanding officer of a tank regiment, managing director of a small but very profitable engineering company in West Yorkshire.

  PATIENCE CARTWRIGHT His loyal wife – a trooper.

  EMERALD CARTWRIGHT Their elder adopted daughter, a sculptor as ravishingly pretty as she is hopelessly overindulged.

  SOPHY CARTWRIGHT Patience and Ian’s younger adopted daughter, a teacher of splendid proportions and great charm.

  NAOMI COHEN Zachary Ansteig’s lawyer, as ambitious as she is bright and beautiful.

  KEVIN COLEY A perfectly awful petfood billionaire, Chairman Doggie Dins. A collector of art as an investment and sponsor of the British Portrait Awards.

  ENID COLEY His overweight, overbearing wife.

  EDDIE Raymond Belvedon’s packer.

  MR JUSTICE CARADOC

  WILLOUGHBY EVANS

  A high court judge.

  FIONA Raymond Belvedon’s gallery assistant, a glamorous well-bred half-wit.

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR

  GABLECROSS

  A super sleuth.

  SI GREENBRIDGE A mega-rich American arms-dealer and a serious collector of pictures.

  GINNY GREENBRIDGE Si’s trophy wife, a former Miss New Jersey.

  LILY HAMILTON Raymond Belvedon’s older sister.

  DAME HERMIONE

  HAREFIELD

  World-famous diva, seriously tiresome, brings out the Crippen in all.

  HARRIET A radiant henna-haired reporter from Oo-ah! magazine.

  ABDUL KARAMAGI An amorous Saudi with a penchant for saucy pictures.

  KEITHIE Somerford Keynes’s boyfriend, an exquisite piece of rough trade and sometime burglar.

  SOMERFORD KEYNES A malevolent gay art critic, known as the ‘Poisoned Pansy’.

  ESTHER KNIGHT Raymond Belvedon’s comely cleaner.

  MINSKY KRASKOV An unnerving Russian Mafia hood, who uses art as collateral to raise money for dodgy deals.

  JEAN-JACQUES LE BRUN A very great French painter.

  NATACHA A glamorous member of Sotheby’s Client Advisory Department.

  SIR MERVYN NEWTON A rather self-regarding dry-cleaning millionaire.

  LADY NEWTON His grander wife, given to gardening and Pekineses.

  ROSEMARY NEWTON Their daughter – an absolute brick.

  PASCAL An American interior designer.

  PATTI Another glamorous member of Sotheby’s Client Advisory Department.

  GERALDINE PAXTON A networking nympho, a mover and shaker in the art world.

  PEREGRINE Sampson Brunning’s junior.

  GORDON PRITCHARD A very exalted specialist.

  CHRIS PROUDLOVE The genial, indefatigable press officer at Sotheby’s.

  DAVID PULBOROUGH A Cambridge undergraduate employed to coach the Belvedon children in the vac. Later a highly successful art-dealer with his own gallery, the Pulborough.

  BARNEY PULBOROUGH David’s son – a seriously dodgy slug in a Savile Row suit.

  ROBENS Raymond Belvedon’s gardener/chauffeur whose wandering eye is overlooked because of his green fingers.

  MRS ROBENS His long-suffering wife. Raymond Belvedon’s cook and housekeeper – a treasure.

  ANTHEA ROOKHOPE A very tempting temp, who becomes permanent at the Belvedon Gallery in all senses of the word.

  TAMZIN Raymond’s gallery assistant in 1999 – the ‘Dimbo’.

  TRAFFORD Jonathan Belvedon’s unspeakably scrofulous best friend and painter-in-crime. A Young British Artist.

  SLANEY WATTS A glamorous New Yorker and PRO of the Greychurch Museum.

  HENRY WYNDHAM The charismatic Chairman of Sotheby’s.

  ZELDA An American art student.

  ZOE David Pulborough’s subtly understated assistant.

  THE ANIMALS

  BADGER Rupert Campbell-Black’s black Labrador

  THE BRIGADIER Lily Hamilton’
s white cat

  CHOIRBOY Trafford’s Newfoundland puppy as intent on destruction as his master.

  DIGGORY Jonathan Belvedon’s sharp-toothed Jack Russell.

  GRENVILLE Raymond Belvedon’s brindle greyhound.

  LOOFAH Dora Belvedon’s delinquent skewbald pony.

  MAUD Raymond Belvedon’s blue greyhound.

  SHADRACH, MESHACH AND ABEDNEGO Rosemary Pulborough’s marmalade cats

  SHRIMPY Galena Borochova’s Jack Russell

  VISITOR Alizarin Belvedon’s yellow Labrador, great-great-grandson of Rupert Campbell-Black’s Badger. Socialite and ballroom dancer.

  PROLOGUE

  In the early hours of 24 August 1944, Raymond Belvedon, a recently commissioned young subaltern in the Larkshire Light Infantry, waited in a poplar copse for first light, when he was to lead an attack on the village of Bonfleuve, which lay below. His platoon, who had been fiercely fighting their way through Normandy since D-Day and who had had little sleep for three days, dozed fitfully around him.

  Raymond was too tense to sleep and, with a torch, was reading Tennyson in a lichen-green leather-bound volume given him by his older brother, Viridian, for his twentieth birthday back in May. The volume, which he kept in the breast pocket of his battledress, had saved his life a few days before, when it had deflected a sniper’s bullet headed for his heart.

  In the flyleaf, Raymond had stuck a photograph of his family. His mother, father and elder sister, Lily, a beautiful, much-sought-after Wren, were grouped round Viridian, always the centre of attention, and here laughing on a garden bench with Hereward, the wire-haired terrier, bristling on his knee.

  In the background rose Foxes Court, the glorious golden-stoned family home in Larkshire, reminding Raymond of the pat of tennis balls, chocolate cake under the walnut tree, Beethoven drifting out of the study window, his father grumbling to visitors that the garden had gone over, his mother sending him inside to fetch her a cardigan because the evenings were drawing in – all those clichés of country-house life, which seem so precious in wartime.

  And the starry nights were so quiet in Larkshire. By contrast, here, as though time had stopped on 5 November, a monstrous everlasting firework party crashed, banged, thundered, roared and exploded all around him, with flashing and flickerings constantly lighting the sky until his brain seemed to crumple like a kicked-in compo tin.