'it was a seance they had in that house they lighted black candles and they burned incense and they sang songs to the devil , and they asked that their ancestors appear that 's what i heard happened i ca n't tell you where i heard it but i heard it and i believe it , too ' in the summer of 1928 , pierce mayfair , cortland 's son , canceled his plans to go to harvard , and decided to go to tulane university , though his father and his uncles were dead against it pierce had been to all of stella 's secret parties , reported dandrich , and the two were beginning to be linked by the gossips , and pierce was not yet eighteen by the end of 1928 , legal gossip indicated that carlotta had declared that stella was an unfit mother , and somebody ought to take her child away from her 'in court ' cortland denied such rumors to his friends but everybody knew it was 'coming to that , ' said dandrich legal gossip told of family meetings at which carlotta demanded that the mayfair brothers stand by her .