Lionel is wonderful. If you don't take the time to really read him he looks to be quite curmudgeonly. He appears to be distant, unfriendly, nasty and every other adjective designed to keep people at arm's length. I'm guessing that it works for him a good deal of the time and the majority of people who cross paths with him walk away with just that impression.
In the case of Lionel, though, persistence pays off. It was not easy for me at first to find a lot of the good qualities in Jean -- but in Lionel I really don't see much of the bad. First, I think he's terribly witty. People who know me -- and some who don't -- think I'm a bit verbose. I tend to make a point over and over and over (and over, just to prove the point). Lionel is the opposite and that's what I find so appealing: he's so laconic. He says what he has to say in the most economical way -- not one word too many, not one word too few.
He doesn't allow people to cuddle up to him, but by the same token, he always seems to show them that he's concerned about them. He really didn't care, at first, for the idea that his father was getting married, but he made the toast and he did it with grace. He was very protective of the women in his new house. That extended from checking the windows at night to worrying about Sandy's St. Trinian's outfit. And he was particularly worried when he thought that Sandy was being stalked. He worried that Jean needed him when Judith told him about Penny and Stephen's coming to dinner and he went to her house to help her even though they were in the middle of a row.
He was a patient man. He didn't complain when Jean got rid of Daisy in favor of Mrs. Flack. And he should have, if not because he found Daisy appealing, then because he had a job to do that he couldn't do properly with Mrs. Flack in the building. And Stephen! He never once told him to shut up. He listened to the most boring of stories, ranging from plans to cut down reading the newspaper to a description of taking short cuts without rolling his eyes so that Stephen would notice.
He was a loyal man. He never wanted to allow Jean to look like a liar and this cause him to have to shift, in some cases, 180 degrees. Instead of meeting innocently in the park years ago, he recently met Jean on the dodgems. Instead of being an unsuccessful author/lecturer he was a psychiatrist. Instead of being angry with Jean, he had a broken ankle.
He was a romantic man. Thirty-eight years after he had met the young nurse he dedicated his book to her. He brought her candy and flowers. They were not on the grand scale that characterized Alistair -- but he was a different sort of a guy. Not too many of them just drop around with flowers and candy. He was very responsible as well -- even though it might have occurred to him earlier, it was not until he knew he had the means to take care of Jean that he actually asked her to marry him. And he said as much: when his father gave him the house -- that's when he got down on one knee.
Lionel was a strong man, though. He had no trouble preventing a shooting in Los Angeles. He told the arrogant country set in Hampshire exactly what he thought of them.